Highlights of my trip

I thought rather than telling a whole story, I would just list off things I did. If you want more details email me! Or better yet, go there =)

-Made around an extra 200 dollars with the exchange rate in my favor.

-Wanted to eat about every 3 feet I walked because so much stuff looked so delicious (I came back to Japan and was like wahhh there is nothing to eat over here!)

-Might I add everything was insanely cheap? 4-8 dollars for an entire table of food.

-I really appreciated Seoul because it was a lot like Tokyo, except you could actually afford things there!

-Saw some palaces. One has a famous garden, but unfortunately since it is Winter everything was kind of dead haha. I also realized after going to these palaces that they look exactly like Japanese temples and I am templed out, so I couldn't do it anymore. Although I did go to one in Busan and saw monks praying so that was kind of cool.

-I took a hike up this hill to this shrine and mountain that looked like a monk people pray at. It was kind of interesting. You could hear all this chanting from the hills. It was a very spiritual place. But I felt very out of place so I didn't stay for too long.

-Went to a Korean bathhouse a few times. I mean, we have these in Japan with the same exact services but for some reason I felt more adventurous to use them here. I also got scrubbed. And when I say scrubbed, an old fat Korean lady wearing only her underwear scrubs you down raw and then massages you. It was the epitome of one of those kinds of scenes in movies where the person is in pain. But my skin is soft and glowing now. =)

-I wanted to eat dog soup. I have a list of weird things I have eaten now and I really wanted to add that to it. But, I was told it smelled like wet dog. So the thought of sitting in a tiny dog soup shop smelling like wet dog, eating something that smelled and came from wet dog kind of made it lose its appeal.

-I did eat chicken ass though. Not on purpose. I went around the street food carts and this pushy lady made me sit at her cart and she said something about chicken so I thought sure why not. Then she gave me the plate and I took a bite and was like "Oh man this is not chicken!" I remembered a No Reservations: Seoul episode I saw where he eats chicken ass, and it was the exact same dish. So I thought, hey if Tony Bourdain can do it, so can I. It wasn't so bad, just kind of chewy. I had to act like I liked it anyway because she kept walking by to make sure I was enjoying her food. But after eating for maybe 10 minutes I was still eating chicken ass so I pretended I had to be somewhere by pointing to my watch and looking apologetic so I wouldn't offend her, and took off.

-Saw some friends from school in Seoul. We kept going "who would have thought we would all be spending NYE 08-09 together in SEOUL??" So it was nice to see some friends and spend the holiday with them!

-Went to Seoul Tower on New Years day, which was maybe a huge mistake. My guidebook said it was a 10 min walk up the hill to get to the tower. I figured I'd save some money and take the walk. 1o min walk my ass! I basically climbed a mountain for 45 min!!! By the time I got up there it was a zoo. There were hundreds of people. I had to wait about an hour to go up to the tower and when I got up I was like "why did I do this? I could see this view from the hike up!" Oh well. Haha.

-Went snowboarding on Friday. That was probably my biggest adventure as I got some random directions to a resort from the internet. I had to take a random bus about 1.5 hours out of Seoul, get off at a random stop and take a taxi to the resort. I swear the driver never stopped at it! When he finally did make a stop, I noticed the bus stop had a sign saying MY stop was like 2 stops back! So I jumped off and he took off. Leaving me literally in the middle of no where Korea with no clue how to get back there. There was no bus schedule and like 2 restaurants, and THAT WAS IT. Also please note I don't speak Korean at all. I can barely pronounce thank you properly. I really had to pee so I went into a Chinese restaurant (one of the two) and asked for their bathroom. They gave me a key and pointed outside. I walked around and found a staircase and figured it was upstairs. I unlocked the door and found myself in the most bizarre house ever. Yes, it was his house. But it looked like squatters lived there. Cigarette butts on the floor, dirty blankets, no furniture, etc. I was like wtf. Where am I? I tried to find the bathroom as fast as possible but it was hard considering I opened weird doors that led to outside although it was the 2nd floor and there was no balcony! Just a drop! Finally I found the bathroom and got out. Haha it was so weird. But then I somehow got them to call me a taxi, with their limited English and my gestures. Then they were nice and made me tea while I waited. The snowboarding was good. There was actually no real snow in the mountains, SURPRISINGLY considering Seoul was like Siberia. -15 C the entire time! So it was man made. But it was good to get warmed up a little. I hadn't been in a few years, and I'll be going a few times here in Jland where there is supposed to be some very nice snow. And they blasted the Britney Spears Circus CD from all the chair lifts. =)

*However snowboarding made me very sore from using all those weird arm and leg muscles so even now I am kind of sore. But by the time I got to Busan I was just exhausted from the entire week and lugging around my heavy suitcase was murder. Everytime I saw a flight of stairs I wanted to cry.

-I rode the train back with monks.

-I wish I could have seen more of Busan but I was too exhausted and got into town a little too late. Oh well, maybe another time.

Anyway I had a great time. I think it would be nice to go to Korea maybe in the Spring or Summer or early Fall to see more of the countryside. It was too cold to really do that this time, plus most stuff was dead anyway. Being in Korea made me realize how jaded I am living in Japan. For good and bad. Korea is much more internationalized than Japan, which I really appreciated. I was also surprised to see how much Christianity there is there. Tons and tons of churches. Just weird now to me because there is pretty much no religion in Japan. The people are also a lot more friendly. Many people would approach me and try to have conversations with me with their limited English, or go out of their way to help me even if I didn't ask for help and just looked confused or lost. That would NEVER happen in Japan. People don't approach you over here. I mean if you approach them they might help you (especially if they are employees somewhere) but it was a nice change! However on the other hand, the people are also a lot more rude. In Japan, everyone lines up in single file lines to get on a train. No pushing. Apologies if they brush up against you, etc. Um imagine my shock when I was shoved aside by this old shriveled up lady to get on the subway. My jaw dropped to the floor. This happened MANY times and by the end of the trip I had abandoned my Japanese politeness and found myself participating in their survival of the fittest mode, shoving my way out of a train, etc. Haha. So different! Japan is also much more clean. In Korea there was tons of trash everywhere on the ground. There were also a lot of beggars. I felt very bad for them. They would lie on the pavement bowing, ashamed to show their face. In Japan there are no beggars so once again it was just a wake up to how jaded I have become in only 10 months! It is hard to decide what I prefer. Korea seemed more like America so it seemed more "normal" to me (they also drive on the right side of the road!). And Japan's insane politeness/safeness/cleanliness is almost alien, but I guess very appreciated in the same sense. I caught myself many times wandering around with my purse wide open, because in Japan it is totally fine to do that. In Korea it isn't necessarily any less safe but you do have to be a little more wary of being taken advantage of by taxi drivers, etc. However I don't know how much they can really take advantage of you considering it maybe only costs 10 dollars to go all the way across the city. So cheap!

Anyway, Korea was a fabulous trip and I recommend it to you! Maybe not as a single trip, but combined with another part of Asia totally worth it! I also cannot express how rewarding it is to travel to a foreign country alone. It really makes you feel great about yourself when you can navigate around a country where you don't really speak the language, and don't have many mishaps! It makes you feel like you can do anything! I have extreme wanderlust though.

Here are my pics. I edited them down a bit. But also got a little lazy so sorry if some are redundant! Also some might look a litte grainy. That's because I was taking them at night without a flash using a different light source from my camera because I think the flash can ruin what you're trying to focus on sometimes:

Korea pics