Published by Swiss James on 28 May 2007
After Seoul
The flight from Shanghai to Seoul is about 1 hour 45 mins and cost me 3,300 RMB (217 quid). Co-incidentally these are also the length of time I spent sober, and the amount of cash I spent on booze during my two day trip.
Photo originally by Rachel-Lynn. Hope she doesn’t mind!
For my money, the best part of Seoul is Hongdae- the area around an artsy university in the North-West of the city. I stayed in a ‘love hotel’ called Bobo’s which cost about 50 quid per night. For that price you get a good sized room with a bath and shower, a car park with a big curtain over it (so no-one can see your registration plate from the street), and the ability to get to your room through the back stairs so that you and your illicit partner can be discreet. A bit more interesting than the average Hilton anyway.
As soon as I arrived on the Friday night I met up with the gang of friends I used to spend most of my time with in Korea. We went to a kalbi (BBQd beef ribs) restaurant where you can sit outside and see the world go by. The drinking was already well underway by the time we got to the restaurant thanks to a newly introduced 6.9% beer (Cass Red- “Taste The Passion”), and by the time we’d eaten and drank plenty of shots of Oh Ship Sae Ju (two traditional kinds of booze mixed together- tastes a bit like ginseng), we were having contests to see who could sing the intro to “Livin’ On A Prayer” with the most feeling.
On the way between the restaurant and the next bar, we came across a “Road Bar”- basically the back of a truck stacked up with spirits, serving very (very) cheap cocktails. After a couple of hours enjoying the bargains, we went to a place called TinPan Alley where there was dancing on tables.
My memory after this is patchy at best- I remember trying not to speak to anyone because my speech was even more slurred and indistinct than normal, wandering around in circles after losing my friends, am pretty sure I was sick (although where, I have no idea) and woke up face down, star-shaped on my bed with an empty microwave hamburger wrapper stuck to my cheek.
