Seoul – Erik Abroad

A Night in Hairtail Alley

February 23, 2016February 23, 2016Posted in asia travel, GeneralTagged asia, asia travel, backpacker, famous market, hairtail alley seoul, korea, korea travel, namdaemun market, night market, night photography, photo blog, photography, Seoul, seoul korea, seoul market, seoul travel, south korea, street photography, travel, travel in seoulLeave a comment

One of Seoul’s busiest and most popular tourist destinations is Namdaemun Market. The massive open-air marketplace is filled with street vendors selling the newest shirts for tourists, the newest knockoff electronic devices, and some very interesting street food. The market comes alive in the late afternoon and early evening as tourists and locals descend on the market.

After dark, however, the mood is quite different. Shops close for the night while restaurants keep cooking or prepare for the next day. One of the most interesting parts of Namdaemun market for me was Hairtail Alley, famous for various types of seafood.

I showed up after closing and encountered some interesting scenes. The first person who greeted me was a shopkeeper enjoying an evening cigarette as others passed by his shop.

If you look down Hairtail Alley from one end, you can see that all of the storefronts share similar signs.

A few blocks away, some more stores appeared. Upon closer inspection, these stores were actually second-floor restaurants, but they lacked exterior signage. Instead, they used the stairs to showcase their menu items. I had never seen anything like this.

I encountered some other pretty cool things as I wrapped up my journey through Hairtail Alley and the surrounding streets in the late hours of the night. A woman had left some pink gloves in a pot alongside some green vegetables. The bright colors and their contrast with the dark floor made for a nice photo subject.

The coolest spot of the night, however, was a family-run fish stand that was closing up shop for the night. A rusted out scale that had to be twenty years old and a dirty cutting board were all that remained outside after a long day’s work.

As the shopkeeper turned in for the night, so did I. Hairtail Alley and Namdaemun Market are certainly different places at night than they are during the busy day. I’m glad I took a short detour here during my trip to Seoul a few weeks ago.

Rainy Myeongdong Nights

February 23, 2016Posted in asia travel, General, korea travel, love seoul, love south korea, seoul travel, south korea, south korea travelTagged asia, asia travel, cityscape, erikabroad, glistening, korea tourism, korea travel, lights, myeongdong lights, myeongdong seoul, myeongdong shopping, myeongdong tourism, people, photography, rain, rainy city, Seoul, seoul in the rain, seoul nightlife, south korea travel, time lapse photography, time lapse rain, timelapse, travel, travel in asia, travel in south korea, umbrellasLeave a comment

Weathermen are the only people on the planet who can be wrong every single day of their life and still have people hanging on their every word. During my last night in Seoul, I learned that Korean weathermen are no different than American weatherman- their forecasts are meaningless. For my trip to the DMZ earlier in the day, the weather forecast called for an 80 percent chance of driving winds and rain. Luckily for my friend and I there was nothing more than drizzle and some low-lying, eerie, clouds. That evening promised to be clear and cool, but we would have no such luck this February night in Seoul. As we walked out of the hotel with our polka-dotted umbrellas, unexpected raindrops fell and peppered our shoulders. Mother Nature wanted to rain on our parade through Seoul, but we would not allow it.

Tonight’s sudden rain rain mixed with Myeongdong’s bustling streets and provided a window into how the city shifts gears from dry to wet in a matter of moments. There were also some great photographic opportunities.

Myeongdong’s side streets turned into glistening gates into the city’s heart.

Umbrellas filled the streets and shielded shoppers from the unexpected evening showers.

Hoards of shoppers, locals, and tourists alike flowed effortlessly through the narrow streets much like the way the ocean shifts around barriers as the tide comes in and out. Shopkeepers and stands became obstacles to the crowd, but they were not barriers.

Passersby listened to shopkeepers peddling their products and continued into the bright Myeongdong night.

Somehow even this woman maintained some sort of order in front of her store.

As the masses crammed into narrow alleys and pranced down the glistening Myeongdong streets through this rain shower, other characters of the night also emerged. A woman accosted foreign tourists into her massage parlor. A man tried to sell us selfie sticks for our cell phones, but a cool cat was also on the prowl. A local cat cafe mascot was wandering the streets, looking for customers. Much like his feline cousins, he wanted nothing to do with the rain.

And then it was over. As quickly as the rain started, it tapered off and stopped. Bustling life in Myeongdong returned to normal and the memories of glistening Myeongdong were gone as quickly as they started.

Every dog, and cat, as the adage goes, has his day. As the rain stopped, he could return to normal work.

With each passing hour and new experience in Seoul, the city’s mystique and charm grows on me. As readers here know, I fell in love with Seoul many months ago, but its alluring ambiance is quickly making it as appealing as Tokyo for me. You never know what you will see or get on any given night in one of the busiest parts of one of the world’s most bustling metropolises.

The Itch to Learn Another Language

September 18, 2013Posted in GeneralTagged abroad, busan, erik, erikabroad, fun, japan, japanese, kobe, korea, korean, language, learning, Seoul, south, study1 Comment

The one thing I feared most about traveling to Korea this weekend has begun to manifest itself in my thoughts this evening: I think I want to learn some Korean. While, on the surface, this may not seem like a bad thing, or even a worrisome point, it is very dangerous for me given all of the hard work I have put towards learning Japanese over the past two years.

When I first came to Japan and started learning it two years ago, I had no idea what I was doing when it came to formal language study. I studied Spanish in high school, was good at it, but dif not find it challenging enough so I ceased studying it when I was in college. On study abroad, we were required to take a language class so I took Japanese with the intention of only studying it for one semester and calling it a day at my university because I had met the language requirement. Two years, a summer language school, and a return trip to Japan later, I think there is no doubt that I fell in love with studying Japanese and the nuances that accompany learning a new language so radical and different than Western languages, let alone English. The instant feeling of helplessness and being lost I experienced in Japan back in January, 2011, re-emerged as I stepped onto the bus which would take us from the plane to the airport in Busan, South Korea.

There I sat on the bus in Korea, speaking Japanese with some new friends I made on the plane, staring at a sign with no idea how to read it. I even had less of an idea of what the sign meant aside from having what appeared to be a singing group pictured on it. From that moment on, I tried to absorb as much of the Korean I saw on the train as quickly as possible. The same goes for common words or phrases I heard inside of stores or in the open air markets which are sprinkled all throughout Busan and Seoul. What is this Hangul? How is it read? What does the ad mean? – Those were very common questions I asked my Korean friends.

It was so frustrating for me to be silent when ordering something at the convenience store, but it was even more frustrating to not have the ability to read a sign. That is what frustrated me the most.

And so the desire to learn a third language begun.

Following lunch with my friend, I said a few words in Korean and even read some Romanized names on the train as we headed back to Seoul Station. She said my pronunciation was very good, which encouraged me to study some more Korean hen I returned to Japan.

This poses two obvious problems for me.

Firstly, where will I get the time to dedicate myself towards another language, especially when I have devoted so much time and energy to Japanese.

Secondly, I am very afraid that if I start learning another language, I will lose much of my Japanese ability and Japanese skills that I have developed over the last two years in very intensive studies.

Many of My Korean and Japanese friends say that the grammar is similar between the two languages. They also say that some vocabulary is shared, too. I just worry about forcing out the Japanese I have learned in lieu of a rudimentary level of Korean studies.

Have you studied a third language? If so, how was your experience?

Reflecting on my South Korean Trip

September 17, 2013March 22, 2015Posted in GeneralTagged abroad, adventure, asia, beach, busan, college friends, drink, erik, erikabroad, food, haeundae, japan, korea, korean, korean friend, korean sightseeing, korean tourism, meeting a friend, n, Seoul, seoul n tower, seoul sightseeing, sightseeing, skyline, sunrise, tower, travel, travel in seoul, travel in south korea, traveling with a friend1 Comment

Good evening. I have finally had a chance to gather my thoughts on this weekend’s Korean adventure for a proper post on the website!

As soon as three years ago, if someone would have told me that I would be atop the Seoul N Tower in South Korea, I would have called them crazy. If the same person had said I would be there with a friend I met in college as a member of the International Student Association, I would have said they were absolutely nuts! I truly believe moments like this are what make life worth living and make it worthwhile to take chances and grab every opportunity that you get whenever it presents itself.

The journey started on Saturday with a short flight from Osaka to Busan, South Korea. From there, I traversed through the city’s extensive metro network to the stop at Haeundae Beach, where my room was located. My first impressions of Korea were nearly exactly what I had expected and I was relieved. Many of my friends had been to Korea in the past, so it was nice that their advice and suggestions were accurate.

That afternoon, I spent some time on the beach, taking in some sun and photographing the elegant scene where the Busan skyline meets the beach. There is always something about the ocean that draws me in for an extended period of time. I stayed longer than I had hoped, but continued on throughout the evening in the general vicinity. I took photos of the traditional marketplace and sampled some Korean food along the evening walk.

The hustle and bustle of these crammed, narrow shopping streets is one of my favorite things about traveling, especially in Asia. Hearing the sounds of bartering, children running, and motorcycles serpentining through the crowd is something that everyone must experience once before they die. As night fell in Busan, I continued to Busan Tower to take in the city from above. I am always a sucker for night time city views, and Busan Tower did not disappoint!

I then strolled through the International Film Festival area before heading back to my room for the evening. I had a ticket for the first train to Seoul on the KTX to meet my friend!

After the fast, short, and cheap (thanks to the foreigner rail pass that Korea Railroad offers (http://www.korail.com/kr_pass.jsp), I was in Seoul by 10:00AM the following morning, where I met up with my friend for some traditional Korean breakfast and a tour of the city. It was amazing to meet one of my friends in a place so far and different than my university. Perhaps the most remarkable part about it is that she lives in Seoul, I live in Osaka, and we met in Seoul Station for a day out in her home city. We both remarked about how far away we were from Philadelphia.

From the moment I stepped outside of Seoul Station, I felt a vibe of energy and excitement that I have felt nowhere outside of the United States except for Tokyo. It was at that moment where I began to have a very strong affinity towards Seoul. The bustling of the cars, the chatter of pedestrians, and the street vendors everywhere truly makes the city so great. We walked to a palace in Korea and I was able to take in some of the sights and sounds of the more traditional aspects of Old Seoul.

There were even traditional guards at the entrance!

From there, we ate some more traditional Korean food and eventually ended up at Seoul N Tower following a short bus ride through the city.

I love panoramic views of cities and all the industry and majesty that accompanies them, so I took many, many photos of Seoul from above. The locks of love that cover the fence at the base of Seoul Tower were remarkable, but so was the view from the observation deck. I have not felt this high up in my entire life when it comes to viewing a city from above the skyline. Check out the amazing view from Seoul N Tower.

From there, it was off to the foreign district in Seoul, where we enjoyed some American drinks and appetizers to close out what was a remarkable day in Seoul. It was at that moment where we discussed our friendship in college, our travels, and what it was like to be meeting in Asia. It was also at that moment when I realized I was so happy that I joined the International Student Assocation at my school. Had I not taken a step outside the box to meet new people after I returned from my first trip to Japan, I never would have had the opportunity to meet so many people and make so many new friends who live abroad, especially in Asia. I never would have had a great tour guide and never would have been able to maneuver and get around in Seoul like I had done that day. It is something I hope to replicate with future trips to Taiwan, Hong Kong, and subsequent trips to Seoul. If anyone is interested in traveling, cultural exchange, or meeting new people, I strongly suggest you get involved in your university’s international exchange programs. It will change you for the better.

As our meal concluded, the reality hit that I would return to Busan for my flight out the next morning and my friend would return to Seoul for class in the morning. I took the KTX back through the night and arrived in Busan around 11:00PM. After frantically rushing to catch the last train, I returned to my room and went to sleep. I was fortunate enough to catch a glorious sunrise at the beach before heading back to the airport.

I had what I considered to be a tremendous weekend in Korea: sightseeing, rekindling friendships, and sampling great food along the way. There is something to be said when you have a friend showing you the way through one of the biggest and most modern cities on the planet. I look forward to returning to Korea someday.

Please leave your comments below!

Until next time.

Back from Wonderful South Korea

September 16, 2013September 16, 2013Posted in GeneralTagged American, asia, busan, cool, dislikes, japan, korea, likes, passport, peach, Seoul, south, stamp, tourist, travelLeave a comment

I have just returned to Japan from my weekend trip to South Korea, and I must say that it was an amazing and memorable experience! I used the foreigner pass to rode the KTX from busan to Seoul so i was able to see the country’s two largest cities. South Korea is very similar to Japan in several ways but also very different at the same time. In tomorrow’s posting, I will discuss the things I liked about South Korea along with some things I did not like about South Korea.

I will also talk about how this whole trip would not have been possible if I was never involved in the International Student Association at my university. The entire trip and rendezvous with friends in Seoul as opposed to my university is truly remarkable and amazing. I often think about why we meet people during life and my trip yesterday continues to bring that question to mind. If I had ended up playing football at Temple as I had initially thought I would, my whole life would be entirely different at this time! I am certainly glad things changed.

Attached is a photo of one of the most exciting things about international travel- when you get your new passport stamps. This makes number 5 for me!