Korea
So I'm in Korea right now. The Air Force decided to send me all the way here for an exercise, to southern part to be clear for you conspiracy theorists. Luckily they decided to send Georganne as well so we took almost a week on the front end to do some traveling. So far Korea, called the "Land of not quite right" by some, has been very interesting.
After a 14 hour plane ride we showed up in Seoul with no real plan. But we were soon off on the adventure. Using the Subway is pretty simple thanks to English language signs. Finding your way above ground though is a different story. There are hardly any published street signs and trying to get to a certain place almost always involves some random wandering looking for the right place, which probably has a sign that is not in English and it's like playing a children's memory game to see if the symbols match up with what's in your guidebook. It was in this process of wandering for a place to eat dinner that I saw how great a travel partner Georganne was going to be. We were walking down a main street bathed in the everpresent neon lights when she said, "I bet there's a good spot down there," while pointing to a dark alley leading into the inner warrens of Seoul. I smiled, we went, and we found a perfect place.
A couple days later we rode a bus to Suchow on the East coast. This town has a great beach where we watched the Koreans splash around wearing full outfits then shoot off so many Roman candles at night it must have looked like downtown Baghdad. I won a yoyo at a fair game and made friends with the little kids doing tricks for them.
We then explored a national park with some amazing peaks that we never saw more than just glimpses of through the mist. We did have a great hike through the rain to a beautiful waterfall and explored some intriquing buddist temples in the mountains.
Next we spent a day in Chucheon, the city of lakes, and rode some rented bikes all around the lake. After five days we almost got used to being the only western people everywhere we went and we got very good at doing charades to communicate. Lots of fun, I'll be back with more stories...
After a 14 hour plane ride we showed up in Seoul with no real plan. But we were soon off on the adventure. Using the Subway is pretty simple thanks to English language signs. Finding your way above ground though is a different story. There are hardly any published street signs and trying to get to a certain place almost always involves some random wandering looking for the right place, which probably has a sign that is not in English and it's like playing a children's memory game to see if the symbols match up with what's in your guidebook. It was in this process of wandering for a place to eat dinner that I saw how great a travel partner Georganne was going to be. We were walking down a main street bathed in the everpresent neon lights when she said, "I bet there's a good spot down there," while pointing to a dark alley leading into the inner warrens of Seoul. I smiled, we went, and we found a perfect place.
A couple days later we rode a bus to Suchow on the East coast. This town has a great beach where we watched the Koreans splash around wearing full outfits then shoot off so many Roman candles at night it must have looked like downtown Baghdad. I won a yoyo at a fair game and made friends with the little kids doing tricks for them.
We then explored a national park with some amazing peaks that we never saw more than just glimpses of through the mist. We did have a great hike through the rain to a beautiful waterfall and explored some intriquing buddist temples in the mountains.
Next we spent a day in Chucheon, the city of lakes, and rode some rented bikes all around the lake. After five days we almost got used to being the only western people everywhere we went and we got very good at doing charades to communicate. Lots of fun, I'll be back with more stories...
posted by Jonathan Hassell at 21:14
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