Korea, Tourist style (Part II: Daegu & back to Seoul)
We took a late night KTX from Seoul to Daegu and made it to my place pretty late. We set out the next day to cram a full “Daegu experience” into one day, but stopped first for brunch downtown at my favorite breakfast spot, Chris Do’s. First stop was Seomun Market, Daegu’s biggest traditional market. The market is made up of lots of fishy smells, funny socks, and hundreds of stalls each devoted to a single product. Down each path there are numerous individual food vendors ready to serve up lunch for you to enjoy a midst busy shoppers. It’s actually a great place to pick up ingredients and household items for a good price and I’m surprised I haven’t been stopping here more often.
We grabbed the metro and went somewhere new to me, Duryu Park. I’m realizing that I have not been checking out enough of Daegu’s major attractions. Duryu park is home to our amusement park, Woobang Land, as well as a war memorial, art museum, amphitheater, and a lake. We walked around enjoying the scenery and the view of Daegu and stumbled upon a partially excavated tomb as well as some interesting statues and pathways. Eventually the cold started to get to us and we decided the time for outdoor activities was over and went back downtown to meet friends for dinner.
Most of my friends were unfortunately enjoying their vacations abroad but luckily some were still in town and we went out for jjimgalbi. In order for Phil to get the proper Daegu-night-out experience we stopped at Vinaroo for drink-in-a-bag, the farthest you will ever see 5,000won go for a cocktail, and then ended the night at one of my favorite bars, MF (which stands for “My Favorite”, imagine that). We had an early train back to Seoul the next morning so we said and early goodbye and Phil’s whirlwind Daegu experience ended. It was so nice having him in my Korean “hometown” that it just hasn’t felt the same here since he left. This visit really was far too short.
The next day we went back to Seoul and were supposed to spend that day with Phil’s parents but their tour had them scheduled to visit the snow that day so we were on our own. With Phil being exhausted from a week of overcoming jet lag and travelling non-stop, we weren’t too ambitious with our final full day. We were back in Myeongdong and decided to hunt out a hidden Jeonju style bibimbap restaurant apparently famous with Japanese tourists. The place really was packed with Japanese tourists, just as I had read it would be. The food was really good and the service was fantastic so if you are able to actually find the place I would definitely recommend it. We spent the afternoon wandering a hanok village near Myeongdong that was preparing for its New Year’s festivities. Another interestingly traditional site plopped right in the middle of bustling, modern Seoul.
In the evening we decided it was time for Phil to have some Korean BBQ IN Korea. We tried Nongoljip in Gangnam after reading it was a great bang for your buck type of place and I have to agree. The service here was great and the restaurant was really cozy. Heading to the other side of Gangnam we checked out Asia’s largest underground shopping center, COEX before calling it a night.
On Sunday we checked out, walked around for a bit and grabbed lunch, just enjoying the day until we had to head to Seoul Station so Phil could grab the train to the airport. It was a really fun but really fast week and having Phil come and go like that has left me extremely homesick in a way I never thought I would be. I’ve never really been one to get homesick and geeze.. it really sucks. I am so happy Phil got to visit, even if for so short a time, and that I could show him a bit of my life in Daegu!!!
