Friday, May 8, 2009

Seoul > Dayton(a)

As I mentioned months ago, my sister, Liz, is studying abroad in Seoul, South Korea. As impossible as I thought it was to visit during her four month+ stint across the world, here I am. It was entirely by generosity that I managed to get over here. I graduated 6 days ago and my gift from Mom & Terry was either option A (some help with my college debt) or option B (take Terry's frequent flyer miles to go to London). My dilemma was resolved when I opted for option B, but chose to use the miles toward Seoul instead of London. (Don't misunderstand how much I want to go back to London, just under different circumstances). Since my summer job starts in a few weeks, it was a "now or never" scenario that ended up with me having two days to anticipate the trip. With little preparation and very little knowledge of Korea, I find myself in Seoul, and can't think of a better way to have spent those miles. 

Completely by chance, my entire flight to Seoul was business class. I honestly spent the 14 or however many hours from Atlanta to Seoul in my own bungalow, complete with privacy shields and noise canceling headphones. My chair said "Business Elite," but my curiosity, intrigue and sweatsuit screamed "girl on vacation." Being the youngest sitting there and one of three females, I couldn't help but feel like a bratty kid who forced her parents to purchase an "anything but coach" ticket. I'm beginning to see how lucky I am. Business class is nice though, it made for my best flight yet. Free drinks, brie, and too many in flight movies later, my excitement got to me. Smiling like an idiot, I just wanted to land, plus I was too gassy for confinement. Luckily I slept a few hours, more than I've gotten in recent nights. Escaping Dayton for a while is a good way to ignore the fact that I've just graduated. 

Somehow, exchanging money and finding my bus to the city was fairly easy. Liz met me at Paris Baguette, a cafe near campus, and she didn't even recognize me come in. She's thinner now, with shorter hair. After 30-40 whole seconds of shrieking and hugging, we left to explore. For my first night, we did quite a lot. We breezed through her closet size room in the international dorm (Crimson House), then on around campus. Just in our little jaunt I met so many friends of hers. The campus is really nice; some English inspired buildings mixed in with contemporary ones. 

We walked to Anam, the school's own sort of district, I guess. Liz described it as "KU's Brown Street, but bigger...and Korean." We met up with even more friends and had a traditional Korean dinner. Shoes were removed before entering ( a HUGE deal for me since my feet always, ALWAYS, smell) and we were seated on the floor with the other 10 of Liz's friends. I had a gigantic bowl of noodles, that my neighbor thankfully cut with scissors (necessary!). I struggled with chopsticks more than I anticipated, so for the entire first half of dinner, I just stared at my food and pretend to stir. One of the guys (Lukah) asked me if I needed a fork, which I declined, so as to not look like a complete fool. I struggled and ate one noodle at a time, but with Liz's help and some practice, I sort of got the hang of it. Everyone was so kind to me and eager to meet me. A girl we sat next to asked where we were from. "America...Ohio" is what we usually say. Then maybe "Uhh...it's close to Chicago." Then the girl perked up and says, "Do you know .. uhh..Dayton?" Turns out she wants to go to UD! No shit! Why would she want to come to Dayton? I guess we have an exceptional international program for education and her secret second major, english. who knew. 

After dinner we all went down the street to the convenient store for ice cream and beer (great combo, eh?) and met even more people. With a million options for things to do/people to hang out with, we decided to go to the N Seoul Tower. A taxi took us up this mountain where we walked a short ways to the top. Really it reminded me of the space needle, but with a park that in itself looked over the entire city. It wasn't worth it to go up, but the views we did see were incredible. This city is hardly centralized and it just sprawls in all directions. The park area had great sculptures and a music/lights show. Since you can seriously drink anywhere here, we brought beer, soju and Korean snacks and made it a party. Almost everyone had their cameras out, so I didn't feel like too much of a camera freak. In fact, I've felt comfortable photographing almost everywhere so far. Apparently this area around the tower is quite romantic. Couples bring two locks and lock them together on this huge chain linked fence around the viewing area of the city. They write some sentiments on a heart and throw the key down the mountain; cute and sickening all at the same time. My jet lag finally kicked in and left me falling asleep on Liz. Since it was too late (1am) for a taxi to come up the mountain, we had to walk down to get one home. It was maybe my scariest cab ride ever, rivaling Skye, but we made it back to Crimson House where Liz and I shared a bed in her torturously hot room. Getting 11+ hours of sleep though, was so worth the sweat.









6 comments:

Angie said...

I want to go to my homeland now thanks a lot Hill..

Amanda Baker said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Amanda said...

wooohoo! this sounds so fun! i just sent you a super long and dumb message on FB. i love that you are traveling and enjoying it! keep the posts coming!

ps--did you get a new cam?

Chris said...

Seoul sounds like a very awesome place! Glad you are having a great time!!

Get lot's of pictures!!!

Unknown said...

I would love to have seen the 60 seconds of screaming and hugging! Very nice posts, Hillary!

murf said...

Nice post Hill! It's great to hear you're having a good time. We're looking forward to hearing more about your trip (and seeing more pics).