Sweet Willie
Oct 3, 07, 10:39 am
Just got back from the Korea Do 2007, thread here: www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=673159
Photos will be forthcoming!!!
Flew UA from Chicago ORD to Seoul ICN (Inchon Airport).
I could have routed through NRT but if one flies out of SFO, the SFO flight gets into Seoul the earliest (5:35pm) as opposed to 8:00+pm if coming in from NRT, so the choice was clear to route through SFO. Met up with bseller at the RCC. United’s biz product is so-so, so nothing to really report except the curry chicken w/rice was certainly one of the best airline meals I’ve had. I slept most of the way thanks to better living through sleeping drugs.
Arrived into ICN slightly delayed but no big deal as customs was a breeze. Just missed a hotel bus but because they run frequently, we waited no more than 20 minutes for another one. Seeing as the hotel I was staying at (Renaissance Seoul) was far away from the designated Westin Chosun hotel meeting spot, I decided to take the KAL Limousine bus (14,000 won) to the Westin with bseller. Exchange rate was roughly 1,000 Korean Won = $1 USD. Traffic was somewhat heavy and we arrived at the Westin about 7:30pm.
The Westin is in a great location for the tourist, close to subway stops and even more important in my opinion is the fact that there is a “happening” area (Myung Dong). I stayed at two hotels, the Renaissance and InterContinental COEX. If traveling to Seoul for business, the location of your hotel should come first, not what chain it is affiliated with. I would stay close to wherever you are doing business as traffic sucks in Seoul. Location far outweighs chain affilitation.
For the Leisure traveler, (stating the following after staying at the above two hotels and becoming quite familiar with the Westin Chosun area) hands down the area around the Westin trumps Renaissance and IC's.
The area around the Rennaissance is very commercial, no retail (unless you consider the myriad of massage parlors behind the hotel retail, BTW if you do walk out the back of the Renaissance you will get approached by men asking if you want "massagi" or "Koeran girl"). The area around the IC's is very sterile compared with other parts of the city, you will pay for that sterile mall like environment not only in won/$$ but also in terms of quality of your experience, Highly recommend staying elsewhere in Seoul if for leisure.
bseller and I met work2fly at 8:30pm in the lobby and proceeded to walk a block to the Myung Dong area. Found some tents that served food cooked from the nearby storefronts. A Korean friend translated the business card that was given to me as the following: Restaurant Gahnaeree phone: 776-0037. We ordered some soju and Korean Beer while we looked over the menu. Couldn’t really read it but there were pictures. So we chose pajun (a Korean seafood/scallion pancake of sorts), a pot of mussels, and fresh chopped live octopus legs. Mussels were ok but because they were cooked too long, they were too soft. Pajun was quite tasty, especially with the chili paste sauce. The live octopus legs were the best tasting of the evening, slightly citrus w/a taste of the sea, quite delicious (MAKE SURE TO CHEW THOROUGHLY)
Taking in sight of Seoulites off of work and doing some serious drinking was quite fun so we hung around for awhile and took it all in. Got back to the Westin about 10:30pm, not too late as we had to get up early for the DMZ tour.
I then proceeded to take a cab to get to my first hotel, the Renaissance. Not impressed per the above comments.
Got up at 5:45am and took the subway to the Samgakji stop, going over the Han river was beautiful as some clouds in the sky were blazing red due to the rising sun, this reflected in the river. Took a short walk to the USO office to check in for the DMZ tour. I had read that the USO Panmunjon DMZ Tour (“http://www.uso.org/Korea/default.cfm?contentid=347”) was the best to go on, as it also includes taking in the 3rd tunnel of aggression. The tour last ¾ of a day, departing at 7:30 and arriving back ~ 3pm. So work2fly, bseller and I have checked in and are now on the bus waiting to depart. We were looking out for Condition One & Lucas, when all of a sudden from the seat directly behind us came the ubiquitous Flyertalk introductory question, “you with Flyertalk?” and now our Korea Do group was complete!! There is a full description of the tour at the link provided. I’ll let others describe their feelings, the DMZ tour was well worth the price of admission, $44, for me.
Upon returning work2fly, bseller and I proceeded to the War Memorial Museum (“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Memorial_(Seoul)”) as it is ½ block from the USO. Did not spend the time that probably should have been spent here, there are quite a few aircraft on display, a B-52, some MIG’s were highlights for me. Then took couple dollar cab ride back to the Westin.
Our meeting time this evening for dinner was 7:30pm. Condition One & Lucas went back to the Hilton to freshen up, while the remainder of us went back to the Myung Dong area looking for where we would have dinner that night, plus we wanted more soju. While searching tried a number of street food stalls. One that had a large wok of heated oil, the maker would roll this fluffy looking stuff into a log and drop into the oil. Some of these logs contained sausages; others were wrapped by a leaf. I followed the locals and put chili ketchup and mustard on mine. The next stall was serving fried tofu on a stick, complete with chili dipping sauce. The final stall we actually sat down at, at this one we purchased some mandu (Korean dumplings) and what we termed Korean pasta which was actually thick (1/2” circumference x 2” long) pieces of pasta (maybe rice flour?) that had been heated in a red tomato/chili sauce. The heat of the sauce was the long, slow to build kind that burned nicely. All of the above were delicious and I would order again in a heartbeat. Having snacked ourselves and located a restaurant, we then went to the nearby Hof and Soju Bar (actually the name of it) which was close to our tent dinner of the night before. That soju is tasty stuff.
We walked back to the Westin to hook up with Condition One & Lucasand then walked to our restaurant Nobizib a Korean BBQ joint located a couple doors away from the TGI Friday’s in the Myung Dong area. Nobizib has an active blue “oven” outside the front where the charcoal is lit before transferring to the pots that they will bring to your table to cook over. The western style seating downstairs did not fit our group of 5 so we went upstairs to the Eastern style of sitting on the floor. A photo of the restaurant and its interior (and food) can be found here: www.pusannavi.com/food/restaurant.php?id=24
The site is in Korean and I can’t find an English translation tab. The phone is 02)756-4084 & 02)756-4030. We started out with raw crab in a sesame chili oil/paste mixture (this was phenomenal!!!) and then proceeded to the marinated beef on the table side grill, of course there was the obligatory bachan or sides that come with it. The whole meal was excellent and not too expensive at 50,000 won per person and that includes some beers/soju.
After dinner I was beat so I took the subway back to my hotel. The remainder of the group went out for awhile.
In the morning of the last day I proceeded to take a cab to get to my second hotel, the InterContinental COEX. Not impressed per the above comments. Before getting onto the subway I purchase a couple of bakery items and a roast beef w/shitake mushroom sandwich from the InterContinental COEX bakery/deli which is on the Lower Level. The pastries were a bit underdone and not flaky like a French pastry but I believe that is how Koreans like them. The sandwich was terrific.
This day we were to meet at the Westin at 10am, someone (ahem) decided to sleep in a bit due to the prior night’s soju, so we got a bit of a late start. Our plan was to go to two palaces Gyeongbok and Changdeok and in-between palaces have lunch at the Noryangjin Fish Market
Started at the Gyeongbok Palace (“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyeongbokgung”) as it is a self guided tour unlike Changdeok where you must be on a guided tour (English tours at 11:30am, 1:30pm, 3:30pm) The painting on the palace is quite vibrant and the palace grounds are much larger than expected when first viewing the property after exiting the cab.
We then headed to the Noryangjin Fish Market (“http://fatman-seoul.blogspot.com/2004/11/noryangjin-fish-market.html”) for lunch. This place is not as big as Tokyo’s but with a great benefit, you can buy your own seafood and then proceed to the second floor where there are restaurants who will prepare your newly purchase seafood for you. Talk about fresh. Our group decided on a big seafood share project, we purchased common crabs, king crab, scallops, prawns, oysters, and octopus. We then regrouped and walked up to the second floor to choose our restaurant, the restaurant we choose was called Pusan First but my Korean bud mentioned that anyone probably wouldn’t know that and you should ask for Pusan Ilbunjee. This place was one of the restaurants that faced the open market.
The raw oysters and live octopus were served first, oysters were just ok and I think that is because they had been pre-shucked. Live octopus was good but not as good as first night (don’t know why). The scallops were grilled and were the sweetest scallops I’ve ever had, simply amazing. The two kinds of crab were steamed, again amazing stuff, sweet as can be. The restaurant serves beer and soju (YES!) as well as sides to go with the meal. They charged us 10,000 won per head to prepare the meal. A bargain we all thought.
After lunch we had a bit of time before the 3:30 tour at the Changdeok Palace (“http://www.orientalarchitecture.com/seoul/changdeokgungindex.htm”), Condition One & Lucas had come up with a Buddhist temple to see. Being 5 we had to take two cabs, Condition One and Lucas in one and work2fly, bseller and myself in another. Unfortunately our cab driver sucked and couldn’t find the temple. Any goodwill we were to give this guy faded when we showed him the Korean spelling for Seoul Tower and he couldn’t find that. We three exited our cab and decided to stroll down some of the very narrow alleys where we were let out. It was a bummer that we were still full from our lunch as one of the alleyways had a number of tiny restaurants grilling fish in the narrow alley and packed with Seoulites, these restaurants we passed were I believe on Pima-gil, perhaps Pimat-gol (or at least near where these two alleys meet)
We looked at our map and decided we had time to walk to our 3:30pm tour at the next palace. We passed the US Embassy which was swarming with riot police, not with any sense of urgency but they were present in huge numbers. We were concerned that some protesting was about to happen so we hustled up and away from the embassy. We arrived just in time for our Changdeok 3:30pm tour and met back up with Condition One and Lucas who were waiting for us.
This is where my body simply said no more walking around. I had had it. I excused myself from the tour and bseller graciously went with me. We talked for awhile at the Westin reflecting on the trip. I mentioned I was going to turn in for the evening and go back to my hotel. bseller and I decided to meet up in the Asiana Lounge at ICN in the morning as we were both taking the same flight.
I took the subway back to the IC COEX. I ate at a number of places in the COEX mall, none of which was worth repeating. The bulgoki burger at McDonald’s was interesting but again not worthwhile.
I had seen an ad for a reflexology place in the COEX Mall and kept a look out for it on my walk back to my room but didn’t see it. I called the front desk and inquired if the COEX had a spa, they did but it was closed, I then asked if they could recommend a massage spa nearby. They mentioned they had an in-house masseuse for 40,000 won for 45 minutes, not a great price but seeing as I was only spending 5,000 PC points for the room and my legs/back were in great need of a massage I readily agreed. The masseuse was at my door within 5 minutes of my call. After 5 minutes of massaging I happily agreed to the 90 minute session. The massage was terrific and afterwards I sat in my dark room sipping my huge 1,100 won bottle of water and watching the lights of the distant Seoul skyline along the Han River, thinking of when I can return to this wonderful city as there is so much more to experience.
Slept like a baby and got up early, departed via the KAL Limousine bus from the IC COEX at 6:10am, 25 minutes later we were finally leaving for ICN from the last hotel on this limousine’s route. If one is staying in the COEX area, I would recommend taking the direct bus from the nearby Korea City Air Terminal. Had boarding pass in hand and was through customs by 7:45am.
The SKL lounge at ICN is nicer IMO than the Asiana Lounge and has a better food selection.
I took a UA flight that left at 10am, stopped in NRT for two hours and arrived into ORD 45 minutes early due to very strong tailwind, NICE !! I was at work by noon that same day.
Food in Seoul thread from the Asia Forum: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=683329
Be on the lookout for a Korea Do III thread in the Community Buzz forum, I hope to post one soon for another trip to Seoul in Sept/Oct ’08.
Photos will be forthcoming!!!
Flew UA from Chicago ORD to Seoul ICN (Inchon Airport).
I could have routed through NRT but if one flies out of SFO, the SFO flight gets into Seoul the earliest (5:35pm) as opposed to 8:00+pm if coming in from NRT, so the choice was clear to route through SFO. Met up with bseller at the RCC. United’s biz product is so-so, so nothing to really report except the curry chicken w/rice was certainly one of the best airline meals I’ve had. I slept most of the way thanks to better living through sleeping drugs.
Arrived into ICN slightly delayed but no big deal as customs was a breeze. Just missed a hotel bus but because they run frequently, we waited no more than 20 minutes for another one. Seeing as the hotel I was staying at (Renaissance Seoul) was far away from the designated Westin Chosun hotel meeting spot, I decided to take the KAL Limousine bus (14,000 won) to the Westin with bseller. Exchange rate was roughly 1,000 Korean Won = $1 USD. Traffic was somewhat heavy and we arrived at the Westin about 7:30pm.
The Westin is in a great location for the tourist, close to subway stops and even more important in my opinion is the fact that there is a “happening” area (Myung Dong). I stayed at two hotels, the Renaissance and InterContinental COEX. If traveling to Seoul for business, the location of your hotel should come first, not what chain it is affiliated with. I would stay close to wherever you are doing business as traffic sucks in Seoul. Location far outweighs chain affilitation.
For the Leisure traveler, (stating the following after staying at the above two hotels and becoming quite familiar with the Westin Chosun area) hands down the area around the Westin trumps Renaissance and IC's.
The area around the Rennaissance is very commercial, no retail (unless you consider the myriad of massage parlors behind the hotel retail, BTW if you do walk out the back of the Renaissance you will get approached by men asking if you want "massagi" or "Koeran girl"). The area around the IC's is very sterile compared with other parts of the city, you will pay for that sterile mall like environment not only in won/$$ but also in terms of quality of your experience, Highly recommend staying elsewhere in Seoul if for leisure.
bseller and I met work2fly at 8:30pm in the lobby and proceeded to walk a block to the Myung Dong area. Found some tents that served food cooked from the nearby storefronts. A Korean friend translated the business card that was given to me as the following: Restaurant Gahnaeree phone: 776-0037. We ordered some soju and Korean Beer while we looked over the menu. Couldn’t really read it but there were pictures. So we chose pajun (a Korean seafood/scallion pancake of sorts), a pot of mussels, and fresh chopped live octopus legs. Mussels were ok but because they were cooked too long, they were too soft. Pajun was quite tasty, especially with the chili paste sauce. The live octopus legs were the best tasting of the evening, slightly citrus w/a taste of the sea, quite delicious (MAKE SURE TO CHEW THOROUGHLY)
Taking in sight of Seoulites off of work and doing some serious drinking was quite fun so we hung around for awhile and took it all in. Got back to the Westin about 10:30pm, not too late as we had to get up early for the DMZ tour.
I then proceeded to take a cab to get to my first hotel, the Renaissance. Not impressed per the above comments.
Got up at 5:45am and took the subway to the Samgakji stop, going over the Han river was beautiful as some clouds in the sky were blazing red due to the rising sun, this reflected in the river. Took a short walk to the USO office to check in for the DMZ tour. I had read that the USO Panmunjon DMZ Tour (“http://www.uso.org/Korea/default.cfm?contentid=347”) was the best to go on, as it also includes taking in the 3rd tunnel of aggression. The tour last ¾ of a day, departing at 7:30 and arriving back ~ 3pm. So work2fly, bseller and I have checked in and are now on the bus waiting to depart. We were looking out for Condition One & Lucas, when all of a sudden from the seat directly behind us came the ubiquitous Flyertalk introductory question, “you with Flyertalk?” and now our Korea Do group was complete!! There is a full description of the tour at the link provided. I’ll let others describe their feelings, the DMZ tour was well worth the price of admission, $44, for me.
Upon returning work2fly, bseller and I proceeded to the War Memorial Museum (“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Memorial_(Seoul)”) as it is ½ block from the USO. Did not spend the time that probably should have been spent here, there are quite a few aircraft on display, a B-52, some MIG’s were highlights for me. Then took couple dollar cab ride back to the Westin.
Our meeting time this evening for dinner was 7:30pm. Condition One & Lucas went back to the Hilton to freshen up, while the remainder of us went back to the Myung Dong area looking for where we would have dinner that night, plus we wanted more soju. While searching tried a number of street food stalls. One that had a large wok of heated oil, the maker would roll this fluffy looking stuff into a log and drop into the oil. Some of these logs contained sausages; others were wrapped by a leaf. I followed the locals and put chili ketchup and mustard on mine. The next stall was serving fried tofu on a stick, complete with chili dipping sauce. The final stall we actually sat down at, at this one we purchased some mandu (Korean dumplings) and what we termed Korean pasta which was actually thick (1/2” circumference x 2” long) pieces of pasta (maybe rice flour?) that had been heated in a red tomato/chili sauce. The heat of the sauce was the long, slow to build kind that burned nicely. All of the above were delicious and I would order again in a heartbeat. Having snacked ourselves and located a restaurant, we then went to the nearby Hof and Soju Bar (actually the name of it) which was close to our tent dinner of the night before. That soju is tasty stuff.
We walked back to the Westin to hook up with Condition One & Lucasand then walked to our restaurant Nobizib a Korean BBQ joint located a couple doors away from the TGI Friday’s in the Myung Dong area. Nobizib has an active blue “oven” outside the front where the charcoal is lit before transferring to the pots that they will bring to your table to cook over. The western style seating downstairs did not fit our group of 5 so we went upstairs to the Eastern style of sitting on the floor. A photo of the restaurant and its interior (and food) can be found here: www.pusannavi.com/food/restaurant.php?id=24
The site is in Korean and I can’t find an English translation tab. The phone is 02)756-4084 & 02)756-4030. We started out with raw crab in a sesame chili oil/paste mixture (this was phenomenal!!!) and then proceeded to the marinated beef on the table side grill, of course there was the obligatory bachan or sides that come with it. The whole meal was excellent and not too expensive at 50,000 won per person and that includes some beers/soju.
After dinner I was beat so I took the subway back to my hotel. The remainder of the group went out for awhile.
In the morning of the last day I proceeded to take a cab to get to my second hotel, the InterContinental COEX. Not impressed per the above comments. Before getting onto the subway I purchase a couple of bakery items and a roast beef w/shitake mushroom sandwich from the InterContinental COEX bakery/deli which is on the Lower Level. The pastries were a bit underdone and not flaky like a French pastry but I believe that is how Koreans like them. The sandwich was terrific.
This day we were to meet at the Westin at 10am, someone (ahem) decided to sleep in a bit due to the prior night’s soju, so we got a bit of a late start. Our plan was to go to two palaces Gyeongbok and Changdeok and in-between palaces have lunch at the Noryangjin Fish Market
Started at the Gyeongbok Palace (“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyeongbokgung”) as it is a self guided tour unlike Changdeok where you must be on a guided tour (English tours at 11:30am, 1:30pm, 3:30pm) The painting on the palace is quite vibrant and the palace grounds are much larger than expected when first viewing the property after exiting the cab.
We then headed to the Noryangjin Fish Market (“http://fatman-seoul.blogspot.com/2004/11/noryangjin-fish-market.html”) for lunch. This place is not as big as Tokyo’s but with a great benefit, you can buy your own seafood and then proceed to the second floor where there are restaurants who will prepare your newly purchase seafood for you. Talk about fresh. Our group decided on a big seafood share project, we purchased common crabs, king crab, scallops, prawns, oysters, and octopus. We then regrouped and walked up to the second floor to choose our restaurant, the restaurant we choose was called Pusan First but my Korean bud mentioned that anyone probably wouldn’t know that and you should ask for Pusan Ilbunjee. This place was one of the restaurants that faced the open market.
The raw oysters and live octopus were served first, oysters were just ok and I think that is because they had been pre-shucked. Live octopus was good but not as good as first night (don’t know why). The scallops were grilled and were the sweetest scallops I’ve ever had, simply amazing. The two kinds of crab were steamed, again amazing stuff, sweet as can be. The restaurant serves beer and soju (YES!) as well as sides to go with the meal. They charged us 10,000 won per head to prepare the meal. A bargain we all thought.
After lunch we had a bit of time before the 3:30 tour at the Changdeok Palace (“http://www.orientalarchitecture.com/seoul/changdeokgungindex.htm”), Condition One & Lucas had come up with a Buddhist temple to see. Being 5 we had to take two cabs, Condition One and Lucas in one and work2fly, bseller and myself in another. Unfortunately our cab driver sucked and couldn’t find the temple. Any goodwill we were to give this guy faded when we showed him the Korean spelling for Seoul Tower and he couldn’t find that. We three exited our cab and decided to stroll down some of the very narrow alleys where we were let out. It was a bummer that we were still full from our lunch as one of the alleyways had a number of tiny restaurants grilling fish in the narrow alley and packed with Seoulites, these restaurants we passed were I believe on Pima-gil, perhaps Pimat-gol (or at least near where these two alleys meet)
We looked at our map and decided we had time to walk to our 3:30pm tour at the next palace. We passed the US Embassy which was swarming with riot police, not with any sense of urgency but they were present in huge numbers. We were concerned that some protesting was about to happen so we hustled up and away from the embassy. We arrived just in time for our Changdeok 3:30pm tour and met back up with Condition One and Lucas who were waiting for us.
This is where my body simply said no more walking around. I had had it. I excused myself from the tour and bseller graciously went with me. We talked for awhile at the Westin reflecting on the trip. I mentioned I was going to turn in for the evening and go back to my hotel. bseller and I decided to meet up in the Asiana Lounge at ICN in the morning as we were both taking the same flight.
I took the subway back to the IC COEX. I ate at a number of places in the COEX mall, none of which was worth repeating. The bulgoki burger at McDonald’s was interesting but again not worthwhile.
I had seen an ad for a reflexology place in the COEX Mall and kept a look out for it on my walk back to my room but didn’t see it. I called the front desk and inquired if the COEX had a spa, they did but it was closed, I then asked if they could recommend a massage spa nearby. They mentioned they had an in-house masseuse for 40,000 won for 45 minutes, not a great price but seeing as I was only spending 5,000 PC points for the room and my legs/back were in great need of a massage I readily agreed. The masseuse was at my door within 5 minutes of my call. After 5 minutes of massaging I happily agreed to the 90 minute session. The massage was terrific and afterwards I sat in my dark room sipping my huge 1,100 won bottle of water and watching the lights of the distant Seoul skyline along the Han River, thinking of when I can return to this wonderful city as there is so much more to experience.
Slept like a baby and got up early, departed via the KAL Limousine bus from the IC COEX at 6:10am, 25 minutes later we were finally leaving for ICN from the last hotel on this limousine’s route. If one is staying in the COEX area, I would recommend taking the direct bus from the nearby Korea City Air Terminal. Had boarding pass in hand and was through customs by 7:45am.
The SKL lounge at ICN is nicer IMO than the Asiana Lounge and has a better food selection.
I took a UA flight that left at 10am, stopped in NRT for two hours and arrived into ORD 45 minutes early due to very strong tailwind, NICE !! I was at work by noon that same day.
Food in Seoul thread from the Asia Forum: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=683329
Be on the lookout for a Korea Do III thread in the Community Buzz forum, I hope to post one soon for another trip to Seoul in Sept/Oct ’08.