seoul

I took my first trip to seoul this last weekend. it was a blast. seoul is like new york city in its scale, but even cooler for an american in korea. jeonju (and presumably many other korean cities) can be somewhat alienating so it was nice to go to a city more accustomed to foreigners and our strange ways. additionally it was great to fill up on some of the foods missed. I went with a couple of fellow teachers who had a friend in seoul, and between them and and some other foreigners we met up with we were able to find some irish pub grub, a greek place, and some pretty epic burgers.

while it was great being in a place where my foreigner ways were more understood and accepted it was also strange to be in an interactive environment; by that I mean that in jeonju most korean folks wont initiate interaction with foreigners and if we interact with them they are very cordial but often uncertain of how to act towards us. this produces a situation where a foreigner acts without regard for the world around him because for all intents and purposes it does not exist. in seoul the world will react or even initiate interaction. this was simultaneously a nice change and unsettling. it was weird to have to discard the assumption that nobody around me knows what I am talking about, and as such easy to inadvertently stumble into some awkward situations.

the upshot is this: seoul is a pretty sweet city. the end.