13 June 2022
Pig in a green blanket
Eating some more Korean pork
I am back, with not much to say and a record low number of photos.
Instead I will do some reflections on 95% trip completion so that I can read this in a few years time and wonder if I was mad when I wrote it.
My feet - are in perfect health, despite many hikes, and probably hitting the million steps in a month goal tomorrow. All hail Altra Superior 3.5 shoes.
The weather - really good. I had one day of rain in 30, it won't rain tomorrow. The rainy day was in Busan at the village on a hill. It did rain for 8 minutes this afternoon but I was on the subway. It was never humid, in fact very dry to the point I have dry skin where I normally don't. I was only hot on 2 days that I can recall, one was when I walked around the great wall in Suwon, the other on a non hiking day early on in Seoul. It might be hot tomorrow.
Prices - hotels are super cheap, or were when I booked, that may have changed now that the borders are more open. Trains and buses are stupidly cheap, less than $1.50 a ride no matter how far you go on the bus or subway, and the high speed trip I took yesterday, the longest in Korea, is not even $40. Food is probably more expensive than I remember, depending on what you eat. Coffee is more expensive than Australia, dinner a bit cheaper, bakeries and things like pepsi are a lot cheaper. I do not buy anything else. I save money when on holidays compared to being at home.
COVID - it is still required to wear a mask indoors, and most people do outdoors even though it is not the law to do so. No one seemed to freak out at seeing a foreigner allowed into the country. I hear in Japan one of the first chaperoned tour groups already faced protests at a town they were visiting!
Language - enough people speak English but you do not need to speak anywhere if you do not want to. Signs are in English, ordering food is by touch screen, everything is pay by credit card, and phones these days translate Korean text just fine in real time using the camera.
The bad - I usually travel in March and November. It is mid June. I thought the weather would be a challenge, but the temperature was largely fine. What I did miss however was darkness. I know I go to bed early, but it is not properly dark here until 9pm. I prefer travelling when it gets dark at say, 5:30pm. A lot of the Asian busy street scenes are more interesting at night.
So there you go, I am still here all day and night tomorrow, so another day (and night) of boring photos to come before 1.5 days of airports.
Oh look, here is the actual casino. I knew where it was but did not know there was a street entrance, I thought it was underground along with the COEX mall.
I was back at a mall I have been to a few times, once on this trip and on past trips. It has more food options than anywhere else I know of, but it also has many art galleries.
The book shop has live flowers to sit in and have your photo taken. There was a line of people, I got in the line, and then took a photo of the seat with no one on it. This amused the people in the line behind me.
It is the only mall I know of with an indoor underground running track around the whole thing. This is a great thing, but people need to get out of my way.
Here is my dinner. A very typical Korean meal. The pork is apparently 'boiled'. I believe you are supposed to wrap various things into the leaves in the middle. This is a test of metal chopstick proficiency. I did not see any of the locals wrapping their pork and pickled things in leaves, when I left I did a lap of the restaurant and everyone had left their leaves untouched, hmmm.
And finally, if you want your pants taken up, you get to choose your preferred sewing machine.