More travels in Korea

We took a bus from Busan to Sacheon to see Jo and Andy Hay. Jo teaches new entrants at an International School and Andy gets English teaching jobs. We met Jo and Andy in Blenheim in 1986 when we first arrived there and while they are “old friends”, we haven’t seen them for 35 years. Still, it was good to catch up and spend 3 nights with them, see how they lived and visit some sites. We took in the Aeronautical museum which showed off Korea’s growing aeroplane industry and also took a local bus to the Jinju lantern festival. A spectacular array of lights on the river and parks which runs for two weeks.

From Sacheon we fast trained to Seoul, the capital, for 4 nights. On arriving we checked in to our hotel and discovered once again that they had an AED (Automated External Defibrillator) machine in a small suitcase in the room. Every hotel room we have stayed in seems to have one so closer inspection was required. Argh, not so. It was a length of rope for letting oneself down the outside of the building in times of emergency. And emergencies are regular. We have had 8 so far. They come in on our phone at all hours, state EMERGENCY ALERT, then have a paragraph of hieroglyphics. Very handy at 3.00am with a tsunami warning, us on the 9^th floor with a piece of rope, a body weighing 85kgs and biceps that have a maximum tare weight of 70kgs! I could see a very broken body with rope burned fingers lying on the pavement below every window in the street.

In Seoul we had a lady from the Auckland office of the company that I do some work for in Blenheim. She has fluent English and took us places where the company paid all our fees and bought us meals, very generous bonus we thought. We visited Seoul’s sky tower, a cultural village 600 years old, the war museum where we saw that 6000 kiwi soldiers fought in 1950-53 and 45 lives were lost.  Quite bloody though with thousands of Koreans and Americans getting killed in the name of peace. There is still a “cold war” attitude with North Korea and we visited the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) about 35kms north of the city. Looking across the DMZ which includes a river we could see people walking about on dusty roads living in small rural houses while on the south side there are skyscraper apartment buildings (50% of people in Seoul live in apartments) and tarseal 4 lane highways with flash Hyundai and Kia cars by the thousand.

Food in Korea has been surprisingly delicious. Just about everything has been really tasty. One of their main dishes is Kimchi…preserved cabbage. My first taste didn’t go well but after continual bombasting of my taste buds I found it edible. I wouldn’t walk across the road to get it mind you. One evening we stopped off at a Cat café for hot chocolate before bedtime. There were about 50 cats, of all species, colours and sizes. They walked wherever they wished, on tables, on the till and generally lay about wherever they pleased just like cats do really.

For a day trip we crossed the peninsula to the east, a two lanes each way road, 35 tunnels and 58 viaducts so the road is almost flat.  These guys seem to love digging tunnels, the average self-respecting mole would be embarrassed. One tunnel was 11kms long and throughout it has noises and surface changes to make different noises as you drive over. So, we hear police sirens, whistling, ambulance sound and rumble strips. Lighting also changes as you move through with rainbow colours around the inside and flood lights and spot lights. A Korean voice also says to slow down no matter what speed you are doing. But the roads are in very good condition, safe it seems and speed limit is mostly 100k/hr.

Our last night out was with one of the chiefs from the company I work for and we were treated to a 6 course meal in a very nice restaurant with a fine bottle of Italian red wine. No NZ wine to be seen in any of the places we looked, and these guys drink plenty. 

Our visit to Korea ends today Friday (Happy Birthday Rodger) and we fly on to Fukuoka in the south of Japan hoping to avoid the approaching typhoon but that will be more good luck than good management. 

PS We really enjoyed our hotel in Seoul. The room was minute but we have had no time to spend in it and the bed was comfy. The highlight is the Myeongdong area it was situated in. It is a hive of shopping, market activity and street food every day and night till late. We have always felt completely safe in Korea and the people are incredibly polite and helpful. The trendy fashion shops are numerous but even if I was interested I’m sure they would not have my size!! The food is an experience in itself. You order one dish and it comes accompanied by 6 side dishes and soup. The amount of washing up must be ridiculous. D