Pete's Log: Korea
Entry #1553, (Travel)(posted when I was 29 years old.)
So I never did find my way back to the hotel after getting lost in Seoul. After a few more hours of wandering, I broke down and took a cab. I would guess I was about a kilometer from the hotel when I finally gave up.
Two things conspired to make finding my way back difficult:
1. People do not orient themselves by street names here. In fact, none of the maps I saw (in subway stations or on the internet) used street names. Instead, the maps I saw were all based on landmarks. Upon leaving the hotel, I thought I was being smart by memorizing the names of the streets by the hotel. This proved to be completely futile.
2. Apparently they don't observe the convention that North is up. I looked at many a map in subway stations without realizing this. I finally figured it out when I saw the same map shown in two entirely different orientations in the same station:
So I've learned a few lessons about what kind of assumptions not to make.
So. Mamie arrived in Seoul late Friday (Dec. 21) evening. We crashed pretty quickly. The next day, we met up with a friend of hers and paid a visit to Everland, an amusement park. There we marveled at the Korean Christmas spirit, rode various rides, and ate Chicken Donuts.
On the viking ship ride, I noticed three Korean youths who were striking a pose every time their side of the ship was up. So I imitated one of their poses. They saw this and clapped. So I convinced Mamie and her friend to play along. After the ride was over, the Korean kids wanted to do it again. So we did. It was delightfully goofy. Afterwards, they posed for a picture with Mamie and Julie.
On Sunday, we visited the Korean Folk Village. We got to see traditional Korean buildings and eat some traditional food. A neat experience.
That night, Mamie and I rode the bus to Tongyeong, where she lives. Tongyeong is on the Southern coast of Korea. Part of the city is on an island, the other part on a peninsula.
If I did it right, Tongyeong is centered in that map. As you might imagine, there were many impressive views from the city.
Monday I got to see Mamie's school and meet some of her students. They were all very cute. Afterwards, we rented a car and drove to Gyeongju, a historical city with various sites around it. In Gyeongju, we stayed at a somewhat shady motel. The rooms were nice and clean and all, but there were sex toy vending machines in the hallway.
So Gyeongju is where we spent Christmas. We drove and then hiked up to a large Buddha statue carved into a mountain. We checked out some ancient burial mounds (or earth boobs, as I like to call them). We toured around a pond built by a Korean emperor a long time ago. It was all very pretty.
We spent two nights in Gyeongju.
I managed to catch a cold somewhere along the way. So I'm not feeling great, but I really wanted to get this entry done. I'm running out of steam, though.
From Tongyeong, we made a couple day trips: one two Jinju and one to Geoje.
I'll write more later...
Pictures are online. Oh, and I added Korean Standard Time as a time zone option, so those previous two entries now are properly timezonified.