this time i have a real treat for you...
well, this time i have a real treat for you. as some of you might remember, i had my cousin visit me some time ago. he spent nearly two weeks with me, and i had a great time. I asked him if he'd be willing to write about his time here, so that you get a second perspective from the world of south korea. so what will follow will be my cousin Peter's blog. Enjoy!!
About one month ago I boarded a plane in Detroit, endured an 11 hour flight from Chicago to Tokyo, and then touched down in Seoul to be greeted by the smiling face of none other than my cousin. That was the start of an amazing and all-too-short two week visit to South Korea. Two weeks ago, he asked me to post on his blog detailing my experiences and impressions of the country (mostly Seoul). I’ve been procrastinating because the amount of stuff I could write about far exceeds the brevity required by blogging. So what follows is really the barest description of the country based on my short time there.
The vast majority of my time was spent in Seoul, S. Korea’s capital city. In many ways it is similar to any big North American city: gleaming office buildings, a sprawling subway system, congested traffic and tight living quarters. But it differs in many ways as well. For instance, I couldn’t get over how clean Seoul is. The thought of using a public bathroom in a Seoul subway station didn’t cause me to break out in a cold sweat. The janitor responsible had his picture, name and phone # posted on the wall. Also, there was a notable lack of panhandlers in Seoul: no squeegee kids greased up your windshield, no bearded men shouted God’s wrath down upon civilization, and nobody camped out over a subway grille. I believe in the 2 weeks I was in Korea I saw a grand total of five beggars and three of them had no legs. Basically, if someone is begging they really are in dire straits and have no other option. That’s because Koreans have such a strong work ethic and have made one of the most capitalist societies in our world. I know that we Canadian sometimes complain about all the billboards and advertising along American highways but compared to Korea the Americans are downright restrained. In Seoul garish neon signs crowd into every street, vendors line any busy road, and there’s no such thing as a bare wall. It’s an advertiser’s paradise and an architectural wasteland. Most people live in an apartment building due to the scarcity of land. That’s not so shocking in and of itself but it seems the Koreans settled on one design for their apartment buildings and then mass produced them everywhere. I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say that 100% of them are these white, utilitarian concrete behemoths that have two little towers protrude like horns at either end, creating a monotonous and dreary cityscape at every turn.
Thankfully that’s about the worst I can say about the country and there is a lot to redeem it. Korea is a very mountainous country which makes it a hiker’s paradise. It’s easy to get out of the city and into a national park. There are bike paths and parks along the Han River and its tributaries, many beautiful palaces and museums to visit, and quiet parks are sprinkled all throughout the city.
I was also fortunate to meet some exceedingly nice and helpful people while in Korea. That’s not surprising though. Korean’s are very polite (unless on the subway in which case they resemble their pushing and shoving North American counterparts) and are willing to go far out their way to help strangers. I’ll give a few examples from my experience. One day I was hiking in Bukhansan National Park, which tends to be more vertical than horizontal, and had only brought one bottle of water. It didn’t last long and I found myself parched atop a mountain. So a Korean man walks up to me and after a bit of miscommunication gave me a bottle of ice cold water. Another time I was on the subway and offered my seat to this old lady standing in front of me. Little did I know that she was an English teacher. At the next station someone a few seats down got off and she shooed down the rest of the people so that I could sit beside her. After plying me with candy, she reviewed her English lesson with me and then at her stop exclaimed what a nice young man I was. Another time I was in Gongju (not to be confused with Gyeongju) and after a day of walking through the city was a few kilometers from the intercity bus terminal. The sky was starting to cloud over, when a guy pulled up in his van and offered me a ride to the terminal. I hopped in and we chit-chatted the way over there. When he dropped me off he just wished me a good day and refused to take any money; shortly after it started pouring rain.
In short I really like Korea and would highly recommend making the trip if you have a few thousand dollars laying around and don’t know what to do with it. The people are fantastic, it’s inexpensive, the country is gorgeous (minus the bits I talked about), and best of all there is English signage everywhere. It’s really easy to travel around the country, the KTX bullet train is cheap (about $30 to travel across the length of the country at 300km/hr) and intercity buses can reach those out-of-the-way destinations. There’s so much more I could’ve talked about: Gyeongju, being swarmed by school kids, the food, the yellow dust, living on ramen, tourist destinations around Seoul, the cool and friendly staff at my cousins school, crazy grocery stores, how my cousins school kids assume white people are fat, etc, etc. I want to give a big thank you to my cousin for being such a good host and putting up with my jet lag the first few days. Say hi to the 5:30 skipper for me!
Peter
About one month ago I boarded a plane in Detroit, endured an 11 hour flight from Chicago to Tokyo, and then touched down in Seoul to be greeted by the smiling face of none other than my cousin. That was the start of an amazing and all-too-short two week visit to South Korea. Two weeks ago, he asked me to post on his blog detailing my experiences and impressions of the country (mostly Seoul). I’ve been procrastinating because the amount of stuff I could write about far exceeds the brevity required by blogging. So what follows is really the barest description of the country based on my short time there.
The vast majority of my time was spent in Seoul, S. Korea’s capital city. In many ways it is similar to any big North American city: gleaming office buildings, a sprawling subway system, congested traffic and tight living quarters. But it differs in many ways as well. For instance, I couldn’t get over how clean Seoul is. The thought of using a public bathroom in a Seoul subway station didn’t cause me to break out in a cold sweat. The janitor responsible had his picture, name and phone # posted on the wall. Also, there was a notable lack of panhandlers in Seoul: no squeegee kids greased up your windshield, no bearded men shouted God’s wrath down upon civilization, and nobody camped out over a subway grille. I believe in the 2 weeks I was in Korea I saw a grand total of five beggars and three of them had no legs. Basically, if someone is begging they really are in dire straits and have no other option. That’s because Koreans have such a strong work ethic and have made one of the most capitalist societies in our world. I know that we Canadian sometimes complain about all the billboards and advertising along American highways but compared to Korea the Americans are downright restrained. In Seoul garish neon signs crowd into every street, vendors line any busy road, and there’s no such thing as a bare wall. It’s an advertiser’s paradise and an architectural wasteland. Most people live in an apartment building due to the scarcity of land. That’s not so shocking in and of itself but it seems the Koreans settled on one design for their apartment buildings and then mass produced them everywhere. I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say that 100% of them are these white, utilitarian concrete behemoths that have two little towers protrude like horns at either end, creating a monotonous and dreary cityscape at every turn.
Thankfully that’s about the worst I can say about the country and there is a lot to redeem it. Korea is a very mountainous country which makes it a hiker’s paradise. It’s easy to get out of the city and into a national park. There are bike paths and parks along the Han River and its tributaries, many beautiful palaces and museums to visit, and quiet parks are sprinkled all throughout the city.
I was also fortunate to meet some exceedingly nice and helpful people while in Korea. That’s not surprising though. Korean’s are very polite (unless on the subway in which case they resemble their pushing and shoving North American counterparts) and are willing to go far out their way to help strangers. I’ll give a few examples from my experience. One day I was hiking in Bukhansan National Park, which tends to be more vertical than horizontal, and had only brought one bottle of water. It didn’t last long and I found myself parched atop a mountain. So a Korean man walks up to me and after a bit of miscommunication gave me a bottle of ice cold water. Another time I was on the subway and offered my seat to this old lady standing in front of me. Little did I know that she was an English teacher. At the next station someone a few seats down got off and she shooed down the rest of the people so that I could sit beside her. After plying me with candy, she reviewed her English lesson with me and then at her stop exclaimed what a nice young man I was. Another time I was in Gongju (not to be confused with Gyeongju) and after a day of walking through the city was a few kilometers from the intercity bus terminal. The sky was starting to cloud over, when a guy pulled up in his van and offered me a ride to the terminal. I hopped in and we chit-chatted the way over there. When he dropped me off he just wished me a good day and refused to take any money; shortly after it started pouring rain.
In short I really like Korea and would highly recommend making the trip if you have a few thousand dollars laying around and don’t know what to do with it. The people are fantastic, it’s inexpensive, the country is gorgeous (minus the bits I talked about), and best of all there is English signage everywhere. It’s really easy to travel around the country, the KTX bullet train is cheap (about $30 to travel across the length of the country at 300km/hr) and intercity buses can reach those out-of-the-way destinations. There’s so much more I could’ve talked about: Gyeongju, being swarmed by school kids, the food, the yellow dust, living on ramen, tourist destinations around Seoul, the cool and friendly staff at my cousins school, crazy grocery stores, how my cousins school kids assume white people are fat, etc, etc. I want to give a big thank you to my cousin for being such a good host and putting up with my jet lag the first few days. Say hi to the 5:30 skipper for me!
Peter