Is Seoul dull?

May 5, 2026May 5, 2026 ~ Chris ~ Leave a comment

Answer: sort of.

To be clear, Seoul is cool. Tasty food. Delightful, welcoming people. Comfortable climate. Neat culture. Efficient transportation. Lots of greenery. Er …

I’m running out of tepid superlatives.

When you go someplace faraway that turns out to be a partial disappointment, there’s not much you can do but shrug and eat the money you spent, doing it with a wincing grin and a strained bulwark around regret.

I just returned from a week in Seoul, South Korea, and while I had a fine time, ate well and overall enjoyed the novelty of an uncharted capital city, it was lacking the electricity, neon bang and enveloping fizz I was hoping for, and indeed feel I was promised in my exhaustive research for the trip.

Things that stood out: Korean fried chicken, which cheekily goes by the initials KFC but ably kicks that franchise’s ass as far as creativity and salivating edibility. Also Korean BBQ, which requires guests to grill slabs of raw pork or beef and veggies on a grill in the middle of their table, and is served with an array of traditional Korean sides, including, of course, kimchi, love it or hate it (I kinda like that spicy pickled cabbage).

A table mate cooking up Korean BBQ at the same place Anthony Bourdain ate his first K-BBQ.

What else? A clutch of world-class museums, like the Leeum Museum of Art, hosting riveting contemporary and traditional Korean art, and the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, where the first major Asian exhibition of British provocateur Damien Hirst (genius or charlatan?) was being showcased. Squirming with live octopuses, crabs and lobsters, and perfumed with tongue-tickling eons of Korean street food, the bustling Gwangjang Market offered excellent vittles — if you factor out the misbegotten “gelato” I dumbly bought.

And yet for all that, plus its plush verdancy — trees are abundant, parks plentiful — Seoul is far from the most handsome city I’ve visited. A hazy, pale brown sameness dominates and the skyline is crowded with towering forests of depressingly uniform apartment buildings that resemble the subsidized urban housing found in, say, New York.

I was underwhelmed. Maybe I set my sights too high. What I ask when I journey half-way round the globe is astonish me. I’ve been to adequate places before. The beaut that is Budapest, for one, didn’t knock my socks off. And Bologna, despite its undeniable gothic charm, failed to make my head spin. Arles: same. Buenos Aires: ditto.

In no particular order, I can rattle off twenty major cities that are more exciting, more charismatic, than Seoul, places I would gladly return to and have: Paris, Istanbul, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Rome, San Francisco, Barcelona, Lisbon, Madrid, Sevilla, Mexico City, Berlin, Naples, Ho Chi Minh City, Shanghai, Krakow, London, Florence, Mumbai, Bangkok.

What specifically let me down in Seoul? I won’t dwell on the negative — nothing was actually bad — though I will point out two areas of the city that are oversold.

First, Gyeongbokgung Palace. It actually is a magnificent spread of ancient royalty and spiritual significance. Until you learn that the palace was built in the 1500s but was destroyed over decades and partially rebuilt in 1960. What stands now comes from a long-term restoration project that began in the 1990s and is still ongoing.

Oh. One of those. It’s like looking at a museum model, so removed from the original structure that it seems fake, a Lego model kit. And this is considered the top site to visit in Seoul. Hit the snooze button.

The latest version of Gyeongbokgung Palace, where you stroll while your mind wanders to lunch plans.

Then there’s Seongsu-dong, Seoul’s premier “newtro” hotspot, often called the “Brooklyn of Seoul” for its blend of repurposed industrial factories, trendy cafes and fashion pop-ups. A huge draw is the gaudy Dior store, in front of which girls and women snap mortifying selfies for reasons unfathomable.

I actually paid a guide to shuttle me through this consumer orgasm on a tour he curated. He showed me sunglasses stores, phone and K-beauty stores. I would smile and nod, wondering, wha? He led me into pretty cafes and eateries, where we did not drink or eat. I would nod again, impressed, but not really.

On a happier note, my hotel was a dazzling oasis in the lively Itaewon district, stacked with elegant bars and restaurants and even featured one of Korea’s ever-reliable convenience stores (as in Japan and Hong Kong, 7-Eleven is ubiquitous). The impeccable staff at the hotel couldn’t have been more gracious and helpful. I’ve never said thank you so many times, so genuinely, in such a short period.

Still, in Seoul, Korea, the epicenter of all things high-tech, futuristic and culturally forward, and from whence sparkling K-pop was born and unleashed like lightning across the world, I couldn’t help but wonder … Where’s the pop?

From the South to South Korea: a drastic change in plans

March 2, 2026March 2, 2026 ~ Chris ~ 2 Comments

I’m supposed to be in Nashville right now. But I’m not, and I’m glad.

A trip down South was planned as a post-France jaunt, 3.5 days, fast, domestic, easy and fun. I’d do it in early March while the weather’s still mild, my final trip till the annual fall journey in October or November, wherever that may be.

I booked a Nashville hotel, some tours and great restaurants, and of course a flight. But very late in the game it struck me that the math wasn’t computing. The damn thing, for hardly four days in a city of modest attractions, was costing just shy what a longer trip abroad would cost. I blanched, then I panicked. What was I doing, numbskull?

This was two weeks ago, this brilliant epiphany I should have seen months ago. Text my brother, I thought and I did. He began firing off trip ideas — Granada and Valencia, Spain, for starters — then, boom, he sent me a swanky hotel bargain in … Seoul, South Korea. My immediate text response: “Oooooo.” A fire was lit.

Despite having in the past mulled Seoul as a destination, it never quite captured my imagination, even though it looks like the sister city — high rises, high tech, sleek and seductive, old and new — of Tokyo, one of my favorite places.

Quick like, I was on the web, from Chat GPT and Lonely Planet, to TripAdvisor and YouTube, researching and rummaging. And, hell, if Seoul wasn’t completely captivating. Pagodas meet K-Pop, kimchi mingles with Korean BBQ, and temples to godlike emperors and gaudy consumerism abound. I checked mid-April weather (cool to warmish) and saw that it’s also peak cherry blossom season. What!

I’m a capricious creature, incurably impulsive, too often following my gut before my head (see: Nashville). But while this reversal — I booked the Seoul hotel and swapped my Nashville flight credits for Korea credits — is dramatic and sudden, it is not rash.

Rash implies foolish and reckless. This time I’ve thought it out, lured to a place I’ve never been, based on hours of homework. Frankly, my heart was never fully in Nashville. It was whimsical, poorly reasoned. They may serve soul food there, but they don’t serve Seoul food. Tours are booked — I might be most excited about the “Anthony Bourdain Ultimate Korean BBQ Experience,” and why not? — hotel secured, etc. The flights are a time-sucking monstrosity — 20-some hours — but you gotta roll with it if you’re committed.

I am at peace. I’m also madly excited.

Hong Kong hustle

January 26, 2025 ~ Chris ~ Leave a comment

Bustling, blinding Kowloon, Hong Kong (the only photo here I didn’t take)

The last time I was in Hong Kong it was the early aughts, swamp-butt sweltering in May and as crowded and jostling as Times Square on a swarming summer night.

Laptop open, I write this on my return to the sprawling urban archipelago, propped on my hotel bed, gazing out at floor-to-ceiling views of striking Victoria Harbor and about ten thousand skyscrapers, a glass and steel thicket that plays exuberantly off the verdant, low-slung mountains that make Hong Kong’s terrain so famously picturesque — columns of concrete hugged by lavish foliage.

On one side of the narrow harbor is the at once lush and deliriously vertical Hong Kong Island; on the other side is Kowloon, all crackling neon bustle, where I’m staying. It’s January and a merciful 65 degrees and the colorful crowds are maddening and unbudging and beautiful. It’s a blast, really.

Politically, Hong Kong is of course a complicated place, a “special administration region” of mainland China, operating with the constitutional principle of “one country, two systems.” If you follow the news you know how that’s working out, bumpy at best. I vow not to write anything here that will rankle the tetchy government and get me deported or worse. I’m not a big fan of prison meals.

I’m on day four of six, and so far I’ve taken a six-hour walking tour of city highlights; watched the popular Wednesday night horse races at the fabled Happy Valley track; did a day trip to the island of Macau, a Portuguese territory until 1999 and, thanks to its glitzy-kitschy casinos, known as the Las Vegas of Asia; visited two exceptional art galleries and the impressively sleek Hong Kong Museum of Art; relished a private three-hour food tour with the sweet, dynamic and aptly named guide Angel who offered everything from dim sum to donuts as well as cultural and historical appetizers; and strolled the renown Temple Street Night Market, where heaps of cheap souvenirs, name-brand knock-offs, geriatric karaoke, fortune tellers, and grilled octopus and other exotic street vittles conspire for an electric buzz.

Hong Kong is curious. Its population of 7.5 million — unfailingly polite and helpful are these folks — skews palpably young; every other person looks to be between 15 and 35, though officially the median age is 46, which is young, but still. As a former British colony, English is pervasive. I haven’t spoken a word of Chinese, not even a “hello” or “thank you,” which is about the extent of my local vocabulary when abroad.

In many ways, from the sheer human density to the boisterous food culture, HK reminds me of Tokyo. Excitement reigns. Weaving among bodies on the skinny sidewalks — many of those bodies staring at their phones — you pass shops hawking chunky beef offal, luxury bags and watches, shark fins and sea cucumbers, medicinal herbs and incense. And scads of busy 7-Eleven stores, like two per block. It’s a carnival of smells, sights, lights and humanity — especially as it’s the Lunar New Year, year of the snake — a heady, bracing brew that fuels my love of travel, my intemperate wanderlust that makes my heart pound and my feet ache with throbbing delight.

Some Hong Kong visuals so far: