Stephen Wright once said, “Anywhere is walking distance, if you’ve got the time”. Well guess what? I think this American stand-up comedian is right! Because that was exactly what I had on my mind when I did this...
I walked. With Kenji and Hazuki. In the rain. To Myeongdong. (sort of)
The story goes like this:
Kenji, Hazuki and I arrived in Incheon after a good two-hour flight from Nagoya. The weather in Incheon was mild and air was oddly foggy then. At the airport, we were picked up by some local people Kenji knew from work, and then we were brought to Central Seoul where 'our' apartment was. After checking in, we were left on our own. And so with all the time to ourselves, that night, I ‘dragged’ Kenji and Hazuki on my first ever attempt to reach Myeongdong.
It was raining heavily with lightning and thunderstorms when we set out, still we went to the shopping district by foot. Crazy I know. But what was crazier was that we weren’t prepared with many things including a map, some Korean language and even umbrella, and so getting to Myeongdong that night was quite a gamble I must say.
Myeongdong, if you don’t know it yet, is a shopping district that features not only mid to high priced retail stores but also brand-name clothing outlets and world class shopping malls you are most likely not to miss if you are there. Myeongdong is also said to consist of cafes, restaurants and cineplexes – features which have made the district even more appealing to the general public than it apparently ever did.
Having grown up in a place like Myeongdong, Myeongdong by definition didn't sound like an exciting place to me. In fact it didn't. But somehow something somewhere in me thought it was a place I must go and see and so on my first day in Seoul, I went to (sort of) check out Myeongdong with my husband and 6 month old daughter by foot despite the rain.
We started out our journey at Jung-gu, where ‘our’ apartment was, but stopped at a nearby bus stop a few minutes after that as rainfall got heavier and we really needed some temporary shelter then. Or so I thought. Very soon after that though we moved to a nearby building, one with a convenience store on its first floor, as Kenji had wanted very much to buy us an umbrella there.
Yeah, very sweet of Kenji I know, but only after buying the umbrella we found out that it wasn’t big enough to fit us three, and so I ended up walking in the rain after that (how unfortunate!) but that didn’t bug me nevertheless, and so we kept walking and saw many things/shops we could have missed if we had gone by other means. And so it was good that we had chosen to walk, really.
Walking with the loved ones on a cold winter evening was certainly fun. But as we walked further, we came across plenty of buildings and places such as hospitals, museums, and convenience stores that seemed to have little to do with the purpose of our journey. So I got a little anxious and thought of changing our mode of transportation to the subway instead. We went past several subway stations along our way but didn’t go check any of them out sadly, (because Kenji didn’t want to) and so we carried on walking to Myeongdong.
As we walked, we saw more and more eateries lining some well lit major roads and shops of only low to medium wealth in clusters. I was actually expecting to see a district that looked something like Orchard Road back home in Singapore; a district filled with department stores and high-rise shopping malls, busy roads, blocks of brand name fashion outlets, a fast(er) paced community and an expensive shopping, in fact just the way Myeongdong had been described on travel books the entire time. But we didn’t see them all unfortunately.
So, considering the description of Myeongdong on travel books, plus the distance we’ve walked that evening, we thought we knew we weren’t getting anywhere close to Myeongdong at all.
As a result, Kenji and I decided it was probably time we 'did something' to the trip. However rain started pouring after that. And we realized we probably didn’t have much choice but to go back. And so Kenji, Hazuki and I made the rounds, figured out just about any how to get back and finally returned to the apartment, drenched and very cold.
At the apartment however, I remember Kenji getting me a cup of cappuccino from The Coffee Bean downstairs *very sweet of Kenji # 2* (the apartment we were staying at has got my favourite cafe attached to its lobby) – so, woohoo! Later on, with the cup of cappuccino in hand, I hung out for a bit in the lounge, got myself changed and then headed off to bed. And just like that however I ended my very first day of travels in the capital city of Korea.
That night though I know I may have failed reaching Myeongdong but I was happy nevertheless cos’ despite the rain and all, I still went ahead with my plans and saw some other parts of Seoul I probably wouldn’t have if I had chosen to stay in or gone to Myeongdong via the subway! :D
Above is a picture of a map, extracted off Lonely Planet’s Seoul City Guide (probably the only map I came across that is in English language and that is the closest to what I could illustrate here for better understanding of my story).
The bottom white area of the picture is added and drawn by me to show readers of the complete route we had taken in our walk that night.
*Route is marked by a red line, whereas the black mark at the bottom of the pic (that looked like an arrow/a house) was where our accommodation was. Grey coloured lines on the bottom white background were sprayed to create a continuation of the major roads*
Click on the map, and you will get a larger view of it. You will also probably get to see that Myeongdong wasn’t even on the map (as it is located far east) and hence not anywhere at all close to where we were staying ;p
So my conclusion of this is that it may seem as though we had walked very far but actually,
we hadn’t even walked enough!!
~ to be continued...
Map Reference:
Robinson M. & Zahorchak J. (2009) Strolling Around Deoksugung, Seoul City Guide, Lonely Planet, Lonely Planet Publications, Singapore, pp. 46.
Bibliography:
Robinson, M., Bartlett, R., Whyte, R. (2007). Lonely Planet: Korea. 7th ed. Singapore: Lonely Planet Publications. 79-138.
Robinson M. & Zahorchak J. (2009). Lonely Planet: Seoul City Guide. 6th ed. Singapore: Lonely Planet Publication. 85.
Seoul Metropolitan Government (2008). Seoul's best 100. Seoul: Tourism Promotion Division. 22-23.
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