The first week in October is a holiday in China... well, it sort of is. Only 3 days are a holiday however the government feels that people will travel and spend more money if they have 7 days in a row free rather than 5 free, then 2 working, then a weekend. To remedy this problem they "borrow" the following weekend.
So the holiday should be Mon - Wed. However they make Thurs and Fri of this week the unofficial weekend. Now people have Saturday to Friday free but the subsequent weekend has been borrowed so now it becomes workdays. All that to say I just had 7 days free but now have to work 7 days in a row. TIC.
The other fun thing surrounding this trip was that they wouldn't tell us exactly when our vacation would be until just a few weeks before it. By this time many flights were booked so I had to book mine almost as soon as they told me. Thursday afternoon and Friday were to be sports days which means I would not have to teach. It meant I could leave at noon Thursday which was great so I booked the ticket. A week later they changed their minds and decided that Thursday would not be a sports day but I had my ticket already booked. I told them this and left at noon Thursday anyway. I offered to make up the classes but the person who screwed up doesn't seem to want to make it known so I guess they dealt with it somehow. Again, TIC.
Anyway, on to Korea!
I arrived in Seoul, once again wondered why everyone stands up really fast on the plane and tries to be first off only to walk at a ridiculously slow pace, got my bag (which was nearly last off) and took a train into the city. By the time I got to my hostel it was 11:45 local time (Korea is 1 hr ahead of China). A friendly sign on the door pleaded not to ring the bell after midnight. Seeing as I was 15 mins early and had no choice I rang it and got my bed.
By this point I was incredibly hungry so I did what I love to do in a new city: wander. I saw some food places but didn't know ANY korean words and wasn't sure how their food worked so I just got some light snacks at one of the gazillion convenience stores that seem to be in Korea. As I was going to head back to the hostel I heard a friendly hello from a Spanish guy who was sharing a drink of soju with the guy working in one of the convenience stores. He took me out for some real food, complete with sitting on the floor. The food was, of course, delicious. Sitting on the floor wasn't as fun.
After getting to bed at 4am it was a bit jarring when the sun shown brightly right into my eyes at 7 the next morning. You'd think if there was a bed at window height with an East window they would put a curtain on it. To their credit when I told them about it the next day they did attempt to create one but failed quite badly. I managed to sleep again and around 11 headed out to explore Seoul. As usual I had a great time and saw a lot included a massive palace with incredibly intricate paintings. See my pics for more of this.
In the late evening my friend from Canada came to Seoul and we went out for some food. The next day I convinced her to take some pics wearing authentic Korean garb. It was awesome, I should wear the stuff all the time. We also stumbled upon a "make your own bookmark" thing so we each made one with intricate flowers and such.
After this we met up with Gail's friends who went to a TGI Fridays. It was the first western food I'd had in a long time. They then did a bunch of shopping at high class stores so I busied myself with wandering some more. We took a bus to Gwanju which is where Gail is living.
My time in Gwanju was spent largely with Gail and her friends as they played games or went out to various bars at night. There were a lot of foreigners in Gwanju so it wasn't really a novelty there unlike China and especially Dongying where we are very rare.
The highlight of my time in Gwanju was going to Baskin Robbins as well as going to the trick art museum. You can see pics of the museum with the others. The museum was pretty neat. The fact that Gail managed to find just about the cutest girl I've ever seen to come with us was also a huge plus.
General Ponderings:
Korea is far more advanced than China. They had lots of western stores and pretty much any product could be found although I was not able to find shoes that were wide enough. English is quite prevalent. While not everyone will speak it there is almost always someone who can speak well enough and any place like a post office will have almost all the tellers be able to speak fluently. This makes it quite easy to feel comfortable here and quite easy to forget that you're in Asia. If you want to go to Asia but not be overwhelmed I'd recommend Korea.
The people, in the week I was there, appear fairly cold and unimaginative. This, I'm sure, is not completely fair but no one would even look up except possibly to scowl. This is especially true of the older generation. Going through the trick art museum the koreans would only do exactly what the suggested picture showed. I did meet one or two friendly Koreans but when I walk around Dongying I am smiled at or talked to constantly.
The driving was fairly sane compared to China and every car was either white, grey, or black.
Prices were fairly comparable to home. Maybe a little lower for food.
Christianity was much more common in Korea. There were churches around much of the country that I saw and there were often groups on the street doing various ministries. I have never seen so much as a cross in Dongying.
Overall I'm quite glad I chose China over Korea. The money is WAY better in Korea but many of them work a lot harder as well. As I said, it's good if you want to pretend you're still in North America but not as great if you want an all out adventure.
Coming back to China was pretty cool. Before I left I felt like I didn't speak any Chinese and I still feel that way a bit but in Korea I didn't speak ANY words so coming back to China where I can actually get my point across was quite nice. At the airport I had to wait awhile to catch a bus back to Dongying but the people at the sales desk invited me behind to the desk and fed me various fruits and nuts while I waited. Their English was about as good as my Chinese and we talked a bit. Welcome back to the friendliness of China!
New pics are being uploaded as I type this. Be sure to check em out!
Also, by now I have sent at LEAST one postcard to everyone on my postcard list. I am unable to send easily in China so I mailed a bunch from Korea. If you're on the list and haven't gotten one then hopefully it's still coming cause I have sent to all.
If you have been living in Antarctica because you are a penguin and do not know how to use a computer because you're a penguin so have somehow not managed to add your name to my postcard list you should do so now! It may be a few months until I can send again but that's no reason not to do it. So go do it! I'll wait while you go here. Ok, done? Good.
Thanks for reading all!
Wiseguy1
No comments:
Post a Comment