There are roughly 10 million people residing within the city limits of Seoul, and another 16 million living in the outer areas. There are 11 subway lines. Two airports (Incheon International, and Gimpo Domestic). A United States military base. Many, many temples. A few ancient palaces. And much more.
On Saturday, myself and 6 other women went to Seoul to participate in a version of The Amazing Race put on by a foreigner magazine based in Seoul. We wanted to do it as a way to see the city and all the different things it has to offer. But somewhere along the way, it turned into a fierce competition where we were running past all of the things we wanted to stop and take in. That 'somewhere' was about half way to leg two of a 16 leg race.
We arrived in Seoul via train at 8:50am and got some breakfast at the McDonald's in the massive train station that looked more like an airport, sans the planes. We departed the train station about 9:20am and headed for the starting point of the race. We had to be there by 10:30 in order to qualify.
Around 10:35, we arrived, and were still able to sign in and participate. We each got t-shirts and changed into them before a group photoshoot of all 35 teams (4 people to a team; we had 2 teams). The race officially started at 11am.
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| I thought at first that the super tall building back there was Seoul Tower. Turns out it is not. I did see Seoul Tower, however, but didn't snap a photo. |
The first clue was to head in 'that direction' (the direction of that last photo) to find our next clue inside a bag of rice cakes. We were supposed to eat our way through the rice cakes to find our clue. Each clue was different and would take each team off in a different direction, so as not to bombard each location with 35 teams and about 150 people.
However, when we arrived at the spot where the rice cakes were hidden, we found all of them open and heard disappointed yells of "the other teams opened more than one bag" assuming to find the easiest clue. There was a staff member there, though, who told us to head to the fish market for our next clue.
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| Back Row: Madeline, Jessica, Amy Front Row: Me! Our taxi ride to the fish market! |
After waiting for what felt like forever for a taxi, we finally got one and headed to the fish market. If you've seen any shows about Seoul (Anthony Bourdain, Eric Zimmerman, etc.), I am sure you have heard of this fish market.
When I say the smell of the fish market was pungent, I am not lying. We could smell this fish market from a block away. It sort of smelled like an animal shelter. As we got closer, the smell got more defined as fish. Outside, dead fish. Inside, rotting fish. And guess what we had to do to get the next clue.
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| Madeline braving the rotten fish. Total Rockstar. |
Yep, that's right. Eat some fermented (read: rotten) fish. And kimchi. I normally like kimchi, so I volunteered to eat the kimchi if someone else would eat the fish. (I can't have shellfish, and even though they said it wasn't shellfish, I didn't want to risk it.) This kimchi, however, was from the same container as the rotten fish and had rotten fish stuff all over it. G. R. O. S. S. We didn't see anyone vomit, but I know Amy came disastrously close, and I'm sure Madeline did, too.
Then we headed off to our third leg, which took another approximately 45 minutes to get to. After finding it, we were supposed to find a chile inside this very large play area (with the help of a staff member) and get them to say four Korean words by only hearing the English version. We found this adorable little girl, and she was very smart. She knew all four words. (Grape, Watermelon, and two others.)
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| Kind of blurry, sorry. This was the inside of the big kids play-place. |
At that point, Amy and I were giving each other the look of "this is way too hard and not exactly what we were expecting." We wanted to see Seoul, not run frantically past it all day long. And it had already taken us 2.5 hours to do 3 of the 16 legs. What about the remaining 13 legs? We voiced our concerns to our other two team members (Madeline and Jessica), and that is when we decided to quit and let them keep going without us.
We called the girls from the other team, and two of them wanted to continue (Nadia and Trisha), but Lee Ann did not. So Madeline and Jessica met up with Nadia and Trisha and they continued the race together, while Amy and I met up with Lee Ann and went shopping instead.
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| Outside 'Times Square' in Seoul |
And we had a great time. We hit up some American stores in the shopping district of Seoul, a Pizza Hut for lunch (Bulgogi Pizza! YUM!), and also a Kitty Cafe. With 20 cats just waiting to be your best friend.
We had an awesome time!
We finally decided to get a train back to Daejeon (where they all live; I live in Gwangju, two hours south by train) around 9:30pm. We got tickets for the KTX and boarded the train at 10pm.
I should note that we took the slow (regular) train into Seoul that morning. But that night, we took the KTX back out. The KTX is a high speed rail train, and while I have ridden the KTX before, I have never had the privilege of riding the KTX on an actual fast track. (It is a special track that makes the train go faster, not just the engine.) That night was the first time. It's a shame it was dark, because the train gets up to about 300mph (kph?) and while it took us a good 2 hours to get to Seoul on the slow train, that time was cut in half on the way back via KTX. How awesome is that?!
And that was my first trip to Seoul!
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