First Encounters

Alright, so I've been in Seoul for a few days now and I've had some pretty cool experiences. It's definitely been an advantage knowing people who live it, and there's also a lot of cool people in my training program with CDI. Honestly, I love it here. I may never come back. Ok, I'm exaggerating, but I really do love it here. The food is amazing, and quite reasonably priced. I've been eating pretty well. It's kind of hard to put into words, but it's just such an inviting place, and I've really been enjoying myself.

During training, most of the trainees are staying in the Coatel Hotel in Gangnam. It's a really cool district in Seoul, and there's always so much going on. Sometimes, I'll be walking up the street and see a marathon of people jogging down the sidewalk to catch the bus. I mean, old people and young people, women in heels and men in suits, EVERYBODY. I like the subway here a lot though. It's cleaner, quieter and faster than the trains in New York and Chicago. They get really crowded at certain times of day, but it's no big deal. Seoul is like New York on steroids. Bigger buildings. Wider intersections. More people.



Traffic over here gets pretty ridiculous too. When people have somewhere to be, they get there. It's to the point where sometimes you'll see a police car or ambulance with their siren blaring, but they're stuck in traffic because no one will yield to them. I think the most hectic areas are these side streets that have a really narrow road and really narrow (or non-existent) sidewalks. It turns into this mashup of cars and people that gets a bit scary. it's gets even worse when people come zooming buy you on scooters. Luckily, I haven't been hit by a car, bus or scooter yet.



There are also a lot of restaurants and stores over here that I'm used to seeing in the U.S. Dunkin' Donuts is HUGE here, you'll see one on every corner. I've also seen Cold Stone Creamery, Krispy Kreme, and of course the regular Starbucks. Coffee is huge here too. Folks are addicted to caffeine like alcohol. By the way, they don't play about alcohol either, but I think that's for another post.

Anyways, I obviously didn't come here for food that I could easily eat in the States. So I called up my boy Ben so we could have lunch at a Korean restaurant.



We walked around Gangnam for a bit and stopped in this restaurant that served dak galbi. Dak galbi is a stir fry-type dish with chicken in red pepper paste and mixed with vegetables and rice cake. It's DELICIOUS. I was already a fan of spicy foods, but Korean food takes it to another level. And this huge dish was only like $14. Did I mention that there's no tipping in Korea? Because that contributes to how little we paid for so much food. If I don't start working out, I'm gonna be fat by the time I come back home.





I've been to some other great restaurants that serve good dumplings and kimbab (rice and vegetables rolled up in seaweed) along with a really good Vietnamese place where we had pho. I also went to a hip-hop club and a really cool hookah lounge, but I didn't take pictures of those places. Maybe I'll revisit those in future posts. But I think walking around Gangnam and eating dak galbi was a good start to my time in Korea. I also bought a pretty nice watch from a street vendor for like $7. We'll see how long it works.

Shout out to Ben for making a cameo on the blog and be on the lookout for my next post with another friend making a special appearance.

Be easy y'all