Seoul Korea, Thursday May 22, 2014

So I’ve had a couple of days to wander around Seoul and today and tomorrow I have an English Speaking (sort of) tour guide to take me around while Tim works. Seoul is a giant City (probably over 10 million people) but it has an extensive underground system. Yesterday I spent several hours exploring the Metro and I think half of Seoul was in the car I was traveling in most of the day. Actually, that’s not true. Most of the time the Metro was comfortable and cool but there were jumps from one stop to another where it did get crowded and hot. But the trains run meticulously on time and there are hundreds of them if not thousands. It’s odd to get out at one stop and see a Starbucks then get out at another stop and see a truck full of frozen pigs making deliveries to restaurants. There are markets everywhere. Imagine several city blocks lined on both sides with nothing but shoes. Well, I found the “Shoe” neighborhood yesterday. Apparently there is a market for just about everything you can possibly imagine including women. I haven’t seen anything sleazy yet but I’m going to ask my Tour Guide to show me both sides of Seoul; good, bad and ugly (I guess that’s 3 sides, huh?) Tim is happily doing his CrossFit thing but I did drag him to an area by the American Embassy with a large square and some interesting buildings. We don’t think much of Korea at home but in my house alone I have a Samsung TV (Korean) and LG Washer and Dryer (Korean), they are exporting some pretty nice cars now (Kia and Hyundai) and the list goes on. If you zoom out and look at the Korean Peninsula, subtract the nut-case in North Korea, this tiny little dot of land is responsible for a lot of what is going on in Technology in the world today. I don’t know much about the history here except what I was told on the plane here by a Korean doctor. He said that South Korea has been invaded about 800 times in its long history so they tend to be a bit withdrawn. Nobody and I mean NOBODY has even glanced at me which is odd considering that I tower above most of them and am one of the VERY FEW white people you see on the streets. Everybody keeps to themselves, is extremely orderly, and except for the incessant coughing, they are pretty much innocuous. They are also incredibly polite. Even when they can’t communicate with you they still smile and work very hard at it. Because I’m going to the Middle East after this, I purchased, at the last minute, 5 button down short sleeve shirts to wear in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. Because I am so wide in the shoulders and still have a relatively narrow waist (hey, no laughing), I decided to take my shirts to a Tailor and have them altered. Our hotel is literally sitting on top of the largest mall in Seoul so I found an alterations store and managed to pantomime what I needed. Then, two days later they called and wanted me to come back. The owner’s wife had come in and saw that they were going to make a mess out of my shirts so she had me put each one on and she pinned them herself. A couple of the shirts are going to be completely rebuilt with darts added in the back and material removed from the sides and the sleeves. I’m curious how they turn out. If they mess them up I will be doing some last minute shopping here but that too will be difficult. You see, an XL here comes to about my naval. Even the XXL shirt I tried on in the Fitness Center here (where they provide free shirts, shoes, socks and shorts) was not big enough. Gulliver in the land of Lilliputians. The weather has been pleasant if not a little humid. Yesterday it got into the high 70’s and with the humidity at midday it was a little bit unpleasant in the direct sunlight. I guess that’s why some of the enormous Metro stations have hundreds of elderly people just sitting around in groups hanging out. It beats sitting in their cramped un-air conditioned apartments alone. The Metro stops pretty much all have nice bathrooms so they can hang out with their friends, stay cool and have a place to poo. I’m taking some pictures but not tons. Today will be easier because I won’t be having to do all the thinking along with trying to be a photographer. Perhaps in the next email I will include a few of my favorites. For now, here’s a pic of the control panel for our Toilet (I think I’ve discovered how to get him to move in with me. I simply need to install a butt-washing toilet and he will be all mine!) and a couple of pics of Tim and I messing around by some statues outside our hotel. Hope all is well back in the land of tall white people.

 

Joe & Tim

 

This Blog Entry was imported via email so the Graphics are a disaster.  When I post the Blog Entry the pictures get re-ordered.  You’ve got a truck full of frozen pigs, the controls to our toilet, Tim and I posing next to statues outside our hotel, the Seoul Metro Map, and finally our first Starbucks sighting.