10 September 2011
Love Hotels
Single update for this afternoon and this evening. In the afternoon I tried to go to Gangnam. When I say tried, it seems I got out of the subway and went the wrong way. I wasnt worried, it was interesting looking at the various back streets I found myself in, but my confidence in 'there will be a subway station soon' was wrong, as the way I went was a line under construction.
Eventually the road signs said 'COEX' which I remembered was a giant underground mall that has a subway station, so I followed those signs, for 6.5km.
When I got there I was pretty exhausted, so basically walked straight through it, had a giant no fat frozen yoghurt and came home.
In the evening, I decided to head out on foot, cause you can never do enough walking right? I wasnt at all hungry following my frozen yoghurt, so didnt really plan to have a meal, instead I had some baked goods. The route I took was north of Myeongdong which came to more closed streets for market food and an amazing amount of cafes.
Cafes are the korean version of pubs, it seems no one really drinks, they go to cafes and sip chocolate drinks with cream filled goods instead.
However, in this area were lots of barbers poles (you dont get haircuts in these basement places), and 1 hour love hotels.
I realised I had stumbled onto the wrong side of the tracks when I saw a few large old men speaking Russian. I also saw a hilarious Korean biker gang, ride past in their leather...on scooters. I nearly laughed out loud.
Wandering down a lane lined with love hotels, they have vertical blinds that come down half way so you cant see whos coming and going, but I saw a guy come out of one in leather pants, some sort of mesh shirt with a big gold chain, a mohawk, sunglasses, and 4 girls.
Only food pic for the day, my no fat yoghurt meal, it was enormous, but I was starving.
A night time shot of the stream that runs through the city, had lots of peopel walking along it hand in hand. North of this stream is where things started to get a little more...colorful.
I was amazed to find more and more streets closed off to traffic full of restaurants and cafes. Theres at least 25 different cafe chains. I might have to give some another chance.
Thats a huge amount of dumplings.
Laneway full of hotels, they have signs showing you what rooms look like, some of them have beds with extra features, rotating, vibrating, also theres a lot of karaoke lounges around here with private booths.
Back nearer my hotel (starbucks didnt exist north of the stream that I saw), there are a large number of cinemas. The latest release movie is Mr Poppers Penguins, dubbed in Korean. I will probably give that a miss.
Last photo for today, I am amused this homeless guy has constructed himself a cardboard bed, on a stage.
Relatively small update, needed to be back at hotel for F1 qualifying, amazingly I get Star Sports live which has the telecast in English. Same deal tomorrow night for the race.