losing our souls in seoul

And so...Mr. Bar kindly let us off back at the Moon Motel. We gathered our things and headed to the bus station. Next stop...Seoul.

The four hour bus journey found us traveling through the middle of the country, something we hadn't seen to much of. It is breathtaking, the mountains of Korea jump out at you second after being in the middle of farm country. Cities filled with tall apart buildings stand next to small traditional houses.

We arrived in Seoul eager to find our room and head over to the Seoul Tower and get a glimpse of the Seoul skyline, the Lonely Planet names the Seoul Tower as one of the most breathtaking and romantic spots in Korea.
We wandered through Itaewon, down scary dark alleys seeking a room. To our dismay, Itaewon is a nasty nasty area that I will never stay in again. We settled on the Seoul Motel.

Off to the Seoul Tower. Planning most of this trip with the help of the Lonely Planet we relied on the information provided heavily. It is a challenge to call a site and get an English speaking person, therefor, the hours of operation, location and main attraction are all things which we used to plan our trip and time accordingly. Although for the most part, the Lonely Planet provided us with reliable information, at the Seoul Tower....not so much.

Our taxi brought us up to the gate, had a brief conversation with the guard and passed through. When he let us off we began our climb up the icy road passing visitors coming down the mountain, we were the only people going up. When we got to the top we realized, the Seoul Tower was indeed closed and was not open until 1am as the Lonely Planet had promised. The Namsan Cable Car which we had planned on taking down-closed. The restaurant we ventured into to enjoy the view out of the cold- closed. We took in the amazing view for a moment and scared we would find ourselves stranded for the second time in one day, knowing there would be no Mr. Bar to bail us out this time, we headed back down the icy slop catching the bus just in time.

Starving we ventured out for dinner. Because Koreans are out at all hours of the night it is very easy to lose track of time, you forget that sometimes a restaurant may close their kitchen before midnight because the bustling streets are always filled with bright lights. Unfortunately for us, each restaurant we walked into gave us the same explanation...time is over...no food. Again, chicken. I have never in my life eaten as much chicken as I ate last week, in each city we visited we had chicken, BBQ chicken in Seoul, fried chicken in Yeongju, chicken salad in Suncheon, Chicken Salad in Insadong, Chicken in Samcheok...chicken chicken chicken.

Our next stop was the Seoul Pub. A nice little pub on the main drag, one which, if I was to relocate to Seoul, I would frequent often. The staff was friendly and the decor was interesting, displaying both worldly souvenirs and pictures of foreigners from years past.

A few Long Island Ice Teas later we found our selves engaged in a die game with Junior the owner, "dan dan dan Let's Go" something like that. Needless to say it was a great game, the main purpose, bringing revenue into the bar, the loser buys shots! And of course, I got sick and went to bed, Gav stayed up in to the wee hour of morning snapping these pictures......