It’s early in the morning on December 9, coming to you from Gangham, Seoul, South Korea. After eating a delicious meal last night at a great local restaurant (many of which we were turned away from for being too full already at 7pm!), we tucked in and headed to bed. Due to a combination of heading to sleep really early and jet lag, we’re already awake and ready to venture out at 8am.

Yesterday, after spending a significant amount of hours on planes from Washington to Toronto to Vancouver to Seoul, and then finally finding our way through the airport express train and subway, we arrived here in southern Seoul. On our train ride, I marveled at how the mountains truly are beautiful here, with an almost surreal blue and purple toned color and slight haze at dusk. The trains here are very quiet, the only noise being the mechanical whirring of the electric rails as we quickly moved along them.

The area we’re staying in, Gangham, is filled with lots of young people, restaurants, shops, and neat Korean coffee houses (which we’ll definitely be heading to first thing this morning!). We’ll also get to several of the major temples and historical building complexes to see South Korean history over the next several days. We got dinner last night at a great little spot, and enjoyed a classic Korean meal: a hot Bulgogi pot (meat in a hot stone bowl with a sweet broth) and a spicy beef soup (kind of like Pho, but with more chili sauce and a different set of vegetables). The spicy beef soup, despite the kind restaurant owner’s warnings, was not too spicy for me, so I’ll be trying to find some of the eye-watering spice I’ve heard about while I’m here. The best part were the small side dishes that accompany every meal here, which last night included some kind of vegetable sautéed with garlic, fried anchovies, little balls of something that wasn’t tofu but looked like it, and fermented shiitake mushrooms. Of course, we also had our first South Korean kimchi, and noted that it is way more potent here than it is in the States. The best part? The total for our entire meal was just over $13.

Now, we’re venturing to find wifi, coffee, and plan our first day in southern Seoul. I’ll post more updates later!