Several weekends ago (yes, I know, it took me a while DON'T LOOK AT ME LIKE THAT!) Ben, myself, and our friends Jack and Kezia went to Seoul. It was Ben and my first time visiting so we were pretty excited. It was Lunar New Year and we had our first break that lasted for more then one day. We got a Thursday Friday off, which meant we had a nice long weekend. We headed out Wednesday night after work (10pm).
We arrived in Seoul around 2:30am. We had opted to rent an airbnb room. For those of you who don't know what that is, you rent someone's apartment like you would a hostel or hotel room. Usually you end up with more space, contact with someone who knows the city, and a kitchen so you don't have to eat all your meals out. It ended up being the absolute right choice for us. We rented from a gentleman named Kang who was super wonderful. He met us at 2:45 in the morning to get us all set up, and gave us an extra room for free.
The next morning after a breakfast at home-base and an embarrassing number of America's Funniest Home Videos (which we discovered played constantly on one channel), we headed out for the day. Ben and I went to the War Museum, which was really fantastic. Everything was translated into English, and I learned a lot about this country I have made my temporary home. The main focus was the Korean war, but there were also rooms dedicated to Korea's long history of defending itself and being invaded.
We met back up with Jack and Kez in Itaewon. Itaewon is the international section of Seoul. It was really wonderful to see some multicultural faces. I am so used to seeing Korean faces that even seeing another white American foreigner is a little shocking. It was a strange moment when I realized the more diversity there is in the people around me, the more it feels like home. It was lovely. You know what else the international section means? Some freaking international food. Gwangju is known for having amazing food, and it really does, but the wider diversity makes Seoul the place to be to get your international food fix. Which we did. We ate zero Korean food in Seoul.
The first night after some exploring around Itaewon we went to this AMAZING steak place. It's run by a Brazilian woman who married a Korean man and decided to open a Brazilian meat restaurant. For the record, its insanely easy to get pork here, but its really hard to get reasonably priced beef. Needless to say, I'm pretty sure between the four of us we ate like two and a half cows. In the back of the restaurant they have a buffet of side dishes and a massive open grill where they cook all the magical meat. They then come around with the different kinds of meat on a turny stake, and they cut slices off for you. It was phenomenal. At they end they bring out roasted pineapple covered in sugar and cinnamon.
After that we went to Jack's favorite pub to hang out and meet up with another group of friends spending the holiday in Seoul. I had a friend who had never had a flaming shot before, so we did one of those. We had a good night but headed home fairly early so we could get going the next day. One more thing to note, that night after the restaurant the side of my tongue was really itchy. I didn't worry about it much at the time because sometimes pineapple does that to me, but this comes back into the story later.
On our second day we decided to head to a neighborhood that a friend of Kezia's had told her was really cool. It was supposed to imitate European style neighborhoods. It was cute, but a bit anti-climactic. We did get some good Thai food there though. We then headed towards the famous river walk, which goes along the large river that runs through Seoul. We spent some time on that before deciding it was time to get some pub food. We returned to Jack's favorite pub to have a hard cider and some fish and chips. We decided a movie night was in order and returned to our apartment to sack out.
The next morning I woke up early feeling weird. My tongue was super itchy as was my throat. When I felt my throat I realized tone side was incredibly swollen. Although I wasn't having any trouble breathing my gland was so enlarged it was quite visable from just looking in the mirror. Under the left side of my chin there was a section that basically when straight down from my face instead of going under like chins are supposed to do. I woke Ben up and we agreed anything that could potentially block your airways is worth getting medical attention for. We called Kang to find the nearest hospital and headed there. There was one woman who spoke okay English. I made the (what I now know to be) mistake of telling the nurse what I thought my medical situation was...with all my freaking medical knowledge...nope. They sent me to a partitioned hospital bed, did not look in my throat, did not touch my throat, just gave me two shots and a pack of pills. I have since learned that this happens to a lot of people seeking medical attention. They treat you for whatever you tell them it is. If it doesn't go away you have to come back. If its something weird and specific hopefully eventually they do some tests and inspecting. The shots made me super groggy. We were supposed to clear out by 12, but we called Kang to ask how much the rest of the day would cost and he was happy to let us stick around for no charge. That was exactly what I needed. Ben (who was absolutely fantastic through all of this) stayed with me while Jack and Kez headed out for the day. We left Saturday night so we could spend Sunday at our apartments being mellow before the work week. Besides Ben, the other hero of the story is my friend Chelsea, who went way out of her way to bring me some Benadryl. Sunday I stayed groggily medicated all day, but by Monday morning the swelling started to go down.
Despite the issues at the end of the trip I still had a great time. Seoul is a very cool city and I look forward to visiting again. When we applied to work in Korea they tell you off the bat that you have to choose between Seoul and everywhere else. We opted for everywhere else and I am glad we did. Seoul houses 1/5 of the population of Korea. It has an amazing subway, a much more diverse population, and some really interesting neighborhoods. But I think living in Seoul, it would be very very easy to exist like you were living in an American city. And I didn't come to Korea to live in an American city.
