Hunger. It's the only thing that reminds me I'm not completely supernatural. Most people would probably look for Korean food when they arrive in Seoul, but I saw a sign for Mexican food upon leaving the subway, and I love me some Mexican. How does that place afford advertising in the subway? By charging $14 per meal. My only thought was how can I eat that food when I can't even stomach their prices. Upon departing that place, I saw a sign, a sign that changed everything. You see for the first time since I left America I saw something of unrivaled magnificence. The Belle of the ball, The Bell I was Saved By, Taco Bell.
I stared down at the beefy potato burrito in front of me, my eyes roaming her perfect form up and down. I unwrapped her like a gift, the greatest gift my taste buds would ever receive. I added an exotic mixture of sauces, both Fire and Hot, knowing that it'd been a while and we needed to spice things up. I cradled her in my hands and slowly drew her closer to my lips so my tongue could begin reveling in her majestic glory. After a few moments I pulled away and couldn't help but open my eyes and marvel at her beauty. Taco Bell, I love you. (FYI - I toned this passage down a lot...you are welcome)
Once I started digesting the Taco Bell, I remembered the consequences of dining on such fine cuisine. With sever stomach pain and the imminent threat of diarrhea upon me, I decided to acquaint myself with the district I was in, Itaewon, since I would be meeting my Lowelife brother, Bryn, and his friend Chris there later that evening. I even managed to find a park with some outdoor workout equipment to help keep this body in respectable condition, but had to quit after about three minutes as I was feeling the side effects of my meal: Meat sweats, shortness of breath, and a level of indigestion that makes you wonder if you're suffering the full onslaught of a ruptured appendix.
Now ladies, you're well aware that when I arrive in a new country, you begin tingling... Uncontrollably. When me and my broseph arrive...Ooooo shiver me timbers ladies, shiver me timbers. However, there's one other thing you should know about us, we are mortal enemies. In fact ever since he started wearing cologne, I've been dumping out half the bottle and filling it back up with urine. From 1993-1997, I put tufts of wolf fur in his bed during nights of full moons, so he'd wonder if he was a werewolf. Whenever he'd get blackout drunk and pass out, I would melt snickers bars in the microwave and stuff the contents in his underwear so he'd think he shit his pants. One time I sold all of his furniture on craigslist and then let him buy me ice cream while we filed a police report for stolen property. What has he done to me in return? When I graduated high school he drove me to Chicago to take me to a USA vs England soccer match, when I graduated college he let me live with him for free until I found a job, and when he came to meet me here he brought me a pair of nice headphones since all of mine keep breaking. In other words, I'm awesome and he is kind of a wuss.
No one had anything pre-planned for our first day, so we decided to just go to the middle of the city and start wandering around. It worked out pretty well as we stumbled upon a bunch of the recommended markets and temples that are among Seoul's top tourist attractions. I was expecting the markets in Korea to be shit in comparison to the ones in Southeast Asia, but I was totally wrong. The markets are massive here, spanning multiple blocks; They seem never-ending. The prices are pretty on par with what you would expect, but just like all other markets there isn't a huge variety; It's just the same items being sold over and over. We also got our first taste of street food, the famous Korean pancake. We finished the day by wandering down to the river and enjoying some beers. Apparently drinking in public is perfectly acceptable here!
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| In case you can't read Korean, the sign says, "To the sexiest man alive, Sean Lowe, our Seoul is yours" |
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| I'd kill for one of those swords....literally (psychotic laughing smiley while slowly raising stolen, bloody sword in hand) |
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| The Brothers Lowe, Slowe and Blowe |
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| Being able to share a beer with friends in a foreign country, can't ask for much more than that :) |
Cherry blossoms are a pretty big part of Asian culture, so we headed to a park where we hoped to see some in bloom, but we missed them by a few weeks. The petals are extremely delicate, so they usually only last for a week or two before getting blown away. We decided to roam around the park anyways and hung out by the river for a little while. On our way back to the subway we saw a bunch of dudes playing, what we call it in the hood, "Street Ball".
So here's the deal. When you're a person with unbelievable athleticism, unrivaled muscular definition, and gorgeous hair, you're gonna play pick up basketball on the mean streets of Korea. Did I hit the rim on a single shot where I was further than 4 feet from the hoop? Absolutely not. Apparently after 9 months of muscular atrophy, I wasn't strong enough to get the ball airborne. However, Chris is a 6'3 white guy and we were playing a bunch of Asians, so we won both games.
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| I will buy a garden where your flowers can bloom. I will buy you a new car, perfect shiny and new. I will buy you that big house way up in the west hills, I will buy you a new life.... |
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| Should I move here or remain Seoulless? |
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| Pick up basketball game in Korea...Check |
The three of us are pretty outdoorsy, so we decided to hike to Baegundae Peak on Mt. Bukhansan, the highest mountain in Seoul. The path up was pretty cool and had a gradual incline, but once you got close to the top it became extremely steep. The path started to disappear eventually dwindling into a slope with a rope nailed into the cliff-side. Thus Bryn and Chris got an introduction into Asian hiking, where there are no rules and American safety regulations don't apply.
As rough as getting to the top was, the view was fucking epic. It might even be in my top 10. Seeing the sheer size of Seoul from that high is mind-numbing. Outside of Tokyo, it's the largest metropolitan area in the world. There was a tiny little podium at the very top that we made it up to, but immediately after arriving a ranger told us we had to start climbing back down, because there was a helicopter rescue crew coming to save some people that were stranded on the mountain. So no photos of us at the top with the Korean flag...I guess we'll just have to come back another time :).
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| Pathway, just a bunch of rocks...Whatevs |
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| I'm feeling rough, I'm feeling raw, I'm in the prime of my life. Let's climb some mountains, make some money, find some models for wives. I'll move to Paris, shoot some heroin and fuck with the stars. You man the island and the cocaine and the elegant cars. This our decision, to live fast and die young. We've got the vision, now let's have some fun! Yeah it's overwhelming, but what else can we do? Get jobs in offices and wake up for the morning commute? |
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| Last year: South America, This year: South Korea, Next Year......?!?!? |
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| Those dots are people scaling the mountain! |
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| For some reason this makes me think of MacGuyver and I just want to yell, "MURDOC!!!!" |
We were pretty famished after the hike, so we grabbed some street food, followed by some Mexican food to fuel back up. Though we already had the amazing city view from the top of the mountain, we decided to check out the view from Seoul Tower, which is the #1 tourist attraction in the city. We took a cable car from the city up to the tower and then paid another fee to go to the top. Price gouging! The view was pretty cool, but the windows were smeared with finger prints and had an insane amount of glare, so you couldn't get an unobscured view. The worst part? We were planning on getting some street food on the way back: Waffles stuffed with ice cream, but alas, it was closed when we got back. :'(
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| I feel like when an architect designs a building, he draws a penis and then modifies it just enough to not look exactly like a penis |
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| I'm not sure if they made the windows pro-glare enough. I could use at least 30% more glare when looking out of them. I mean why would I want to see the city outside when I can see the room I'm standing in? |
Our next stop was Busan, which is the second largest city in Korea, and happens to be on the coast! Don't get too excited ladies, it's too cold for bathing suits at the moment, so you won't see any photos of us shirtless. Normally I would take the bus, but the other guys wanted to take the bullet train since they couldn't afford to waste too much time travelling between destinations. I sucked up the extra cost of the ticket as I was saving quite a bit of money by sleeping on the floors of their hotel rooms. Definitely a good trade off for me!
We spent our first day in Busan roaming around and drinking the occasional brew. For our second day we decided to do another hike in Busan since the one in Seoul was so awesome, this time heading to Guemjongsan. Our time was limited, so we took cable cars to the main hiking ground and then just hiked a few of the shorter trails. Most of the signs were in Korean, so we didn't really know where we were going, but eventually we found a couple good vantage points. After returning from the mountain we grabbed our gear and then switched over to a hotel that was near Busan's most famous beach, Haeundae.
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| Bullet Train to Busan! |
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| Amazing views from the cable car |
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| Air quality....Questionable |
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| I can't remember the man, that panhandler, or his melody. But the words exchanged had far exceeded any change I'd given thee... |
The hotel in Haeundae was pretty amazing, it even had a queen and a twin mattress, so I was able to share a bed with Bryn instead of sleeping on the floor. Remember, sleeping in the same bed as your grown sibling is acceptable, so long as it's not Lannister style. We arrived at the hotel close to supper time, so Bryn and I decided to dine at a Korean BBQ place we saw nearby. Chris is a vegetarian, which might actually be illegal in Korea, so he was told there weren't any vegetarian options. Which kind of makes no sense because Korean BBQ consits of grilling meat and then adding that to veggie filled lettuce wraps... It's like, just a let a bro grill some tofu. Ergo, he was forced to dine on some Indian food instead.
After our respective dinners we grabbed some Soju from the convenience store and hit up the beach. The price is unbeatable, one bottle is $1.25 and it's over 18% alcohol. You could get absolutely hammered for 4 or 5 bucks. Side note: Walking up to a girl with a soju and saying, "Soju think you can dance?", does not work and probably never will. The taste of soju is pretty rough. It's basically like drinking a slightly watered down version of vodka. I mean, at least throw a little bit of dragon fruit extract in there. Haeundae Beach also delivered in one other very important area...It had a shop that sold waffles with ice cream!!!
I can't even begin to describe how delicious this concoction is. A warm, fluffy waffle, freshly buttered, diced into perfect size bites and then covered with exactly the correct amount of ice cream. It might be the greatest ice cream related dessert I've ever had. After the waffles, we kicked back a few beers and played some darts before heading to the street market one last time to get a little midnight snack. Everything seemed to be closing down, but we were able to score some veggie pancakes and a couple of suited up dudes shared some of their soju with us.
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| Haeundae Beach |
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| You thinking what I'm thinkin bro? I was thinking we pound these sojus and put the laid in ladies if you know what I'm saying, is that what you were thinking? I was actually thinking about what it would be like to tickle a dead pigeon, but let's do your thing. Huzzah!!! |
The next day we said our goodbyes as Bryn and Chris headed back to Seoul to catch their flight home. As a parting gift my bro gave me a dozen cliff bars, to help fuel my remaining hikes. The gesture almost made me feel bad for filling his cologne bottle with rattlesnake urine the previous night... Since I had done no planning before arriving in Korea, I didn't know what I was going to do after they departed, so I figured I might as well hike another mountain and then spend a few days relaxing to figure it all out.
I chose to climb Jangsan mountain, because the path runs through an old mine field. How cool is that?!?! I will say that hiking in Korea is an adventure as the signs are only occasionally written in English. My goal was to hike to the peak, but whenever I followed a sign, the distance seemed to change. I was 3.0 KM away, but after following that path, I was 3.7 km away, then I was 2 km, 2.7 km, 900 meters, 1.6 km, 3 km. It was pretty demoralizing as I had no idea where I was or even which hill I was supposed be climbing, because the mountains, being Asian, all looked the same. Luckily everyone in Korea is super nice, so whenever I found someone that spoke English they told me the basic direction to go. All in all, what was supposed to be a 8 KM round trip taking 3 hours, turned into about a 16 KM trip taking 6 hours. After that climb, I deserved some relaxation time and spent the next few days bumming around Busan's beaches.
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| The buildings are so overwhelmingly white here (My only guess is that it's due to air traffic or building codes, who knows?)...I would totally mix it up and build a gigantic green building just to throw everyone off. |
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| Someday I'll wish upon a star and wake up where the clouds are far behind me. Where trouble melts like lemon drops, high above the chimney tops, that's where you'll find me....... |
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| Summer dies and swells rise, the sun goes down in my eyes. I see this rolling wave darkly coming to take me home. And I've never been so alone. And I've never been so alive. |
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| I love the architecture in Korea, it's fascinating. |
I ended up staying at Mr. Kim's guesthouse in Busan and it was one of the best hostels I've ever stayed at. On the day I was leaving, I told him I was going to take the ferry to Jeju island, despite the fact one had sunk a few weeks prior. Five minutes later he came up to me and told me it would be cheaper to fly. Apparently if you book flights through the Korean website you get better prices than the English site, so with his help I was able to book a ticket, including checked baggage, for $30. The ferry would have been well over $40 and would have taken 12 hours vs. the 1 hour flight. I have to say, I don't think I've ever met as many genuinely nice people as I have in Korea. All of the locals will try and help you if they can and if they don't speak English they'll apologize for not being able to help you. It's an amazing place.
My flight to Jeju was swift, but my ability to find my hostel was not. However, that's a story for another blog...
Random GoPros
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| Koreans are the kindest people I've ever encountered |
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| Korean BBQ! Looks a little weird, but tastes amazing! |
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| Have you seen Orphan Black? This is where I'm going to propose to Tatiana Maslany, she is incredible. She does have one major flaw...being Canadian, but with a little surgery even that can be fixed! |
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| May the good lord be with you down every road you roam and may sunshine and happiness surround you when you're far from home...Forever young, forever young! |
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| We're the cream of the crop, we rise to the top!!! |
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| The sun lays down inside the ocean, I'm right where I belong. Feel the air, the salt on my skin, the future's coming on. And after living through these wild years and coming out alive, I just want to lay my head here, stop running for a while. |
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| Sometimes you take a selfie and think, "this is going to be hilarious", but then you see it and realize it's so douchey you deserve to be punched in the face with a land mine |
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| Ever since my arrival, the Korean government has been subject to a grueling debate about whether or not to rename the city BuSean in my honor. |
