Seoul Searching.

Having taken many solo trips around the country, I decided to treat me self to a vacation to Seoul last year. 

I’ve never argued this before but I believe that a solo trip in India for a female traveler is often more challenging than one abroad, but like many other threads on this blog, it’s a discussion for another day (read never... only if you got to see my drafts folder!)

I never really intended to visit Seoul. Except for a brief period in 2002 when Korea hosted the FIFA World Cup and they advertised Korea as ‘Japan, but cheaper.’ As a matter of fact the original plan was to make a solo trip to Japan in 2016 but that didn’t happen for a variety of reasons. Then one day, Foo Fighters announced their 2017 Asia tour dates to Japan, Seoul, Singapore and Thailand. “Hmmm...” as my brain thought “It’s a perfect opportunity for me to visit Japan AND enjoy a Foo Fighters performance!” But... They were headlining a music fest. I would have had to buy tickets to the festival itself. Now, I do not enjoy music festivals as much as I would like to and I’ve never fully understood the reason for it, but I do like music concerts and band performances. So I was getting less and less invested in my Japanese vacation and looked closer towards home. Singapore or Thailand would have been cheaper and easier for sure but I've never really wanted to visit Singapore or Thailand.

But Korea: so much like Japan. East enough. Unique enough. Quirky enough. Cheaper than Japan enough. And Foo Fighters at Jamisil stadium enough. Also performing was Liam Gallagher. Sure, why not. (And he sang Wonderwall during his set, how could he not!) So I booked my concert ticket online in May and declared my intention to visit Seoul.

I begun planning the rest of my trip to Seoul. I love it when I’m going to a place alone. I can have my own agenda and PoA. Like:

Meet and hang out with new people on activities like a small group food tour (which I suggest wherever possible.) Walk into impromptu hip hop concerts in public squares with aforementioned new person(s) (that happened btw.) Find out a lot of Koreans attend concerts alone. Yes even women. I’m not comfortable doing that in India even when I really want to. I’ve done it before and it’s uncomfortable AF. But here I was with my people. Cycle around the city exploring it on the day it rained so much even the locals were complaining and get soaked to the bone yet not fall sick.Have an extremely grumpy old man instruct, nay scold me in a pottery shop on how to select the wares and after getting my ethnicity right after ten minutes of guesswork cracking me the biggest smile, giving me a discount and rolling my purchase on large sheets of delicate handmade paper someone practiced Korean calligraphy on. I’ve carefully unrolled and pressed those sheets on my return. (There’s nothing rude written on it, I checked on google translate)

A week before my trip, I found out that a friend’s cousin lived in Seoul with his wife and their baby and I volunteered to transport some dry Indian rations for them. It was fun meeting them, I must say. It seems there are more than five thousand Indians living in Seoul many of who are students studying in the many universities dotting the city. And the funny part is, there are many Korean students studying in schools in Pune. Since the medium of studies in public school education there is in Korean, they can’t speak much English. And like any good Asians (I mean the entire continent) their ultimate aim is to migrate to the USA. They send their children to live in India and study in good schools here where the medium of learning is English. And where the fees and stay are cheaper than living in Korea and studying in an international school. Interacting with the locals, it seemed to me that the pressure on an Indian child to do well in exams and succeed in life is nothing compared to what the Korean kids go through.

I loved every moment of my Seoul sojourn. And Soju. I learned how to make a Soju Bomb- a cocktail with Soju, beer and Coca Cola or Pepsi If you prefer. The Korean air logo has always reminded me of Pepsi’s old logo. As an army kid I’ve for a brief period lived near an International Airport close to the Cantonment and my terrace was in close visual range to the landing path of aircrafts and I know many airline logos from the late 90s.

My flight had a stopover at HK and since I’ve always wanted to visit HK, I planned take a five day stopover there. 

I decided to take some advice from someone I know who used to live there. He was surprised: ‘what’re you going to do alone in HK for five days?’ 

Well I had no fixed plans. But I had a list of things I wanted to see and do and see and do I did. Alone. And I had the best time. I reached HK the day after Cyclone Hato wrecked havoc there, but no signs of it having struck were visible when I arrived. Barely three days later there was a storm warning and everyone was told to be indoors for more than half the day. HK was a revelation. Like what I had come to expect after having watched countless Jackie Chan movies, but so much more. The 

Where Seoul was quiet and highly civilised and squeaky clean, HK is closer to home. It’s like a slightly more glossy Hollywood dystopian version of Mumbai but slightly cleaner and more vertical. I mean I hardly clicked any photos in portrait mode! Speaking of which, this was the first major holiday of my adult life where I didn’t carry a DSLR. I used my phone(s). I edited photos on my phone and almost a year after my trip to the Far East, I’ve uploaded select photos on Flickr. 

HK fascinated me. The location, topography, the density, noise, verticality, the transport network, rain, humidity, heat, culture, food parks etc etc. The buildings in HK don't have a character, but HK does: The buildings in Hong Kong have no character. But the island does: dense characterless vertical buildings with narrow roads along gradual slopes. And the best part of my trip was a very therapeutic walk on the Peak trail from evening till after sunset to watch the lights come on. Twice.

An interesting bit about my holiday was it’s timing, although I didn’t at the time of planning envisage the repercussions of some delicate geopolitical standoffs. Yes, plural. Because there were two and almost simultaneously and may have potentially had an effect on my holiday had the situations snowballed. Call it instinct, calculated guess, whatever, but I was confident that wouldn't happen. And thankfully my instinct was right. You see, It was August of 2017, The US were facing a North Korean threat and North Korea's militarised zone lies barely a hundred kilometers North of Seoul. Half day DMZ tours are very popular with the tourists, but I've seen enough borders in conflict areas in India to want to see this more. I was told that fewer tourists visited Seoul that season, especially from North America.

The second one was the Indian and Chinese standoff after the Doklam kerfuffle. A couple of days before I flew out from Mumbai, people were beginning to worry. War with China, even a limited one had started to look like a real possibility. It appeared more serious than past standoffs, and I was going to go to HK which is after all, part of China. Someone in Seoul asked me the North Korean situation didn't scare me off when I told him the grim reality of our situation back home. I told him that we are in a constant state of a proxy war with not only Pakistan, but China too. And this flare up for us is just like any other Thursday. We hate it, but have to deal with it to get to Friday. He Said he knew about the Indo-Pak conflict but not about the Chinese problem. Yet, he wasn't surprised: "China is a big headache for us too." Everyone has a Chinese problem it seems. He made another comment that made me think. While talking about his cross country cycling expedition, he asked me if I had heard about Busan. I said I had because the city had hosted the 2002 Asian Games. He looked at me surprised and puzzled. "How do you know about the Asian games?" he asked. "Because my country participates in them." I replied. He thought for a second and said "Oh right... India is such a big country and identity that I forgot that it's a part of Asia."

On the way to Seoul when tensions between India and China were at their peak, I had a flight changeover at HK where I accidentally walked into the immigration line instead of the transfer gates. The lady at the line asked me to get into a separate line for Indians. On the way from Seoul to HK a week later when tensions were diffused, no separate line.

The excitement didn't end at HK though. A day before I was to fly back, rains lashed and flooded Mumbai and caused a lot of disruption. Flights were cancelled, roads were closed, lots of rumours about the expressway to Mumbai being closed were floating around. Friends were updating me on the situation as it unfolded, but I wasn't too worried. Thankfully the situation wasn't bad when I landed. I got a taxi at midnight to my friend's house, and the roads were empty. Caught a bus to Pune the next afternoon and I was home two weeks later after what was a really good trip!

The sole intention of this post was to share links of my trip photos here. I could have easily done without all this text but sometimes I simply can’t help myself.