After a rocky month in Taiwan, I was excited to arrive in Seoul for our final week in Asia.
We arrived late at night and we set out to check out the city early the next morning. First stop – getting a SIM card. This proved to be much more difficult than we originally imagined. The language barrier was steep in Seoul and we weren’t able to translate our questions about getting a SIM card because we didn’t have data. After a couple of hours of hunting for a SIM card, we finally found a place that sold them in the metro.
Because Taiwan had less than impressed us right off the get go, I was uncertain about what I would think about Seoul, but I almost immediately liked it. It’s a massive city with a number of different interesting areas to check out.
My favorite areas of the city were Itaewon, Insadong, Myengdong, Gangnam and Hongdae. We stayed near Seoul Station so we were super central and able to get almost anywhere in Seoul super quickly, which allowed us to take advantage of seeing a ton of different stuff.
While most of our week was spent catching up on work, we found some time to do some exploring. One afternoon, we paid a visit to the Seoul tower where we had an amazing view of the city on one side and the mountains on the other side. People always talk about how Seoul has amazing restaurants, nightlife, and things to do (which it does), but you don’t always hear about the nature. There are a ton of hikes within train distance of Seoul, and you can quickly get to some very beautiful national parks from the city. Unfortunately, we didn’t have enough time to do much hiking, but next time we visit, we will make sure to get out of the city and enjoy more of nature.
We also spent a couple of afternoons working at great coffee shops in Itaewon, and eating street food in Myengdong. Ryan and I tend to get sick super easily, so we often avoid street food, but the street food in Seoul is remarkable. Potato tornado is my personal favorite!
We spent an evening exploring Hongdae, which has a university in the area and is filled with a ton of clubs and a ton of young people up to crazy shenanigans. We also visited the famous Gangnam district, which is a fancy neighborhood filled with gorgeous apartment buildings and fancy restaurants.
It just so happens that I have a friend who I met in Bali who is based in Seoul and we had the opportunity to hang out with her on 2 different occasions. She took us for a traditional Korean meal, as well as for a hike along the old city wall. Although Korean food is heavily meat based, I was able to find lots of good veg eats, and quickly fell in love with kimchi (to the point that I’ve since learned how to make my own!).
One of the things that intrigued me about our hike on the old wall was how militarized it is. We hear about North Korea so much in the media that it felt strange to be so close to the country. Yet, it felt as though people at home were more concerned about something bad happening than the local people were. While we were hiking the old wall, there were many areas where we weren’t allowed to take pictures and there was military guarding most of the wall. This struck me as odd considering that we weren’t that close to North Korea (it’s all relative, right?!).
Perhaps the most interesting part of our time in Seoul was paying a visit to the DMZ with our blogger friend, Brock (yes, the same friend we met up with in Taipei!). We took a full day tour to visit the DMZ, which started with an interview with a North Korean defector who answered our questions about what life in North Korea is like, how she escaped, and what life is like in South Korea now. I won’t go into the details, but whatever you imagine North Korea to be like, it is much, much worse.
We arrived at the US military base where our passports were checked for the bazilyionth time, before we were taken in for a briefing on entering the JSA (joint security area). It felt like a whirlwind as we were lead out to the JSA, which is one of the only points where you can actually enter North Korea from South Korea. We stood facing North Korea for a number of minutes, before we were guided into the infamous blue houses that you see in the media, where we technically stood in North Korea for about 4 minutes. I’ve seen and done a lot crazy things on my travels, but this was easily one of the most surreal and intense experiences I’ve ever had. If you want to read more about that experience, I wrote about it here.
Our week in Seoul went by way too fast, and before I knew it, we were boarding a flight to head back to Canada. Going home always brings up a lot of emotions for me. Both times when I’ve gone back home after a big trip, I haven’t felt ready, but this time, I did feel ready. I felt burnt out from moving around constantly. I felt tired of eating rice with every meal. I felt tired of language barriers and foreign cultures and all the things that make travel great. I was ready to hug my mom and see my friends.
Since coming home, I’ve reflected on what made me feel ready to go home when I’ve felt so un-ready in the past. I think that part of it was that I was working while traveling this time around. In the past, I’ve returned home dirt broke knowing that I needed to settle in and get a job right away. I think another part of it was being gone so long. In the past, we’ve only been gone for 6 months and this time we were gone for 8 months. Eight months felt like SO long to be away. It’s incredible how 2 months can make all the difference in perspective.
One of the unique parts about returning home this time around was that I was surprising a friend for her bachelorette party so my return was very private. Between running 2 podcasts and being quite active on social media, I wasn’t sure if I could pull it off, but somehow I kept EVERYTHING off social media and made her believe that I was still having a lovely time over in South Korea. It was actually amazing to come home in secret though. It gave me a week to get over jet lag without my phone blowing up or people asking for my attention. It gave me a week to settle back into life in Canada without anyone even knowing I was there. And best of all, I pulled off the most epic surprise that resulted in a running airport hug and lots of tears.