Gangnam Style and Street Style

Today is a national holiday in Korea, and the streets were eerily quiet this morning. We stopped for coffee and breakfast to an entirely empty cafe, in an area where typically absolutely everything is constantly busy. 

We journeyed on foot the few nearly vertical blocks to the base of Namsan Mountain, to ride the cable car to the top.  Arriving just before opening at 10:00, the wait was grueling. With no air conditioning, a packed line, and what felt like 100% humidity, everyone was sweaty.  We had taken our malaria medicine that morning, which has been making me feel pretty loopy anyway. 

Let’s stop and talk about malaria. That may seem paranoid a bit, but (1) we are a fairly risk averse crew and (2) I have been bitten by a tremendous number of mosquitos this trip. The CDC recommends malaria pills for the area around Seoul and close to the DMZ, but the Brits health agency doesn’t. Given the malaria pills were free with our insurance, we did it. 

Back on Namsan mountain, the malaria pills were putting me in a cold sweat this morning, typically mild side effects. Combined with the intense humidity and temp, I started to feel pretty wimpy.  When we packed into the cable car like sardines, I was truly feeling bad, openly sweating profusely.  The view was growing interesting with the climb, and I had assured my fellow travelers I would be fine, declining the earlier offer to return to the room and rest.

At the top of the cable car on the mountain, I was still unable to stop sweating.  Never deterred from a challenge, it didn’t stop us from buying the additional ticket to the top of Seoul Tower for the best view. Joel and Jane were concerned and encouraged going back down, but I refused. We had made it all the way there and we couldn’t turn back. 

When we got to the top, I was really bad off and should have listened to them. Despite the air conditioning, I couldn’t stop sweating and it was getting severe. Joel to the rescue!  He found a BTS portable fan in the gift shop with a rubber icon of J-hope on it. If like me you know nothing of K-Pop, I will share that BTS is the most famous Korean band with a huge worldwide following and J-hope is one of the members.  J-hope became my savior and my little fan (and sitting) eventually did the trick. After ten minutes with my fan, I was up and at ‘em again. We studied the view from all angles and even found a clear view of our hotel. Joel correctly suggests I take the malaria pills at NIGHT. Yup, he’s right. 

Our hotel

At the base of the tower on the mountaintop was the best stocked 7-11 we could imagine at the same prices as below, and we enjoyed cold drinks. Fully recovered, WHEW!

After the mountain sweat, we decided to choose a more air conditioned path for the rest of the day. We rode the subway across the Han River (labeled just THE RIVER in all caps on road signs) to Gangnam. 

Jane giving me a look, because I’m constantly telling her to get calcium. Flavored milks in this shape container are very popular here, so she grabbed a strawberry milk (Calcium!).

Korean 7-11 is a wonderland of unusual snacks we have declined to try. 

We stopped in the train station looking for a j-hope figure to be my good luck talisman.

Fun Korean clothes with English that made us laugh… “Looking Shitty Feeling Pretty”

These cookies they break with a hammer. We were not tempted.  

Crossing THE RIVER

In Gangnam, we headed toward COEX plaza, per Sylvia’s recommendation in her blog comment yesterday. We went to see Koreas biggest hi-def screen but we instead entered a mall wonderland.  

First we had salads at Mom’s. Jane describes Mom’s as the Jason’s Deli of Korea. 

Jane wanted to see the Lego store in the mall. I figured it couldn’t have any legos we hadn’t seen in the jumbo Lego flagship store in New York City this March, but I was wrong. Jane suggested I admit my wrongness several times. I was wrong wrong wrong. 

This was a tiny LEGO store clearly marking to adult Gen X LEGO fans, not just kids (like all other LEGO stores we have seen). They had signs that said “adults okay” and “adults can play”. We were those adults. They even had a 5-ft tall Eiffel Tower kit.  We were totally spun, trying to restrain ourselves from buying very expensive legos. Beth’s savior, J-hope was in a Lego kit and kindly advised her to walk away from the legos. Only Jane bought a small $5 kit that isn’t available in the US. 

Still wandering through the mall, we came upon a colossal library. Now this site is worth noting. No, this is not a book store. No, there are no gates or access points. No, nobody steals the books. It’s just a giant open library in the middle of the mall. Kids were strewn about reading. Adults filled 2 stories of seats reading, literally in the middle of a giant mall atrium.

Current magazines of every type and language, just out for that reading. 

Books were organized by topic and then alphabetically. 

Study desks

The kids section

The Lego store has turned the library into wall art made of legos. 

The 3 of us like to think of ourselves as expert navigators, and that’s nearly always true. Give us a map and we are set.  Even without a map, we are typically just as formidable. This mall was more than our skills could handle.  Halls and unpredictable winding paths reached in every direction. Orienteering was a shocking challenge. We used the library as our landmark and returned to it to chart a new course every time we got lost.

We accidentally entered an adjoining office building and saw these robots.  Delivery guys deposit the food into the robots and sent it to its intended recipient in the high rise. Nice. 

Hours after our arrival, having only navigated a single floor, we emerged topside at the side of the mall with the screen Sylvia mentioned. It turns out that the waves crashing only Halle s for 60 seconds every half hour. The other 29 minutes are ads. It was too hot to wait so we didn’t get to see the waves.

Just down the way from the screen was a monument to Gangnam style, a popular song from Jane’s childhood. We have seen that video countless times, and we had to take a picture. This song and music video put K-pop on the map for the rest of the world. It’s the very beginning of its popularity and for a long time was the most viewed video on YouTube ever. The song plays in a loop at this monument. 

Loved this building in the background. 

Dinner was noteworthy. Jane loves dumplings, so we went to a Michelin recommended restaurant. This restaurant has only 4 items on the menu, no alcohol, no drinks and only water. It’s full at nearly all times. You get seated, order and pay up front. Food is served instantly, typically by robots that bring it to your table.  You leave as soon as you are done, no lingering. They are doing a HUGE volume business. Did I mention it was cheap?  We paid $20 for our entire meal. The dumplings and sauces and soup is all completely made from scratch.  Everything was outta sight here.  We loved not being trapped at the end and just getting to walk away when we were done.  Jane thinks all restaurants should be this efficient. 

 Food delivery robots. 

Us with our bowl of soup and dumplings. 

On our way back, Joel and Jane decided to try iconic street food. We have seen these street foods for weeks but never imbibed. As we are winding up our visit, there is a feeling of needing to try anything now. 

Street foods are everywhere, lining the streets near our hotel. Here are the ones we didn't try but we see everywhere. 

I found my guy J-Hope everywhere, even on these coffee drinks. 

We have a super early start tomorrow for a tour. Off to bed early now. Only 2 more blog posts after this.