Hello hello, my name is Connor and
welcome to my blog. I've played around with the travel blog thing
before, but I'm thinking of trying something a little bit different
here. I'm wanting to start this off as a travel / fitness blog. I'll
be posting about my adventures and happenings as I travel, but also
things related to fitness, specifically mine. I'd like for this blog
to be varied so that it'll keep my attention, and therefore may
include anything from links to sites that I find to be useful in the
pursuit of health or xkcd comics that I find amusing. This may change
drastically in the future, but let's give this a go.
My brother Carrick and I left very
early in the morning in the first week of October. My girlfriend was
kind enough to drive us to the airport despite the hour and the fact
that it's a drive to the airport, for which we were very grateful.
After a sad, brief – to avoid bawling
the whole way through security – goodbye, we headed to our gate and
on to San Francisco and then Seoul Korea from there. If you or anyone you
know is planning on heading across the Pacific anytime soon, I highly
recommend Singapore Airlines. The service, food, and entertainment
are all quite exceptional. It was a 12 or 14 hour flight, I didn't
sleep at all and had no problem with that.
Despite the pampering we'd received,
after deboarding the four-star restaurant the travel weariness became
apparent. Travel time is such an odd experience. It feels like both
less and more time has passed.
As we worked are way through the
airport, a kind of surrealistic filter slide down between my tired
eyes and manic brain, and continued on all the way through customs,
down to the ticket office, and on to the shuttle/train which would
take us to the metro station to continue on to the stop nearest out
hostel. The best part about all of this is that I got to ride on the
Seoul Train. Let that sink in for a moment.
Now, if you're thinking “why bother
continuing with the blog, you've already reached your peak. Seoul
Train. That's it, man.” then let me just tell you that A: you're
probably right, but B: the rest of Seoul was amazing enough to
warrant pressing on despite the odds. First off, the trains are quick
and clean, which is nice, but they also go everywhere. Everywhere.
Just looking at the metro map is fairly exhausting. I'm sure the buses
are good too, but honestly we never needed them. Between the metro
and walking we got everywhere we wanted to be. Including our hostel,
which was of course the first stop we made. From the airport we had
to transfer once, but overall it wasn't a particularly confusing or
stressful trip. We got to where we needed to be, hauled our bags up
out of the metro station and started down the street to the hostel.
The first impression I had of Seoul was a lot like my first
impression of Tokyo, which was good news. I really liked Tokyo, but
my time there was measured in hours, not days. Between that and a few
other things that came up, it was a moderately unpleasant experience.
Seoul had the potential to be a similar environment, but with fewer
of the negative aspects. And the first negative experience I sought
to avoid was sleeplessness. We found our hostel, managed to get a
room despite the fact that we had accidentally booked the wrong days
online, and promptly went to bed. It was a long flight after an early
morning after a late night, and I hadn't slept at all since we left
for the airport. It was a welcome rest.
The next day we got up early (not that
I'm one to get up early it's just how the jet-lag and fatigue lined
up). We hit the streets and spent the whole day walking. Metro, walk
for several miles, metro, walk for several miles, metro... You get
the idea. We covered serious ground. We went through the royal
palace, through various centers of different regions of the city, and
the old town area. To be completely honest, a lot of it is a blur. I
remember the subway, massive streets surrounded by massive buildings,
swollen feet, a giant buddha at a temple where we meditated, and a
huge vacant olympic stadium with a tourch you could just barely see
at the right angle through the bars of the gates. We had less than
three full days to see as much as possible, and we definitely got
around to seeing a lot. Seoul is an awesome city, the people are
incredibly friendly and helpful, the language is both odd and an
isolate which appeals to the linguist in me, and much this massive
sprawling metropolis is surrounded by high hills of textured rock and
deep green trees. It's a beautiful place and I could absolutely see
myself spending more time there somewhere down the road. Another
reason to consider Seoul as a destination is the fact that for those
three days for the two of us doing whatever we wanted it cost around
$250. Total. That's food, hostel, travel, and activities. The single
most expensive thing was eating out, but everything else was cheap
cheap cheap.
Highlights of that trip? Seoul train,
The night walk down by the river and longest building I've ever seen
(it stretched for... I honestly don't even know. It was about three
stories high, was filled with mostly clothing shops, and seemed to
stretch on forever. It had breaks for blocks, but the blocks were
exceptionally long and the building would pick up again on the other
side of the street), and getting to hum the M*A*S*H theme as a
military helicopter flew overhead.
Sorry this isn't particularly detailed,
but that was almost two months ago and I've been spending a lot of
time thinking and planning this but only now got the chance to sit
down and crank it out. I'll try to update regularly, but you know how
that goes.
Night folks, lots of love
Connor
