Return from South Korea

Well that also completes my last trip while over here!

It started with a train journey down to Shinjuku, Tokyo on Tuesday night. Kedist and I were looking for a specific Love Hotel (something you have to try when you are in Japan). But we couldn't find it. But we did find a little street lined with about 4 different hotels. We picked one, ran in, quickly selected the room and ran upstairs. The room was actually really nice. It looked a bit like a log cabin, but it had a tatami mat room with a low table and floor chairs. The bedroom had red lanterns above the bed. This love hotel, called Hotel New L Sky, was actually pretty plain from what we've heard. Others have saunas, karaoke machines and video games, but ours had none of that. In the room however there was a dildo vending machine. I think that's a standard for any love hotel.

Anyway, we started the next morning with breakfast, after running out of the love hotel to avoid being spotted, then we made our way to the airport. We got to Korea without problems, we were picked up at the airport by a really nice tour guide who spoke fluent English and she gave us loads of great advice. After being dropped off at the hotel we took the subway to find a Pizza Hut (don't have them in Japan), had dinner and then went to the 24hr market area. It was great! Unfortunately our night was cut short at around 1am because it was starting to rain.

The next day we went on a tour of about 3 palaces. They were all so beautiful! Bright colours, some surrounded by mountains, it was great. It wasn't raining but it wasn't really sunny either. Not too hot or too cold though. At a smaller palace, a woman gave us a tour in English, but she pretty much made us run from place to place, we had to go back around to take photos, but she was nice! We went to Burger King (another place we don't have in Japan), and then went to the main night market. We took a cab back to our hotel.

The next morning we went out to a prehistoric village where they had original sites of pit houses from the Stone Ages. The man in the exhibition hall gave us a free tour in English and was super nice. He kept wanting us to take photos everywhere. After we went to another palace we didn't get to see the day before and we met Kedist's friend there who is living in S. Korea. We toured that palace and the National Museum of History, ate lunch and then went to the 63 building. This is Seoul's tallest building, at 63 floors. It took 1min 20sec to get to the observation deck by elevator. The view was quite nice. This was followed by one more trip to the markets!

Then today, we basically just woke up, were picked up by the tour guide again and taken back to the airport. We had a pretty stop at a Kimuchi shop, were we did a tasting of various types of kimuchi. It's their traditional food, its basically spicy, rotten cabbage, but it's really good. On the way from from Narita to Utsunomiya the driver got lost so we were 40 mins delayed!!!

I thought Seoul was a beautiful city. A lot of it is alongside the Han River, South Korea's fourth largest river, and there are dozens of bridges that are brightly lit at night. Including a bridge that looks like the Olympic torch (built for the '88 Olympics). It was so nice to be in a city that has actually space and so much nature. All of the palaces are in the city center, but they have so much land around them. It's so interesting to see these very traditional sites mixed in with the modern architecture of the city.

There were many differences I found between Japan and South Korea. First the people in S. Korea, or at least in Seoul, seem to be a lot pushier, where Japanese people tend to be push-overs. I don't think they'd take half as much crap that the Japanese do. And, the Korean's were so willing to help you and speak English to you. In Japan, no one will talk to you (usually unless you force them to), where as in Korea they were always asking if you needed help AND they spoke ot you in English. Also, I do have to admit that their English is a dozen times better!!!

Also interesting, about 80% of the cars were Hyundai it seemed. Of the other 20%, I'd say 10% were KIA and the remaining 10% were miscellaneous. They drive on the "normal" side, but they all drive like bats out of hell. However, still not nearly as bad as in Thailand!!!

Other things I noticed and were different to Japan:

• next to no bicycles
• open space! no crowding, riding the subway was a pleasure!
• woman had normal, nice fashion sense
• wider streets
• much fewer HIGH (impossible to walk in) heels
• couples were really touchy-feely, men carried women's purses

I really enjoyed myself though. It was a nice way to end my time over here on this side of the world. I will certainly miss traveling once I am back home. But the rest will be really nice too I am sure!!

That's all I can think of right now, but I am getting really tired, and I have to be up early again tomorrow. No work, but am going to Reiko's house. She was my TOEIC (Test of English for International Communication) student and she invited me over. After that I am going to the goodbye party a bunch of students are having for me. So it'll be a long day, though I'm sure it'll be super nice!

If you are interested take a look at my PHOTOS!!!