extrajapanish experience number one: Seoul

In March, I ventured to non-Japan Asia for the first time. I spent a highly satisfying weekend in Seoul, South Korea, visiting a friend who was living and working there for a few months. Getting there was a breeze...I couldn't believe that international travel could be such a breeze. It helps to have almost no baggage weighing you down.

My host lived very centrally in the city, near Myeong-Dong, which is a bustling, trendy area with lots of shopping, food vendors, restaurants, coffee shops, etc. Staying with her was especially nice because she and her coworkers live in "serviced residences," where a maid comes every day to clean your room, give you new sheets and towels, etc. This was a good time to go visit her, too, because they've been in Seoul since January, so they've been able to figure out a lot of logistical things involving food and tourism. I was the lucky recipient of that wisdom.

Seoul is a huge city, with over 10 million people. In three days I obviously couldn't see a terribly significant portion of that giant. I did get to visit a couple of markets, a palace, the place where the ancestral "spirit tablets" of the monarchy are enshrined, and do plenty of random wandering and exploring. The city felt really vibrant, in a different way from Tokyo or other Japanese cities. Seoul is dirtier than Tokyo (what city isn't?). It has a more exotic feel for me, thanks to an unfamiliar writing system and old men vending things like simmering pots of bugs (silkworms, maybe?), dried snakes (I swear), and lots of other varieties of crazy-looking health remedies.

There is lots of street food, plenty of street vendors, and giant outdoor markets everywhere. I ate what I fear may have been intestines on a stick. A more successful street-food purchase was a kind of sushi roll with vegetables wrapped in a thin omelette with some green leafy vegetable mixed in. Bakeries are really common, and you can get a traditional plain or chocolate croissant, or something more on the Korean side: pastry with red bean paste or sweet potato, a glutinous rice donut with sweet cheese inside (YUM), or one of an array of towers of toast with a poached egg on top, or some kind of tomato-fish flakes concoction. I have to say I stuck more to the sweet offerings rather than the savory. The food at restaurants was delicious, if somewhat uniform. Grilled meat, kimchee, soups that are kind of similar to kimchee (cabbage-based, kind of spicy, red-tinted), lots of cabbage that was not in kimchee, red sauce that claimed not to be kimchee sauce...I think I would be craving something radically different pretty fast.

The highlight of the trip was probably our visit to a clinic of traditional Korean medicine. My friend wanted to try to get acupuncture, so we found a clinic where the doctor spoke English. The place smelled VERY strongly of herbs. Behind the reception desk there was a wall of little drawers with different kinds of herbs. We each consulted with the doctor. She was a young woman who was very kind and spoke pretty good English. We had heat scans taken of our bodies. It was decided that my friend didn't need acupuncture (to her disappointment) but she was able to get "incense therapy." I apparently was afflicted by irregular enough digestion to merit an acupuncture treatment. I had eight needles in me and a tray of incense balanced on my stomach. Apparently the little incense holder was made from some kind of pressed herbal extract and seeped into our skin. It was REALLY stinky. [nota bene: I later found out that the herb was mugwort. The Japanese are apparently just as enamored with it as the Koreans, even featuring it as an ingredient in springtime sweets. Ugh.] She also sold us some custom-brewed herbal remedies. I am supposed to drink this brown sludge three times a day for ten days. Don't worry, it's safe. I made her write down the ingredients in English and I looked them all up before I drank any of it. It tastes horrible. It tastes like we smelled after spending an hour at that clinic on Saturday. But if it helps, I'm willing to choke it down for ten days.

Seeing the differences between Korea and Japan was really interesting. The Koreans aren't AS polite as the Japanese. They spit on the street. They aren't as obsessed with packaging as the Japanese. They are largely Christian (there were traffic jams for Easter). I think they speak better English than the Japanese. According to a girl that I sat next to on the plane, this could have something to do with the fact that Korea isn't a rich country, and they have to learn English to be successful. This theory could be applied to the Japanese, who don't feel that they ever have to leave Japan, and to Americans, who feel that if they only speak English it will have no negative effect on their possibilities for success.

One more (silly, girly) reason I liked Seoul: it's easy to get an affordable pedicure and other cosmetic treatments. No kidding, it can cost 100 bucks easily for a pedicure in Tokyo. And you can go ahead and forget about waxing, threading, or any kind of hair removal. It may sound stupid, but it's not really sustainable to live in a place where you can't meet your own standards of cosmetic upkeep or find products that you need (or even "need") on a regular basis (effective deodorant, I'm looking at you).