First Weekend in Korea

Flying from Yonago airport was like flying from Toronto to Detroit. We were really only up in the air long enough to have lunch. Not the best airline lunch I've ever had though. Takeoff is my favourite part of flying, but I loath the landings... something about that point just before the wheels touch down where you know you're about 1 meter above the tarmac just makes me feel queezy. Incheon airport is about an hours drive from where we were heading in Seoul, the bus taking us along a highway through an estuary full of birds of all shapes and sizes. Pretty neat looking, but I couldn't help feeling that having the highway running through it had to have some pretty significant effects. I was talking to someone a while ago about Asia not really having much in the way of environmentalism. I couldn't help but wonder about that, seeing all the construction in places that my instincts, training and experience tell me are sensitive. Not a thing I could really do about it, but it still makes me think. That's probably the important thing, but I wish I could do something when I see things like that.

Anyway, Seoul is a pretty amazing city. It feels a bit like Rome in that it's built all over a bunch of hills. It's one hell of a lot more colourful than any city I've seen in Japan and there are more people out and about doing healthy activities like jogging, cycling, inline skating etc. Actually there are more people out "taking exercise" than in any other city I've ever seen. Neither are there many obese people here. Quite remarkable really.

The city's pretty smoggy. The traffic is terrifying (if you're a pedestrian, anyway). The city is also tremendously varied. There is one area called Itaewon that's an absolute haven for foreigners. Walking around there, I feel like I'm in Toronto. It's really quite a neat place.

Our accomodation on the first evening was supposed to be at the Windroad hostel near a couple of the universities and some palaces. We dropped in, left our stuff, the attendant saying that our rooms were just being fixed up. I figured they were being cleaned or something. Nigel and I went off to get some food, finding a bunch of hot rice stuff like bibimbap but different. Very tasty. However, upon getting back to the hostel to meet Nigel's friend Steve, who's studying Mandarin in Beijing, we found that our rooms weren't being cleaned, they were being renovated. "Done by 10" they kept saying, "Done by 10, no problems". It being 6 and they being in the process of installing the lights into a room with a concrete floor and no paint, we were perhaps rightly skeptical. We complained and argued and haggled over a price for these non-existent rooms before deciding that Nigel's other friend Victoria probably wouldn't go for the place, even if they did somehow manage to get beds with clean sheets into the rooms by 10 at night. Nigel, Steve and I figured we'd stay if we could get the rooms for 5000 won each, but our standards simply required beds, sheets and a door to keep out the dogs. Anyway, it didn't go well, so we hit an internet cafe, where to our surprise easily 50 kids our age (all male) were glued to 19 inch screens, playing video games. We managed to snag a couple of computers and set about finding somewhere in this overbooked city to set up kip. We found a place somewhere on the south side of the Han river at a guy's apartment. He was renting out his extra rooms as a guesthouse. It was actually pretty super. Cheep, super clean, homey, had a giant television playing terrible programming, and four decent, clean beds, all for 10000 won each. Which is about 10 bucks.

Anyway, I'm off to do some more stuff... as that's what I'm here to do...