Week Six: Vacation Time
Saying Goodbye to the 京
It’s hard to believe I only have a month left here in Beijing, but what a wild ride it has been so far. This blog post may honestly end up being split into two, thanks to my travels to Korea, but I’ll do my best to keep it condensed into one post. Work was slow on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Anna, the employee coordinating the major ECPAT project, was in Indonesia attending a conference, so Lawrence, Aryaman, and I were left to our own devices.
Monday night, I went to pick up my train tickets, and Aryaman and Lawrence tagged along so we could grab some dinner. Thankfully, getting the tickets was a relatively uneventful process and we were soon off to find a place to eat. Aryaman had never had Sichuan (you may recognize this better as Szechuan, the Romanized version of the word) food, so Lawrence found a place that looked good, and we were on our way. You probably know of some dishes, like Kung pao chicken or hot pot, but there’s a lot of Sichuan food you can’t really find stateside. One of the biggest components of Sichuan cuisine is the Sichuan peppercorn, or 花椒(huājiāo), which isn’t something I come across very frequently in the U.S. The Sichuan peppercorn is responsible for what is known as 麻辣(málà). Má means “numbing” and là means “spicy”. Eating 麻辣 food has a really peculiar effect – it almost feels like your mouth has fallen asleep. The first time eating it is always bewildering, but in my opinion the food is worth the sensation, since it’s always so delicious.
We got a few different dishes at the restaurant, Sichuan eggplant, kebabs cooked in Chinese red oil, and my absolute favorite, twice-cooked pork belly. Being able to get dinner with coworkers is a nice change of routine from before – it allows me to eat more food that I’ve never had before, and hang out with people of course.
Overall this work week was super short, though, because on Wednesday, it was time for me to head to Seoul! The trip wasn’t without its mishaps, but I’ll get into that in a moment.
When My Luck Runs Out
Instead of flying directly from Beijing to Incheon, I took the 高铁(gaotie), or bullet train, to Tianjin the night before my flight. Word of advice: never book a hotel in China on a website like Priceline or Booking. Why? Because they only give you the English address, and only connect to Google Maps – neither of which are helpful in China. I ended up at a hotel within the chain I had made a reservation at, but it wasn’t the right one, and by the time I’d gotten there it was so late I just asked the other branch to give me a refund (which they agreed to do) and shelled out more cash to stay at the hotel I ended up at.
Of course, things weren't’t quite that simple either. I got to Tianjin at about ten, but didn’t end up getting to bed until almost two or three in the morning. Why? Easy, I left my wallet in the back of a DiDi (Chinese Uber). When you have an international phone, they don’t pull you off hold, so what did I end up having to do? Well, after the amazing hotel staff tried several times to help me themselves, they called the police. My Chinese is mediocre at best, so they didn’t really fill me in on what was going on (even though I’m pretty sure I would’ve understood if they had told me), so I was more than a little nervous when a cop car rolled up and the police told me to go with them. I was taken to the station where the police lamented at my poor speaking ability, and the lack of information I had. They were pleasantly surprised when I spoke up (in Chinese, since none of them spoke English), and told them that, thanks to DiDi, I had the driver’s license plate number, and the make and model of his car.
After an hour or so, I got my wallet back safe and sound, and was deposited back at the hotel. The room I stayed in was one of the coolest (if not the coolest) hotel I’ve ever been in. In order to make the lights work, you put your room key in a little shelf-thing near the door, then used a touch panel by the bedside to turn the lights and the air conditioning on and off. The best part of that night, however, was sleeping on a real mattress. Most of the mattresses here are only a couple inches thick, and situated on hard wood, not a box spring or bed slats, so it’s a little bit like sleeping on the floor. The next morning, I was up and on my way to the airport to catch a flight to Incheon.
The flight from Tianjin to Incheon is only about an hour and a half, and I slept most of it, so time flew by (sorry about the bad joke). Incheon’s airport is beautiful – covered in plants, and staff members dressed in full suits and hanboks (a traditional Korean dress), it was also easy to navigate, and I was through immigration in no time. My only complaint is that instead of issuing stamps on passports, they instead issue a slip of paper stating how long you’re allowed to stay in the country. Incheon is about 45 minutes from Seoul by bus, so I pulled some won out of a global ATM, handed the driver 10,000 won (about 10 USD), and was on my way to Hapjeong station in Hongdae, a district in Seoul. Hongdae is named after Hongik University, a college within the district itself. It’s a popular area for tourists and college students, with a large market, dozens upon dozens of cute cafes, and a huge nightclub district.
Still Made It!
The hostel I stayed in, ZZIP Guest House, is owned by a couple, Brian and Jina. They provide you with maps of the Hongdae and Seoul areas, and give recommendations on where to go to hang out, watch buskers (people hoping to become trainees for large idol labels), eat, and party. All of the residents were foreigners, unsurprisingly, and I met a massively eclectic group of people. I befriended people from England, Scotland, Montreal, the United States, the Netherlands, and Germany. A large chunk of my time was spent with a girl named Kate, who teaches English in Anhui, another province in China, and Nick, a self-proclaimed “recovering lawyer” from Ohio.
Having the opportunity to speak to people completely in English, and finally experience more tourist-y activities with other people was quite the relief – I’ve long since gotten tired of being by myself and wandering around alone. On the first day, I was so tired from the Tianjin fiasco that I lay down in bed and slept for quite a few hours. Unfortunately, the nap didn’t have quite the rejuvenating effect that I had hoped, so I wandered around Hongdae for a bit before finding an adorable coffee shop. The first thing that struck me about Korea – and shopping or eating here – is that everyone is extremely polite. When I walked in, both the baristas stood up and bowed, and greeted me formally (I tried my best to return the gesture, but unfortunately my Korean is absolutely terrible), and immediately asked what I would like. I decided on a honey matcha latte. I’m generally not a fan of matcha, but it was listed as one of their special drinks, so I figured I would go for it. It ended up being actually very good, though I still wouldn't’t consider matcha to be my favorite. After sitting in the café for a little while and listening to the record player, I returned my glass to the front and left following an equally formal “thank you” and “goodbye”.
Day Two: Memorials & Barbecue
The following morning, I had made plans with Kate and Nick to go to the Korean War Memorial. Initially, we thought it was a memorial only for the Korean War. Turns out, it’s a museum showcasing all of Korea’s wars, which, considering the number of times people attempted (or succeeded) to conquer Korea, was quite a high number. We spent three or four hours there, learning about Korean history and the country’s participation in other wars as well, like the Vietnam War. It was amazing to see how well-preserved so many of the artifacts in the museum were, even the extremely old ones. Afterwards, we tried to leave but were interrupted by some sort of performance in the memorial’s main square. A Chinese man asked if I had any context for what was going on, but I was just as clueless as he was (honestly I was hoping he knew what was going on). After watching the performance, and the giddy young soldiers in the audience – there were many – we headed off down a side exit to find something to eat.
When you’re in a city you don’t know how to navigate, eating becomes a bit more adventurous. When you’re away from your hostel, it simply becomes a game of “well, that looks good…let’s try it” and hoping they’ve either got a menu with pictures, someone who can vaguely explain what things are in English, or someone patient enough for you to fumble your way through your newly-downloaded Korean keyboard as you try and use google translate to figure out what each menu option is. 
Thankfully, this restaurant had a picture menu, and one of the owners knew how to describe what each meat in the photos was. While my Korean is awful, I spent a large chunk of my college years eating a lot of Korean food, and so I know how to say some food names. This time we got bokkeum (볶음), or stir-fry. After a little bit of guesswork, it turned out we had gotten 제 육볶음 (jeyuk-bokkeum), or stir-fried pork, and 생선두부볶음(saengseon dubu bokkeum), or fish and tofu stir-fry. The restaurant actually seemed very popular, as soon after we arrived it quickly filled up with people of all age groups, and it was reassuring to see we had picked such a popular place on a whim.
Not quite done with exploring, we wandered around the alleyways some more and happened to stumble upon a master chocolatier shop. That’s one of the best things about Seoul – no matter where you are, you can always find some sort of hidden treasure. You can be in the deepest of back alleyways and find some swanky cocktail bar, or delicious-smelling bakery, or amazing food from another country. I’m not quite sure I’ve ever been somewhere as eclectic as Seoul, and as I sit writing this in Beijing, I still find myself longing to go back. But, to get back on topic, we decided it would be cool to go inside, and we ended up getting hot chocolate and gelato. I got their raspberry sour and dark chocolate gelato (you got to pick two flavors) and my god it was amazing.
Considering our luck with the chocolatier shop, we decided to wander down more of the side alleys, and eventually found ourselves at a positively massive shopping mall (9 or so floors, if I recall correctly). Each floor had its own theme/product, including one dedicated entirely to anime, and another floor that housed a massive bookstore/café with a large portion dedicated to Studio Ghibli photo ops and merchandise. Having walked nearly ten miles already, we trudged our way back to ZZZIP and asked Jina, one of the owners of the hostel, for recommendations on where to eat. We specifically were looking for barbecue, and she pointed us in the direction of Pork University. There, we got two rounds of pork belly, and one pork jowl, as well as some soju, and just sat and talked. I said this earlier in the blog post, but I really can’t stress how nice it is being able to just relax and talk to people without having to worry about work, or a 
language barrier.
Day Two: Raccoons and Canadians
Saturday, Nick, Kate and I went our separate ways. I didn’t have a concrete plan for the day (shocking, I know), so I decided to go to the local raccoon café and initially planned to go to a nearby museum. Upon arriving to the café, I met a girl named Lauren, from Calgary. We started talking and both discovered we were headed to the same place after this – the meerkat café (Seoul is pretty into the whole animal café thing). Initially, I was worried to see how these animals were treated, but they were all either friendly or relatively apathetic to humans being in their space, and were well fed with places to play and get away from people if they wanted it. Several of the raccoons were extremely bold as well, with one stealing my glasses at one point (see the picture).
Together, Lauren and I headed over to the meerkat café. The name was slightly misleading (in a good way), however. Not only did this café house meerkats (in a separate enclosure to keep them safe from feet and being scared by humans), but there were also two foxes, another raccoon, some of the most beautiful cats I’ve ever seen, wallabies, and several animals I’ve never seen before. We were able to give the foxes a treat (and in return got a kiss on the forehead from the fox we fed), have the meerkats cuddle on our laps, and play with the raccoon and the rest of the animals.
For lunch, we headed to a barbecue restaurant (not Pork University) and ended up having to cook our own food (in the fancier barbecue places, the waiters will cook it for you), and it was quite the experience. The waiters all had t-shirts on that had different things on the back, one of which included the Xi Jinping Winnie the Pooh meme that was banned in China, and another that contained multiple expletives.
After, we wandered around the local market in Hapjeong a bit 
more, then headed our separate ways with a plan to meet up the next day. I ended up going out with some of the people living in my hostel that night, and we explored Hapjeong club street, and ended up at an arcade bar creating a Mario Kart tournament. In Korea, it’s the norm to stay out until six in the morning, sleep for a few hours, and go to work the next day. Thankfully, no one in my group wanted to stay out quite that late.
Day Three: Parks and Recreation
Sunday, I dragged Nick out of the hostel at around noon, since we got back in at about three in the morning. We went to a park 
on the Han river, and met up with Lauren and another girl from Canada, Jackie. After a quick photo session by the river, we headed off to Myeong-dong, a street market in Seoul famous for beauty products and street food. While we didn’t buy much, we definitely ate a lot. Nick and I shared some takoyaki (a Japanese food, but it’s one of my favorites), and I got blended strawberries, pomegranate juice, gimbap, and taiyaki.
After we wandered around for a little while longer, Nick went his own way, since he had to get ready to leave the next morning, and Jackie, Lauren and I made the long, long trek up a very steep hill to see Seoul Tower. The view was amazing – you could see the whole city from the top of this veritable mountain, and the tower itself was pretty as well. It had a love lock bridge, and an area 
specifically for proposals, as well as a Starbucks and several other restaurants.
That night, I went out to get chicken galbi with an English girl who was staying at the hostel, and just like all the other food I’ve had here, it was amazing. If I had to pick somewhere to live solely (Seoul-ly?) for the food, it would absolutely be here. There’s no shortage of 24-hour cafes and restaurants, and there’s always something to eat whether in a group or by yourself. Not to mention the hundreds upon hundreds of unique street food options.
My feet were killing me, so I called it an early night, but Monday would be my last night in Seoul so I was determined to have a good time – but I’ll get into that in my next blog post since this one is already ridiculously long!
Tune in for my next post on hotpot and Hunanese food, as well as my last night in Seoul and my (thankfully) uneventful trip back!
