Korea - what a change to Japan. A country invaded many times by their neighbours, particularly Japanese ones, a country that was forced to send over 600,000 citizens to Japan during WW11 because Japan was running out of people, a country that is divided in two and had a harrowing past, but what a future. You just feel like Korea has it's affairs in order from the moment you land/dock.
First impressions... Although not many people speak English (usually confined to a few connected to either academic endeavours or the tourist industry), the country has made a big effort to create signs that are in English, you'd think it was a second language. The signs are most common around the tourist areas but just the word toilet is encouraging.
The personality of Korea is what makes such a sound difference between it and our recent experiences in Japan. Where the Japanese seem stiff, reserved and focused, the Koreans are unreserved, flambouyant and casual. This was apparent no more so than around our hotel, the Angel Hotel in Seomyeon. The place was alive from the moment we arrived to the time we departed. Food stalls, shops for fashion, mobile phone shops (my word mobile phone shops - probably over a hundred in the immediate ten streets) shoes, bags, watches. All in glitsy, shiny neon and LED lit shops with way too many people working in each one. Like the Japanese, Koreans are also very slow walkers, their saunter is an American stationery, their walk is an American saunter, which is surprising given how much of an outdoors and active lifestyle many Koreans confess to pursuing. In Busan this is easy too, with over 70% of Korea's relief being mountainous trail crossed terrain, Busan is flanked on two sides by mountains, and the other other two by ocean. The hikes around the immediate area are super accessible and well maintained. Rin and I were both surprised when heading up to the North Gate of Geumjeong Fortress to see a well contructed building with male and female latrines as well as more arduous parts of the path being traversed by well contructed timber steps that would contend well with any highend decking I've seen. More about that later.
Backing up to the Angel Hotel, we did find one less than remarkable fact. It appears that the Angel Hotel is reknowned as a Romantic Hotel....where "romantic" far from the ideal of cupid, is given more to a place where young couples can "be romantic". Fortunately, it did mean that every cabbie in the city knew exactly where it was! Still, it was in a fantastic location, well provisioned, appropriately priced and had a computer in the room so internet access, after the drought of Japan, was available (though slow).
Food is another area worthy of a good mention. We had a number of "experiences" as we were referring to them now. Our first encounter with Korean cuisine was American Korean fusion....or, rice, salad, chicken and Korean buffalo sauce, all served together in one giant bowl. It was actually very tasty if not just a little odd. The wallpaper in the restaurant was also US oriented, with snippets of information about eating fast at lunch, diverse cuisine as a result of immigration and buffalo sauce being the best thing since the invention of the wheel.
Later in the evening we ended up going to a local Korean BBQ joint. If you've not been to one before, and we hadn't, then you need to carefully observe the other diners. There is a lot going on.
First of all, they present you with a menu, on the menu are pictures of raw meat, some seasoned, some marinated and some as they come. They then have a price. The price indicated that you'd have a handsome meal for around $20, however we failed to acknowledge that the price was for not the plate in the picture, but for a gram amount of the plate in the picture. So for some pork pieces, you're looking at about $10-$20....now it's not looking like such good value (we've recognised that meat in general is expensive). Before we'd even picked the meat our table was filled with other stuff that I would recognise but could not tell you the name of, with the exception of Kimchi...which was fabulous. Some of the dishes were simply sauces for dipping the meat into, others were salads, there appeared to be a main dish that they would top up, comprised mainly of sping onion, garlic, sesame seeds and chillis...also delicious. The meal, while more expensive than many of the other options, was good to try, and as I mentioned, it was an "experience".
After the BBQ we headed to another Korea only enterprises, called an Ice Bar. Essentially troughs or a bar area around which you would sit, but instead of a barman serving you drinks, you're given a bottle opener and just help yourself. To keep tabs on the bill a busboy equivalent hurtles around at great speed adding a tally of the bottles to your bill (ok his speed may have been a result of consumption speed), which is posted on the table before you. The beer selection is supplemented (actually, probably outweighed) by the alco pop selectin with pretty much any flavour you can imagine from a variety of different regions. Oz and New Zealand beverages featured heavily, indicative of their tourist numbers. There was Bud, that well known Belgian beer, a bottle or two of Sam Adams (selling for $9), then a good few German brews but not the good ones. Heiniken....not a sign of any Labatt Blue Lime light, a favourite of ours....and very few UK brews. Guinness was there but again, unfortunately pricey. We opted for the domestic beers, in part because of price, about 4,000 Won as opposed to 8-9000 for the imports, but also because it was pretty good...and besides, when else are going to get to drink it?
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