From workaholic to world traveler

Seoul was just meh for me, so the forgoing post will be just meh too. Feel free to skip this one, but if you don’t, please don’t judge me based on this. I’m only recording this stop for posterity. Firstly, I only had 2 full days in Seoul – Tokyo and Bangkok will be the longest legs of the trip, each having 4 full days and 5 nights. I expect the Bangkok post to be *far* more interesting than this, so if you only read one posting, do not choose this one.

As you know, I’d planned on staying at some pretty ritzy hotels for this Asia trip, so I’d reserved the 5-star Plaza Hotel. I was under the impression that The Plaza would be on par with the Ritz Carlton Tokyo that I had just come from- after all, it’s where Charlie Sheen stayed in a $30k/night suite to have a fight with a pornstar that he believed to be stealing from him. The first problem that I had there was my name wasn’t on the platinum account that booked the room, so the tight-was at checkin didn’t give me any of the platinum perks that I’d become accustomed to. I was given a room for a simple commoner (insert high feluten British accent). Next time I’m just going to lie and say that the platinum member is coming in on a later flight and avoid this possible mess. The fact that the member happens to be a man and we only have one king bed may raise an eyebrow or two, but I don’t care. I can be a bear – especially considering that I’ve eaten a bear and ‘you are what you eat’.

The nice thing about Seoul is that I have a friend and former colleague, Linda, that was able to show me around along with her new husband. She purposely chose to take me to the not-kosherest place ever, a Korean BBQ spot that only served pork. Linda was on antibiotics and her Hungarian husband (who I happened to like a lot) doesn’t seem to drink much, so I got to drink alone with dinner. To my surprise, I actually liked the various grilled pork parts.

After dinner, we all went to a bar to meet some of her friends who are all tech executives and expats working for the same company as Linda. From what I can gather, expats don’t really blend with the locals and tend to exclusively hang out with one another. I don’t think that any of them spoke Korean, so while I’m going to consider this an authentic Saturday night in Seoul, it really wasn’t.

We first tried to get into this blaringly loud club that had some singles event for Valentine’s Day. Thankfully all of the tables were reserved so we had to head to a normal bar. There were 6 of us and we polished off a bottle of Jameson and a bunch of beer while shooting the shit. After the bar, my host and her husband bailed for the night, so me and my 3 new friends went back to the blaring loud club. At this club, I saw some things that I’m not used to. Firstly, there were a few tables with upset looking women downing several bottles of vodka. I’m told that they were wealthy socialites. Second, there were a bunch of other people that may have been extras in Psi’s Gangnam Style music videos. My group didn’t speak the language, and aside from me, everyone were overeducated, smart folks that have no place in a meat market like that. It was clear that they didn’t fit in, even though they desperately wanted to. They said that if they had a table and bottle service they could pull some chicks, but I didn’t see it. They were clearly out of their element, as was I. Interestingly enough, while I was at the club, I matched with this picture on Tinder. What would possess a person to do this????

After striking out at the club, the group wanted to get a private room at a karaoke bar. I revile karaoke, but being the new guy, I didn’t want to look like a dick, so I went along with it. Besides, I was curious what it would be like. Apparently it’s common for karaoke bars in Seoul to provide attractive women to party with for an hourly sum. The first few places were either booked up or didn’t service foreigners, but after a while, we finally found a spot that could accommodate our group. One of the group was extremely hammered, so he bailed, leaving the 3 of us for karaoke. A little while after getting into the karaoke room, 3 middle-aged Korean women come into our room. Their primary function was to flirt with us, get us to overdrink and and essentially make us feel like the cool kids having a party. I was pretty liquored up by that point, and I was thousands of miles from anyone that knew me, so I let loose on the karaoke, belting out tunes such as Purple Rain and Home Sweet Home by Motley Crue. As a quick aside, if you haven’t seen it yet, check out Adam Levine’s cover of Purple Rain from the Howard Stern birthday show- far better than the original (shout out to BSKi, a friend, singer and blog reader who considers this opinion absolute sacrilege). Surprisingly, I had a good time singing and hanging out with a woman that I had no way of communicating with. Didn’t leave karaoke until after 5am. That was the end of Day 1 in Seoul.

As you can imagine, day 2 started out very late, and a little hungover. I woke up at 2:30PM, and explored the outdoor markets and sampled the delicious street food.

For dinner, I went to the top rated Korean BBQ place, but this place specialized in beef, which is my jam. I started out with a delicious spicy, beef ramen and then I got a ribeye steak. The meal was solid, but I missed Tokyo and their delicious Wagyu.

For day 3, I had initially planned on doing a DMZ tour, which is the area between North Korea and South Korea. I intended to learn about the history and unlike Otto Warmbier, I had no interest in stealing any propaganda posters from the north. Sadly, the area is off limits on Sunday and Monday, so it wasn’t in the cards for me, as my flight to Hong Kong was on Tuesday at noonish.

I called an audible and started my day exploring Gangnam, a wealthy city in Seoul that inspired Gangnam Style. It wasn’t enthralling. Then I had a flight of tea at a fancy tea bar, which I really enjoyed.

I ended up having lunch at a Michelin rated joint, specializing in Bassak bulgogi, which is basically a fancy version of sloppy joes that you eat out of a lettuce leaf. I started out this meal with a spicy ox-blood soup, which I enjoyed a great deal. Then I had their specialty and it was solid, but still didn’t blow me away.

After lunch, I meandered around their business district and went back to my meh hotel to watch some Netflix and take a nap. With my body clock being all screwed up, I didn’t wake up until around 11. I grabbed some specialty fried chicken for dinner and called it a night. I ended up watching Designated Survivor (a hybrid between 24 and House of Cards with Jack Bauer as president) and chatting on WhatsApp with a friend all night, while she was on a flight back from her birthday festivities.

All in, I’m not a huge fan of Seoul and I don’t think that I’d like to work as an expat overseas in a country that I don’t speak the language. And while short lived, I think that my karaoke career may be over. Also, it was sub-freezing for most of the time, which sucked. The bright spot was that cabs were cheaper than Tokyo.

Off to Hong Kong! The cold part of my trip is done.