First Day in Seoul: Itaewon and Yongsan

Itaewon

Itaewon was the very first place that we (Ziyi, Chee Keong and I) visited after leaving the hostel. We chose to go to Itaewon because apparently a lot of foreigners and Caucasians go there and there are more English-speaking Koreans there also. It was an eye-opener when we got there. It’s basically a long street of shops on either side of the road. Very different from Orchard road though, cause the shops are not housed in shopping centres; they are real shops each with their own building. There are more foreigners there, but still fewer than the number of foreigners we see Orchard Road.

One interesting shop we was actually Rotiboy! They just opened a branch there and it was so popular! They even made a Rotiboy mascot to walk around the place to interact with people!

The weather is damn cold though. Every time the wind blows towards us, we would like “Woah!” It’s impossible to not wear gloves out, but it’s really nice to experience such refreshing weather when outside. Before coming to Korea, I was so scared I would not cope with the cold, but after coming, it’s been real nice, and I love the weather! Just not the part about wearing so many layers.

This is technically not Itaewon. It's just the place down the school neighbour where we had our first authentic Korean meal in Korea. The lift door opened at the restaurant, so we couldn't back away even if we had wanted to. The staff speaks only Korean, and we just pointed to any picture randomly to choose our pick.

This is what we ordered from picking the picture. All the white plates are side dishes, and they are all free. The black bowl is actually some kind of kimchi soup, which is wonderful to have on a freezing day.

The scene we see out of our 4th storey restaurant.

This is Itaewon. Just rows and rows of shops!

CK has its own storefront too.

This is actually a set-up for a newly-opened shop: Athelete's Foot. There was loud Korean music blasting out and the storekeepers were promoting the shop for passers-by to enter.

Yongsan

We went over to Yongsan cause we wanted to go to a hypermart to get all our groceries and stuff. Actually we had wanted to go over to Carrefour, but none of the Koreans we approached knew what even Carrefour means. Luckily we managed to catch a woman who could speak English, and she told us about this place.

Yongsan is really cool! It’s very metropolitan and the shopping centre is really big! If I am not wrong, it’s called I’Park or something. It’s at least the size of Suntec City and Marina Square combined together. But the most amazing thing is really the supermarket. Every shelf has a promoter promoting the items on the shelf. They are all dressed in different uniforms sponsored by the product maker, such as Pantene uniform, Lipton uniform and such. And the uniforms are really very fanciful, with blazers, female bowties, short skirts (for the cosmetics side) and etc. They were very friendly, and would help us out in any way they can, even though they can’t speak English, and they don’t earn commissions. Also, at the entrance, there are also staff who would bow and greet the shoppers. The service here is really excellent!

Here's the really big shopping mall: I'Park. The next 2 pictures show the scenes from around Yongsan station.

The 2 staff clad in blue uniform on either side of the supermarket are the greeters who bowed and greeted the shoppers. I was asked by one of them to stop taking photographs. Apparently my camera flash caught their attention. Embarrassing moment.

Bae Yong Jun as the ambassador of The Face Shop. Wih long hair summore. Yikes!

For dinner, we had authentic Zha Jiang Mian, just like the ones seen in ‘Couple or Trouble’. The texture is like Singapore Lor Mee, but it is more sweet and salty. Ingredients include onions, potatoes, mushrooms and pork. The waitress serving us could speak Chinese, surprisingly. Apparently, she is from some Chinese province that requires her to speak Korean from a young age.

A picture of Zha Jiang Mian. Free pickles and onion provided!

Subway

The Korean subway is also very different from the Singapore one. The stations were all not air-conditioned and the trains are rather old looking. What’s more impressive is the culture relating to subways. The Koreans all stood to the right of the escalator to give way to walking parties on the left, and the priority seats on the trains are not taken up by the passengers, even when the train is packed, hence the senior citizens could always find a seat inside.

Another thing is that people talked really softly on the train, so the train is really quiet. There were no loud noises, no shouting, so hand phone ring tones etc. Singapore really has a lot to learn from East Asia!

One funny scene I saw was of this man in his 50s walking from carriage to carriage promoting his goods. He carried a trolley filled with plasters and then would stop in the middle and start to say (I think) advantages of the plasters and all. I guess it’s a rather common scene, cause most of the passengers were not looking at him at all.