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Seoul yesterday was untouchable. We go to that city and spend all day, and we feel like we've poked at it, maybe. And we still come home spinning and exhausted. But with big smiles. Our mission was simple: Birkenstocks. (You have to have a mission in Seoul, or you'll get swallowed up by the sheer amount of it, and just sit numbly in one of the underground malls, or worse--try to find your way out of it.) We found a place that sold Birkenstocks and got ourselves matching black Londons (the shoes here don't fit my feet, and why not buy REAL shoes if you're going to put out any cash). We didn't mean to match (I actually wanted Paris, but they didn't have my size, surprise surprise), but I imagine that's what most old couples say when it's pointed out to them that they (after 40 years together) dress, sound, look, and even smell the same. Seoul has some delightful shopping and some gorgeous street walking. We love living in Daejeon, for it's more like the rest of Korea (Korean), but Seoul is more like a gigantic city IN Korea. There's a difference. But my, how we love a break and love to go up there. It's nearly 6 hours roundtrip to get there, and just getting places on the subways requires a lot of time, but it's always worth it. You just have more choices in Seoul. Scott even found a chocolate shop and indulged. Also, Seoul really gets why Korea can be so lovely. It's really captured the old culture and restored it beautifully (as opposed to Daejeon's efforts to be Technology Town and leave old Korea behind). We found a district with old tea shops and bamboo and lanterns and little stony pathways, and I about died. Now this is why, aesthetically anyway, the universe chose Korea for me. The restaurants and tea shops were so beautiful. Scott and I talked about opening something up like that in the US, particularly Utah, where Asian means bad to average Chinese food and red tablecloths. We went to the Seoul temple in the early morning. It's a lovely small temple and is actually quite Korean looking on the outside, with ancient palace-type tiles on the roof and all, though the pictures you see of it make it look like any other temple, but in Korea. Not so. The details are all delightfully Korean, down to the cabbage growing in boxes where flowers would be at other temples. Untouchable Seoul, ck [2003-01-12]
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