We arrived in the dark of the night at Incheon Airport, just a short bus ride from our hostel. You cannot see anything when you arrive somewhere at night, so the drive was a dark blur. Korea still a mystery. The real fun began when we got off the bus and followed directions to our hostel. On the street level at night, you can sense the energy behind a place, and our neighborhood in Seoul had energy. You could feel it zipping along your arms and up and down your legs. Bright lights lit the street and we passed many restaurants, fish and eels gliding in tanks. We made a mental note to avoid any restaurants with live eels swimming outside. A mental note we were able to keep throughout the trip.
The directions to the hostel were excellent and we found our way, only to discover our host could not open the door to our complex. I'm not sure what happened, but he apparently did not know the code for getting in. We were stuck in the lobby waiting for the door company man, and escaped to the city to find something to eat.
Cutting through the neighborhood, we discovered restaurants all around. We were surrounded by restaurants. Unfortunately, all the writing was in Korean and we did not know any Korean. We looked at pictures, but they only helped so much as well because we were no Korean culinary experts, either. Besides, the picture of the soft, pink piglet on the wall of one restaurant only made me want to swear off pork for the rest of my life. A Babe killer I was not.Eventually we settled on a restaurant that said "Traditional Korean Restaurant" in small letters on the outside, figuring that was a good sign there might be some English in the restaurant. Apparently we weren't too good at figuring, but they did have a picture menu, with three choices, all very meat heavy. We tried to point to the picture of bowls of noodles, but got some incomprehensible, but insistent Korean. I am not sure why, but we were not allowed to have bowls of noodles. We needed to order the bulgogi, or Korean barbecue. We put the meat in a big leaf of lettuce and added various other ingredients spread on our table, some onions, chives, spicy red sauce of some sort, and some vegetable that was similar to water chestnut (but not). We also had some soft tofu that I never did figure out how we were supposed to use. The combination was very good, and we ended up with way too much food that we somehow managed to consume, turning into overfilled balloons for our return walk to the hostel. It was all topped off with a refreshing sweet rice drink called sinkhae.
We stumbled our way back to the hostel to discover the lounge area empty, no manager in sight. Our bags had disappeared and the door to our room, an adjacent building to the main hostel building, was still locked. Thankfully, we found another tenant who could tell us the passcode to get into the building and we found our things safely stashed in the room. We had survived the first night and managed to get dinner in Seoul.
Our first day in Seoul was a busy day and we spent a lot of time on our feet. At some point, we are going to learn that to truly enjoy a vacation you need to take it easy, not just see as many sights as possible. We have yet to learn that lesson, though, and found ourselves trekking all over downtown Seoul, taking in the sights the city had to offer. We tried out the metro system (fantastic) and got out at Anguk station, near some of the ancient palaces of the Joseon empire of Korea. We saw a Taekwondo performance in front of the folk museum, with lots of flying and spinning kicks. It reminded me of the slapping game I played as a kid, where you try to slap another person in the face without getting slap but don't actually hit them very hard because they were spinning around fast without making real solid contact and then pretending to be hurt. Actually a very entertaining show, a display of athleticism and comedy. It was probably the best show we saw in Seoul.
We walked next door to the Geongbokgung palace and saw the pavilion in the lily pond with a great view of the mountains in the background. We walked around the palace and looked in the different rooms. We saw the throne. After a while all the palace buildings start looking alike, but it was a beautiful ground and great place for a day of strolling.
We accidentally found ourselves hiking up Bugaksan Mt. in the neighboring park, my wife doing the whole hike in her flats. We probably made some poor decisions about how much walking to do on our first day, but we had a great time and I suppose that is most important.
Food was a big theme of Seoul, and we looked for noodles wherever we could find them. And lots of kimchi, which was of course included with every meal. We found a nice place for noodles for lunch on our first day. How could we tell? Well, they had nice pictures on the outside with English translations, so we figured if nothing else worked we could point hysterically at the picture. It worked out and was very tasty, though the stainless steel chopsticks were a little challenging to use. For dinner, we found a nice place in the Insadong neighborhood that had many traditional Korean dishes and a menu with English translations. Again, the pictures outside the restaurant were very important in our decision to try it out. Obviously the best way to get foreign clientele to a restaurant is to display pictures of delicious looking food prominently outside your place of business. It worked for us.
We rolled our way back to our hostel to rest up for a big hike the next day. Our feet were aching from walking on them all day. We really need to learn to take it easy on our vacations. Dreams of rocky peaks, aching feet, and gasps for air filled my sleep. I was absolutely delighted about what would unfold the next day.
We walked next door to the Geongbokgung palace and saw the pavilion in the lily pond with a great view of the mountains in the background. We walked around the palace and looked in the different rooms. We saw the throne. After a while all the palace buildings start looking alike, but it was a beautiful ground and great place for a day of strolling. 
We accidentally found ourselves hiking up Bugaksan Mt. in the neighboring park, my wife doing the whole hike in her flats. We probably made some poor decisions about how much walking to do on our first day, but we had a great time and I suppose that is most important.
Food was a big theme of Seoul, and we looked for noodles wherever we could find them. And lots of kimchi, which was of course included with every meal. We found a nice place for noodles for lunch on our first day. How could we tell? Well, they had nice pictures on the outside with English translations, so we figured if nothing else worked we could point hysterically at the picture. It worked out and was very tasty, though the stainless steel chopsticks were a little challenging to use. For dinner, we found a nice place in the Insadong neighborhood that had many traditional Korean dishes and a menu with English translations. Again, the pictures outside the restaurant were very important in our decision to try it out. Obviously the best way to get foreign clientele to a restaurant is to display pictures of delicious looking food prominently outside your place of business. It worked for us.
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