Our second day in Seoul started with us sleeping in late. It’s crazy how much those travel days take it out of you even with some good sleep in business class! Plus the 5 hour time change doesn’t help either. Our plan was to just take it easy and relax before we headed to the DMZ the next day. But taking an easy rest day is something we struggle with…

Although there were plenty of Starbucks, Coffee Beans, and Dunkin’ Donuts to choose from, we decided to go with a local coffee shop to grab some caffeine to perk us up. This was our first time of this trip where we really had no idea what people were saying and communicating became entertaining throughout the week. Thankfully most menus had English along with it, but when Grant tried to ask the barista what a certain latte was they thought that was his order. I ended up with an Iced Cream Vanilla Latte, which turned out to be the best coffee choice of the week. Grant wasn’t sure what he got but it was good! With coffees in hand, we headed out towards downtown to explore a little bit. We decided it would be fun to walk around the city (even though they have a massive subway system…) and try to find the Gangnam statue. But when Grant realized the distance, we changed it to walking the bridge over the river (which was probably longer in mileage than we initially planned). One thing we found interesting about Seoul was that when you use Google Maps, it does not provide any sort of walking route like most other cities. So you can figure out a rough distance but it may not be correct if you need to take a very roundabout way around some city obstacle to get there, and you have no idea how long it will take other than trying to calculate it yourself.

After failing to find a lunch spot that we could agree on, we decided to try out the subway. That was an adventure in itself as well. According to Google Maps, there was a subway station about 1/2 mile away from us so we decided to hop on the subway there. However, the map said it was across a busy street with what looked like no way of getting there. We took some stairs down under the road onto the river trail and walked in the direction of the station. We could see it above us and tried using a stairway to head to it, however, it was covered in trash and barbed wire so that clearly was not an entrance. We watched the station sit empty long enough that we started to think maybe it wasn’t even an active station. As we started another 1/2 mile walk to a different station we saw a train pull into our mystery station and so we decided to try to find the entrance one more time. We walked back to the original street we were on and followed some locals hoping that would lead us to the right spot. We realized during our time in Korea that if you walk just a tad bit further, you’re likely to find the place that you are looking for. Turns out we had to duck around an unassuming corner and go down some stairs in the opposite direction of the station to get into it… but we found it!

Once at the station, we had to buy our rail cards but surprisingly the Seoul subway system only takes cash payments to pay and reload the cards. We grabbed our cards and headed towards the train. In Seoul, each ride was 1250 Won which amounts to basically $1! Probably the cheapest metro system either one of us had been on! They would add an additional 500 Won occasionally depending on how many transfers you make, but still that only added about 38 cents. The other cool thing about the subway system was they played a little jingle to let you know the train was close. It took a couple of times to realize when they would start the music so I could finally get it on video. 

Grant had read about a popular tourist street (Insadong Street) with local street vendors and shopping so we headed in that direction to check it out. There were so many different types of food vendors selling some cream filled fish shaped pastry, chicken, mochi, kabobs, and even the crazy seafood of octopus and squid. They loved fish shaped things, even when there was no fish involved. We also saw the Squid Games honeycomb treats (the ones with a pattern you need to cut out with a needle)… but I have never seen Squid Games so I took Grant’s word for it. We ended up trying sugar coated strawberries and grapes on a stick. It wasn’t too bad, but was a little weird eating warm sugar coated fruit. After our quick snack, we realized how hungry we were for some actual food since we had missed lunch. We’re pretty good at only eating about one actual meal a day during these travels. The one thing we didn’t realize here in Seoul was that most places have a break time, usually from 3:00-5:00pm. As it was only 4:30, we tried to find a place that was opened in the shopping center next to us. Grant was really craving some bulgogi so we decided to kill some time and head to the Korean BBQ restaurant we had seen earlier on the street. 

The restaurant had a set menu and whatever you ordered would be shared between the group. Thankfully I enjoy bulgogi as well so it was no issue having to share. We ordered some drinks to go along with our meal not realizing how large the bottles would be. I ordered some fruit soju (a Korean vodka) while Grant ordered a beer. This is where we learned that ordering fruit soju often means you’re ordering an entire bottle of 14% alcohol drink. We ended up helping each other out to finish the bottles so needless to say both of us were definitely feeling the alcohol by the end of the meal. But the best part of the meal was our food getting delivered to us by a robot! Though our waitress was the one that cooked our food in front of us, but it was still a neat concept to see at a restaurant. 

Grant had messaged our guide for the DMZ if there was anything that we should see on a Saturday night in Seoul and he recommended one of the local night markets that ended up being nearby. I had seen videos and pictures of people visiting these, but I didn’t realize how packed they would be until we went there. There were vendors and stores on both sides of the street along with down the middle of the walkways, leaving little room for people to pass on both sides. And all the weird stuff you could imagine for people to eat were just hanging out in tanks or spread out on tables. So many menus offering chicken feet, squid, octopus, beef liver, etc. I had told Grant we should be adventurous and try something new, but after that meal both of us were too full (and also too afraid we may puke, especially seeing what huge portions of potentially gross things they served!). But was definitely worth seeing in person. When we asked our guide the next day if he liked some of the more “obscure” items he just said, “Eww” so we learned that not everyone enjoys these foods.

Afterwards, we ended up at Heunginjimun Gate, which was built in 1398, and walked part of the stairs next to the fortress walls. We later found out that the wall is around 18km long and surrounds the four peaks in Seoul. We were able to see just how far it stretched around the city later on when we visited the Namsan (N. Seoul) Tower. After a short walk, we ended the night at Southside Parlor. Grant had found this bar on the internet and read that it was a Texas themed bar and knew we had to visit. As soon as we walked in we were greeted with the Texas flag and they had Texas inspired drinks. You could definitely tell they were catering to the Westerners, but the one Texas thing they didn’t include was country music. I think this was the first country we didn’t hear American country music in, believe it or not! 

We enjoyed a couple drinks along with chips and queso before heading home to sleep since we had an early morning tour to the DMZ. Some rest day we had, huh!