My good friends Nick and Nicki met me at the airport and we took a bus back to their apartment, which was on the 12th floor of a 24-story building on a busy 14 lane road/highway in the Gangnam area of Seoul. If you've never heard of Gangnam, or if you have heard of it and are wondering why it sounds familiar, check out this music video by the artist Psy that went viral (almost 90 million hits on YouTube and counting).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bZkp7q19f0
Their apartment was large and bright with all wooden floors and sliding doors, and of course we took our shoes off as soon as we entered. I've grown more accustomed to this tradition the longer I live in Europe, and it is especially important in Scandinavian and Asian cultures. After we grabbed takeaway lunch of Bibimbap, a traditional Korean "salad" consisting of rice, ground beef, bean sprouts, mushrooms, carrots, lettuce, spicy red pepper sauce, all with a fried egg on top, we waited for a workman to come to their house to fix their internet. Coming from Switzerland, where businesses are not especially helpful and will laugh if you expect work to be done on a weekend, I was impressed that it was possible to get service on a Saturday. What I realized with a grin, however, is that if you're a workman in Korea it's very important to have clean socks every day because when you go into someone's house you have to take off your shoes.
We all showered for the 2nd time that day, becuase it was unbelievably hot and humid, and headed out to meet the rest of our friends at the restaurant they had booked to celebrate my 30th birthday in the Insadong area of Seoul. Insadong is a neighborhood in the Jongno-gu district of Seoul and began 500 years ago as an area of residence for government officials. Now it is one of the largest markets for antiques, craftwork, and artwork in Korea. According to Wikipedia, "Insadong-gil is "well known as a traditional street to both locals and foreigners" and represents the "culture of the past and the present". It contains a mixture of historical and modern atmosphere and is a "unique area of Seoul that truly represents the cultural history of the nation.""The main street is connected to a huge network of alleys that twist and turn behind and around the buildings.
Our restaurant, called Sanchon, was at the very end of one of those tiny alleys which jetted off on its course about halfway down the main street, and was clearly reserved for those who could make a strong effort to find it. It served traditional vegetarian Korean Temple cooking, and was run by a former monk who learned his cooking skills during his training. The inside was decorated in intricately carved dark solid wood mixed with a forest of dark green plants and bright tropical flowers. The food was served in a succession of individual portions in what seemd like hundreds of simple wooden bowls until by the end of the meal the table was no longer visible under the deluge of small vessels. As we ate dancers performed traditional Korean dances in heavy layers of colorful robes. It was the absolute perfect place to celebrate with friends, and the dinner ended with a lovely chocolate cake (brought in by one of my friends) which we ate, naturally, with chopsticks.
After the dinner we headed for, what else, karoake, at a place nearby. In most Asian karoake places each group of friends gets their own private room, which is wonderful because you get to sing all the songs for as long as you want to stay and don't have to suffer through terrible songs sung badly by people you don't know. It also helps the shyer people sing more because they are not standing in front of a large room of people. About a third of the available songs were American or British pop, so we had plenty to sing. After karaoke we ended up at a small sports bar where we watched South Korea play Great Britain in the Men's Quarterfinal Olympic football (soccer) matchup, while we debated American politics. Korea won the game, and would go on to win the bronze medal in that Olympics, becoming only the second Asian nation to medal in football.
The night ended in the early hours and we stumbled out of the taxi and into bed, gulping a large glass of water on the way. Turning 30 never felt so good.
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