It's all about Seoul

Drinking in Seoul
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After a long journey, we finally made it to Asia.  We left Winnipeg early Monday morning for Vancouver.  As it turned out, Kyra and Ray were returning from Australia the same day so we met them in Vancouver and killed most of our 5 hour layover with them.  Eleven hours after leaving Vancouver, we arrived in Seoul.  No sleep for us on the plane - too many video games to play and movies to watch.

Lisa (Bobo's girlfriend) met us at the airport in Seoul and took us to her apartment where we'd be staying for the next 2 nights.  We dropped off our bags and although we hadn't slept in over 24 hours, we thought the best thing to do would be to go for a beer.  Lisa took us to a hof (pub) near her place where we sat outside and enjoyed the warm evening (and the mosquitoes).  A few of her friends joined us and it was a great way to spend our first night in Seoul.  We left about 10:30 an by 11pm we had fallen into the sweetest sleep.  The sleep was great while it lasted but for some reason, we woke up with the sun about 5am.  We tried and tried but sleep eluded us after that.

we may as well get up and start acting like tourists.

Seoul Food
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We finally gave up on sleep and decided that we may as well get up and start acting like tourists.  Lisa lives in a suburb of Seoul called Bundang, which is quite a ways from Central Seoul.  We headed out with Lisa's directions and an English subway map.  Three trains and almost an hour and a half later, we emerged from the underground.  The plan was to catch a hop on, hop off bus tour of the city. Again, Lisa's directions came in handy and we were soon riding around the city.  We stopped at the National Museum first and soon discovered that the exhibits are not nearly as impressive as the building and surrounding grounds.  Once you've seen one arrowhead, you've seen 'em all in my opinion.  Our second stop was the War Memorial Museum which we both loved.  Stops in Itaewon (foreigner area) and the Seoul Tower were the only other places we managed to fit in during the day.

Seoul at Night
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By 5 O'clock, we were starting to fade and decided to head back to Lisa's place to meet her for supper.  She took us to a fantastic restaurant for a traditional Korean meal.  BBQ was the theme and they set up a grill at our table.  Fortunately, Lisa has picked up Korean so she was able to get me some tofu to go along with the beef her and Darren had.  Once the beef (or tofu) was cooked, Lisa showed us the drill; Take a lettuce leaf, add the beef, red bean paste, garlic and rice and wrap it up - delicious.  Lots of yummy sides as well and we left with full bellies.  A great end to our short stay in Korea, I just hope we can get some sleep tonight.  Tomorrow it's off to Singapore!

I 'll end with a few interesting things about Seoul;

- Koreans have no concept of personal space.  We discovered this before we even left the airport.

- Children love to come up to foreigners and say "Hi!" in an attempt to practice their English.  This is usually followed with lots of giggling.  It's cute the first 25 times.

- Koreans have some interesting beliefs.  For example, they will not sleep with a fan on in their room as this will apparently cause them to die during the night of carbon monoxide poisoning.  Also, kimchi (fermented cabbage which is served with every meal) is somehow responsible for their low crime rate.