Los Angeles and Seoul - two very different city breaks

Venice Beach, USA

We arrived at LAX airport in Los Angeles, California on 6th March after a 6-hour flight from Panama. Luckily, we sped through the airport and had a very nice custom officer, who said we were not staying anywhere near long enough. We had two nights booked in LA, as this was one of the best flight routes from Panama to South Korea and then onto the Philippines. It was Rory first time in California, Liv had been twice already but when she was under 18.

We spent our 2 nights staying in Venice beach neighbourhood which we really liked. Venice is a buzzing beach town which is known for its bohemia spirit. The boardwalk had plenty of street performers, artists and quirky shops, like crystal stalls running alongside it. We spent the first afternoon walking from Venice to Santa Monica pier, along the wide sandy palm tree lined beach. As expected, there were plenty of people skateboarding, rollerblading, cycling and jogging alongside us. The weather was lovely, it felt like a crips spring day, about 12 degrees but blue sky and sunny, a real change from the tropical climate of Panama.

Santa Monica pier is a large double-jointed pier, constructed in 1909 which is covered in fair ground rides and an amusement park, it is also one end of the famous Route 66. We wondered along the pier and looked out over the Pacific Oceans rolling waves and along the California coast and up into the mountains.

That evening we watched the skateboarding at the Venice skatepark, which was constructed in 2009, costing $3.5m, the most expensive skatepark in the world. The locals spent almost 20 years campaigning to get it built, as skateboarding is such a big part of the Venice beach lifestyle. It is said that skateboarding was invented in this part of southern California in the 1970’s. The skating was seriously impressive, with people doing flips, jumps and grinds as the Californian sun set behind them.

The following day we got up early and walked around the Venice canals. There are 4 main canals which are in a residential area and run for about a quarter of a mile with little bridges crossing them. It’s a really cute area, with beautiful reflections, and lots of different style houses, with moorings and little boats in front of them. The Venice area was founded in 1905 by the tobacco millionaire Abbot Kinney, who dug miles of canals in order to drain the marshy area so he could build his residence. However, in 1924 the city filled in most of the canals and replaced them by roads, with only a small amount remaining today.

After a delicious free breakfast of bagels in our hostel, we got an Uber for about 20 minutes to the Getty Museum which is in the hills looking overlooking LA. The museum was built in 1997 and is a big white imposing complex, which can be seen for miles. We spent a lovely morning there wondering the well-designed gardens, looking at the impressive views and wide range of artwork.

The artwork was predominantly European dating from 1830’s to present day. The museum was totally free, although we did book our slots online that morning and we also downloaded the app which gave us audio descriptions for most paintings. We saw paintings by Monet, Degas, Vemeer, Turner, Manet and Van Goughs well know Irises.

Later that day we went to the legendary “In-N-Out” burger as Liv had never had one. She wasn’t disappointed!

We spent the rest of the day wondering the chic shops of Abbot Kinney boulevard in the Venice area.

Seoul, South Korea

The next morning, we flew with Air Premia, a new budget Korea airline for 14 hours to Seoul. We crossed a date line and landed a day later, 9th March at about 3pm, by this stage we were both pretty disoriented and jet lagged as a result of the 17-hour time difference. The weather was foggy, grey and cold but we were excited to be there and couldn’t wait to see Annie (Rory’s stepsister) and her friend Rachel who have come to meet us for a week’s holiday.

We got the metro to our hostel. It was very easy to use with signs in English and was very clean and efficient. We were staying in the cool student area of Hongdae, near Hongik University, which had lots of cool boutique fashion shops, cafes and bars. We saw a huge amount of Selfie shops which had a big array of hats, masks and glasses, which we made the most of on our last day.

Our first dinner with Annie & Rach was great. It’s so nice to catch up with them and see Annie. We had such fun over the next 5 days exploring different areas of the city, visiting food markets and tourist attractions. Culinary highlights included, Korea BBQ, Korea fried chicken, Soju (strong flavoured rice wine), Kimchi, eating at Gwangjang Market and a fish market.

Noryangjin Fish Market was a unique experience, it was like going to an aquarium, where you then eat the exhibits. We saw all sorts of fish and seafood. Sea worms (Penis fish), octopus, clams, tuna, flounders, rockfish and oysters. After choosing our selection it was then taken to the restaurants upstairs to be prepared. We had some scary looking live octopus which was wriggling around the plate and Rory even had one suction onto his tongue! Also, some really good crab which was then fried with rice. It was a really cool experience, but we did notice that our clothes stunk of fish for the following few days!

We walked around the Bukchon Hanok village and went into the house, lots of tourists had hired traditional dress for the occasion. We wondered around Insadong street, which had lots of tea houses and artisan shops and spent a day at the demilitarized zone (DMZ) on the border with North Korea.

The DMZ is a strip of land running across the Korean peninsula and acts as a border barrier diving North & South. We went with a tour company (the only way you can visit) and learnt a lot about the history of Korea, the Japanese occupation of the peninsula, the division of north and south which happened in 1948 as a result of the Cold War and the Korean War of 1950-53. We heard some tragic stories of divided family’s and lost children who had been taken north. On the tour we went down an infiltration tunnel that North Korea had dug to be used for an invasion on Seoul. We saw the remains of a train which had bullet holes in it from the war, and the “bridge of no return” which featured in James Bonds “Die Another day” movie. We also got to spy on North Korea, from a hill which had lots of binoculars set up on! Although it was very interesting, the whole trip took ages with a lot of loitering around car parks waiting for our slot, as the security was very strict, and our passports had to be checked regularly by the army.

Our final day with Annie & Rach was spent doing a city open top bus tour. The sun was shining and although it was freezing the city looked extremely beautiful.

We loved our time in Seoul. The city was clean, easy to travel, had such a range of quirky shops and interesting architecture, lots of weird food (chicken feet were very popular) bright city lights and the people were friendly. Rory compared it to Tokyo but a more easy-going version. However, the best bit about it was seeing Annie, and it was so nice of her to come all the way to see us.