First sights of Seoul

The royal palaces are smaller than in Beijing, and the futuristic feel maybe can't compare to Tokyo's, but Seoul surely holds its ground with dignity on both accounts.

The first photo was taken last Friday, while descending the stairs going out of the Hankuk University subway station: that taller building in the back is the main building of my new university. It's just a short walk, but one filled with restaurants and cafeterias, much like the rest of central Seoul.

In fact, at first it seems unbelievable how they can have so, so many restaurants everywhere. The answer is clear: everybody eats out quite often because it can be cheaper than buying your stuff at the supermarket and then cooking it yourself. I'll give you an example: yesterday we ate a big bowl of soup, several side dishes or banchan (including the ever-present kimchee and always included in the price of your meal on an as-much-as-you-can-eat basis) and a Korean omelette (pajeon) to share among 4 people with free purified water for just KRW7000 (EUR4.5) each. Then I went to the supermarket: 1 litre of milk, 1.4 euro; 1 litre of orange juice, 2.4 euro; and I don't even want to think about the cost of the Korean-made virgin extra olive oil bottle!

However, drinking decent coffe at one of the extremely recurrent Starbucks-like cafeterias (yes, they all look, feel and ARE the same) can be a much more expensive experience, to the tune of KRW4000+ (EUR 3 or more). One wonders why there are so, so many of them...

... until a day like today arrives: non-stop rain, all day long. We wanted to do some sightseeing, just like yesterday... but we ended up in a traditional food market, first eating a variety of deep-fried specialities (a bit too fatty, I'd say) and then some pork dishes, including something that looked like a blood sausage but in fact was blood with noodles and rice wrapped with a thin layer of pork intestine. Then it was hiding inside a cafe and finally a brief trip to the Dongdaemun commercial area, where I just bought a cheap Chinese sweater that I will use for my jogging stints.

In any case, yesterday we had the chance to visit one of the five royal palaces in Seoul: the biggest one (but allegedly not the nicest one), Gyeongbokgung. As you can see in the attached pictures, it ressembles the Forbidden City -- thanks to Korea being a tributary of the Chinese empire under the Joseon dinsaty, lasting more than 500 years and up until the turn of the 20th century -- but it's smaller in size and beauty. It also includes an interesting folk museum, but I guess hunger won and we did not spend much time there...

Then we walked along the big boulevard going to the City Hall, passing a statue of Admiral Yu Sun-sin, a true national hero who destroyed a full invading Japanese fleet in the 16th century, and then we turned towards the restored Cheongye Stream, meandering along what was a busy highway a meager 6 years ago. Yes, Seoul is progressively going greener, more design-minded, more architecturally attractive, although I guess much is yet to be done in that sense.

Well, tomorrow is a big day: first lectures, trying out the courses, checking out what they will be about... while taking care of a lot more stuff, including opening a bank account, getting my university ID card and applying for an extra (and quite bizarre) scholarship.

Keep you posted on that all!