Whirlwind pt.3

Saturday

after a groggy late morning of free (what they call) coffee and toast we headed out of our little guest house into the big city of Seoul.

a little background -
- Seoul means "national capital" in korean, but the city was called Gyeongseong until 1945.
- seoul has a population of around 10.2 million (ten times montreal!).
- it has been the capital of korea for over 600 years.
- the logo to the right is the "city's brand" which was adopted in 2002. (i found this on the internet and find it odd that i didn't know this until after i came home... i didn't see this logo anywhere...) and from the website: "The name combines the greeting "Hi" with the name of the city "Seoul,” the new brand aims to convey a friendly image of Seoul to the global community, and to promote harmony and unity among Seoul citizens."
- "the cuddly mascot tiger "Wangbeomi" was born in Feb. 19, 1998. It represents the proud citizens of Seoul with a strong spirit, an open mind, and lofty ideals." (info & images courtesy of seoul metropolitan government.)

what else does one need to know about seoul? well, there are tons of historic sites and other cultural things to see, but girls will be girls, and all we really did was shop until we dropped. of course, we did this in many different areas of the city, so we got to see a lot of places, but i'll have to do the touristy thing another time... so, on to the good stuff.

the neighbourhood where we stayed was west of the city center in mapo-gu, the closest subway was hapjeong station and on our walk there in the early afternoon, we passed this restaurant that i couldn't resist taking a photo of:
it could almost be any place in north america with a sign like that! there was a bbq restaurant on the first floor where we actually ate dinner later on... but don't let me get ahead of myself here.

we decided that our first destination in the city would be Itaewon - so on to the subway we went.

Hapjeong station

the subway system in seoul is massive - on scale with london and maybe even bigger... but they make it really easy to use by a) having different colours for all 8 lines b) numbering each station c) marking transfers really well in every station.

map of the Seoul subway system... montreal is a joke in comparison!
the star is hapjeong, the circle is itaewon...
(click on it to make it bigger)

itaewon...

Itaewon is known for being an area mainly for foreigners, something i never have much luck with. it was probably my least favourite part of the city... though there was some good shopping - i got a coach purse and some new t-shirts... Kim cleaned up in itaewon and bought the whole place! (well, not really but she lucked out and found tons of great tops). we had lunch at Subway (!) - i haven't eaten a sub since montreal, so it was awesome... not quite the same as canada, but subway is subway no matter where you go!
the weirdest shop i saw - there were a couple of them actually... selling all this really old diving equipment...

how odd...

of course, this IS korea, so half the shops are named "kim's" this and that so i snapped this shot of kim with her very own shoe store!
that's itaewon... in a nutshell... it was nothing super crazy and awesome, but lots of street vendors selling socks and hats, tshirts and underwear, the usual crap you find on the street... we were only there long enough to walk up and down the street and then moved on to better things... up next: Insadong and the andy warhol-ification of korea! stay tuned!