I arrived in Seoul two days ago. The hostel I'm staying at is the worst hostel I've been to in terms of its facilities. Mainly, the bathroom and the shower area is not well kept. I will switch to a different hostel in two more days.
On the night of my arrival, I met a bunch of other travelers from the hostel. We ended up walking to Hongdae Street to get some chicken and beer at a restaurant. The food was great and we had some funny conversations. After dinner, I decided to go back to the hostel to sleep while everyone else went bar hopping and didn't come back until 5 AM.
Yesterday morning, I walked around the area near the Hongik University train station where the stop for the hostel is located. I noticed a lot of coffee shops so I stopped in one to get a cup of espresso. I was looking for an Apple store since I wanted to buy travel adapters for the laptop charger. Korea uses the type C and F plugs. The converter I had brought is too bulky and kept falling off the wall. There weren't any official Apple stores in the area, unfortunately.
Back at the hostel, I chatted with Karina, a girl who was quite talkative and was at the previous night's dinner. We grabbed lunch at a nearby restaurant. I had a pork rice bowl that was pretty good. It was 8000 KRW, or about $6.
After lunch, I took the train to City Hall and walked all the way from there to Bukchon Hanok Village. It's a district that has a lot of old style Korean houses. There were many tourists and some of them were dressed in traditional Korean hanok clothing. Around 4 PM, I walked back to Hotel Koreana to meet Toni, a woman I chatted with on Bumble.
Toni is very similar to me in that we have similar upbringings. Toni's mom is a tiger parent and that affected how Toni grew up. After becoming a medical doctor, Toni quit the profession to focus on her mental health and started traveling around the world. She has been a digital nomad for four years now.
After about two hours of conversation, Toni invited me to the rooftop networking party at the Hotel Koreana that same night. At the party, I met three more of Toni's friends that she had met during her travels. I took the train back to the hostel around 8:30 PM last night.
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| Hongdae Street at night |
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| Chicken and beer dinner with these folks from the hostel |
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| Interesting construction worker. LOL! |
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| The main street near Hongik University subway station |
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| Cool sculpture |
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| Pork and rice bowl for lunch |
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| Seoul City Hall |
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| Cheong-gye-cheon Riverwalk |
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| Another interesting sculpture |
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| Bukchon Hanok Village |
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| More Bukchon Hanok Village |
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| The view toward downtown Seoul from Bukchon Hanok Village |
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| Statue of King Sejong the Great |
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| Statue of Admiral Yi Sun Shin |
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| Sunset from the rooftop |
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| Rooftop networking party at Hotel Koreana |
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