Saturday, January 25, 2014

First Trip off post to Itaewon

Itaewon in Seoul, Korea

We are staying at the Dragon Hill Lodge (DHL) at U.S. Army Garrison Yongsan. 
We've been here in Seoul for a few days, getting settled in and my husband attending meetings most of the day. 

Today we decided was the day to venture off post for the first time!
Friends suggested we try out Itaewon for our first excursion, as it caters to Americans a lot and is an easy way to get your feet wet in Korea. It took us about 15 minutes to walk from the DHL to Itaewon shopping district. We left the hotel and turned right on 8th Army Drive. (There is a sidewalk that veers off to the right where pedestrians are designated to walk instead of in the road.) Following this sidewalk, we walked out through gate 1, which has a pedestrian check-in.
Apparently, we're still working on spell-check on post! Haha We passed this sign heading out.

Once out the gate, we walked down to the corner and turned right. We'd gotten a little flyer from DHL that told us which way to go ;) We walked until we saw the blue arch at the entrance to Itaewon.
Great sidewalks, walking down to Itaewon was so easy!



Bike racks


Blue arch that marks the beginning of Itaewon shopping district.



There are definitely a lot of American shops here as well, including Nike, The North Face, Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts, Subway, McDonalds, and 7eleven. My husband's favorite place we saw was Skin Food! It seemed to be a skincare products store. There were so many alleys and underground shopping areas, you could easily get lost.  Since we weren't really planning to buy anything on our first trip out, we made sure we could always make it back to the main street. 

There were tons of little shop stalls all in the same building...lots of different shop owners. As you can see, there's hardly anyone there since it's still before 11 am and most people aren't out that "early."

The streets here wind around all over the place. It would be so easy to get lost. We just kept going back to the main street before we could get too turned around. I'm sure there are a lot of hidden treasures around here!



This little old lady had such an amazingly large umbrella, I couldn't help but take her picture!
Finally, we started to get pretty hungry. Of course we wanted Korean food for our first trip out.
We couldn't seem to find any Korean restaurants that were open yet! We definitely found the Turkish district! There were at least 20 Turkish places! There was also Egyptian, Lebanese, Indian, Japanese, Mexican, Brazilian, Thai, and Vietnamese. There was one place labeled "Korean Muslim Restaurant" and a lot of places with "Halal" signs meaning they were Turkish places.

Well, we were really getting hungry once we finally made it out of the Turkish district.
We wandered further down the main street in Itaewon and I noticed the sign below off in an alley to the left. We just read Korean Restaurant and decided to investigate. We had no idea what we were getting ourselves into.

Yeah this is the alley we walked down...no idea what any of this says.

Well, we see the shoes on the floor of the entry and know we'll have to take our shoes off if we go there. Thankfully, we'd been warned about this custom in the Culture Brief the Army provided a couple days before.  There are several reasons Koreans take off their shoes when entering the house, or in this case the restaurant. First, because it's easier to keep things clean. Second, because it's a tradition. Third, they have heated floors a lot, so it's warmer to take your shoes off.  Electricity is very expensive here and warm air rises, so heated floors are a very economical way to keep rooms warm.

 Haha we just opened the door and asked if they spoke any English...they said "open" and "chicken soup"! We said ok! We were pretty hungry by then and this sounded like a grand idea.
The proprietress is a middle-aged woman and her husband (we guessed) was also there. They smiled a lot and we smiled a lot and they took us to a room with a Western style table (normal height) instead of the short tables they also had. We were in a tiny little room with a heater in it, which was great since it was rainy and chilly today!

The menu was posted on the wall...we can't read ANY Korean yet. You see that picture of a whole chicken in a pot?   Yeah after some tea (ginger...maybe), that's what we ate for lunch along with kimchi sides in little dishes. 
The tea was warm at least! Not much flavor...no idea what's in it. It seemed like maybe grated ginger and a few other spices.
Lunch was served with a little towelette before eating and metal chopsticks and spoons for silverware. Husband really wanted a fork!



Whole chicken...in bowls of bubbling boiling water.

Chickens were stuffed with rice, corn, seeds, green onions and bean sprouts. There were also dates and other unknown items in the soup.

No idea what this was, but it was hot!
All in all, it was great!! The chicken was very tender. The people were very nice. We heard other Koreans come in and eat while we were there, so it seemed to be a good place. It cost us 20,000 won or about $20. The experience was great!
On our way out, we noticed they had little porches you could eat on when the weather is nicer!
 

Not too long after this, we stopped at a coffee shop to have a little something sweet. Husband wasn't too full from lunch ;) We ate a lot and tried everything, but there's only so much chicken on the tiny bird we got.  We avoided Starbucks, but still got a coffee shop with someone who let us order in English ;)
Behind husband is a great little glassed-in porch where you could sit (and some people smoked). We were cold already :)



They had free Wifi there! Korea has the best internet in the world! We are quickly coming to believe that! Most places we've gone have a ton of wireless networks available. Everyone in the coffee shop was using some kind of electronic device. I believe Korea will be a great place to get electronics!

Well, a friend suggested we try Paris Baguette Cafe so we went there next.

The pastries were so beautiful and yummy! I had a blueberry bagel twist with honey almond cream cheese inside. Husband had a donut twist. The labels were in English too so that helped a lot!

Last thing we noticed was all the inlays in the sidewalk for each country with the word for "hello" in each language. We stumbled across this one for the U.S.A. as we walked back.

All in all, it was a wonderful first experience!!

(And I bought a 4,000 won ($4) clear umbrella along the way!)

1 comment:

  1. Love reading about your experience and seeing the pictures, especially the food!

    ReplyDelete