Arriving in Seoul — Week 1
I arrived in Seoul in January 2014 for what was supposed to be a two-year assignment. It was exactly two years. This is where the blog started. My time in South Korea was a great experience and I made lifelong friends.
When I took the job, people looked at me like I had volunteered for a hardship posting. I understood the reaction — Korea is not on the standard list of aspirational expat destinations, and I didn’t know much about it going in. The 14-hour direct flight from DC was the longest I’d been on. I arrived in January, which in Seoul means cold and grey, and spent the first few weeks figuring out the basics: the metro system, the food, the apartment. Early posts are genuinely disoriented — I’m writing about getting a haircut without speaking Korean, navigating the morning subway rush, and trying to identify what exactly is on my plate at the company canteen. The answer was usually “put sauce on it.” And that usually worked.
Seoul — The City
Seoul is a much more cosmopolitan city than most people outside Asia realize. It has about ten million people in the city proper and close to 26 million in the metro area — larger than New York. The subway is the best metro system I have used anywhere in the world: color-coded, air-conditioned, on time, with heated seats in winter and free Wi-Fi throughout. The CBD along the Han River is dense and vertical. Itaewon is the expat and tourist neighborhood with restaurants from everywhere. Gangnam — yes, that Gangnam — is a real upscale district south of the river, and working late in the Samsung HQ building and photographing it at 3am through the conference room windows is one of the more surreal moments in the blog. Bukchon Hanok Village, a traditional Korean neighbourhood of tile-roofed houses tucked between modern skyscrapers, is one of the more striking urban contrasts I have seen. Namdaemun Market runs 24 hours and sells everything. The Han River park system is genuinely excellent — people cycle, picnic, and fly kites there on weekends in numbers that demonstrate how much Koreans actually use their city’s outdoor spaces.
The day trips from Seoul are excellent. Nami Island is a small island in a lake — famous as a filming location for Korean TV dramas — with tree-lined paths and a decidedly surreal atmosphere. The Joseon Dynasty Royal Tombs are UNESCO-listed: I was chosen to demonstrate the royal bowing ceremony, which involved a seven-stage process of bowing toward my royal ancestors rather than having my subjects bow to me, which was not how I had imagined being made King would work. The whole thing cost $6 including bus, tour, and lunch. That value-for-money level is consistent across Korea.
The People
What I underestimated completely going in was how genuinely welcoming Korean people are — both at work and in the community. It is amazing how much less stressful life can be when people around you are just nice to each other. I developed a network of expat friends and Korean colleagues that I am still in touch with years later. The expat community in Seoul is large, international, and well-organized. My Korean colleagues were patient, funny, and endlessly tolerant of my inability to read a single word of Hangul despite two years of trying. Koreans are exceptionally good at going-away events — I had several by the time I left, each with more food and soju than the last. One of the standard going-away formats involves a hot stone on which a raw fillet of beef arrives at your table and you cook it yourself while the conversation continues. I rate this format highly and would like to see it adopted more widely.
The Food
Korean food deserves its own section. It took a few weeks to calibrate — the early posts have cautious descriptions of unidentified items at the company canteen — but once past the adjustment period it became one of my favourite food cultures in the world. Korean BBQ is genuinely exceptional and you never quite replicate it outside Korea. Kimchi is on every table at every meal in multiple varieties. The street food is outstanding and cheap — Bibimbap, which is rice with vegetables, a fried egg, and red chili paste, costs about $4 from any street stall and is one of the best things I ate in two years. Tteokbokki — spicy rice cakes — is a street snack that looks alarming and is excellent. The company canteen served a full Korean breakfast at 6am: seaweed soup, rice, various side dishes, and items that “weren’t my favorite”.
Busan
We still decided to take a quick train ride to the far southeastern coast to the second largest city in South Korea – Busan on a Saturday afternoon. Much different that Seoul, more like Hong Kong as it is surrounded by mountains and ocean. It is also the most popular beach in Korea. We were not there during official season from 1-July to 30-August, so it was not that crowded. And to rent a jet ski a licence is required that includes an 8 hour safety course – so we did not get to ride jet skis. But worth a side trip if in Korea.
The DMZ
There are two DMZ tours from Seoul. I did the lite version in my first year — the one that doesn’t actually cross into North Korea — and it is still one of the most disorienting experiences I have had. You stand in the Joint Security Area at Panmunjom where the border between two countries that are technically still at war runs through the middle of a conference room table. The soldiers on both sides stand in very specific positions and nobody speaks. The third infiltration tunnel, dug by North Korea and discovered in 1978, is open to visitors — you walk down into it wearing a hard hat and emerge into bedrock with North Korea a few hundred metres ahead and no way forward. We signed up for the full crossing tour for when the girls came to visit in summer. Alexandra wasn’t suppose to cross with us because she was US military, but she decided that she was different. During a genuine North Korea border flare-up in 2015, one of my Korean colleagues looked up from his work on a Saturday evening and said it was almost 5pm and we should order pizza now. Nobody else reacted. The invasion deadline came and went. Traffic back into Seoul from the beach on Sunday was terrible, as usual.
Hiking & the Korean Seasons
Fall is by far the best season in Korea — mainly because the other three aren’t that great. Summer is hot and humid, winter is cold and grey, spring is fine but short. Fall is spectacular: clear skies, crisp temperatures, and the mountains turning red and orange. Koreans hike in enormous numbers and treat it as a serious cultural pursuit — everyone is well kitted out, packs food and drink, and shares freely with strangers on the trail. I did Seoraksan National Park in October 2015, which is the Korean equivalent of Yosemite. I was part of a group that did the valley hike rather than the full 12-hour summit trip and it was still spectacular, crowded, and worth every minute. The Hantan River rafting trip was advertised as relaxing. It was class 3 rapids after the monsoon rains with a one-minute safety briefing and a garden hose for a climbing rope at the top of the canyon wall. Several boats capsized and the occupants just floated the rest of the route. The scenery was outstanding. Seoul itself has mountains within the city limits you can be on top of within 45 minutes of leaving your apartment.
Leaving Korea — Week 105
I left Seoul in January 2016 having been there exactly two years. Although the work side wasn’t as rewarding as I had hoped, the overall experience was outstanding — the people, the day trips, the food, the friendships, and the education in a way of life genuinely different from anything I had known before. It is a life-changing experience and I will always be a strong supporter of South Korea and its people.
JC Travels · my-jc.blog · South Korea · Weeks 1–105 · January 2014 – January 2016
Leave a Reply