We arrived in Seoul at 4:30 a.m. local time. My overall impression of the city is that I have the opposite of cultural shock. It feels like New York--the subway, the summer sidewalk smells, the shopping, the crowds, the dancing billboards . . . Others might feel strange about being surrounded by so many Asians, but since I had such a visceral reaction when I returned to Japan several years ago, this feels mild. I guess I was bracing myself for the same "alternative dimension" out-of-body experience so that when I actually encountered it again, it felt more natural. Also, we're staying in a little group of English speakers--which further insulates the full impact.
Others have asked if I've been looking into faces to see if anyone looks like me, but I haven't. Maybe I"ll feel that way in Pusan--where I was found. We're headed that way on Thursday.
When we checked into our hotel, some people had rooms and others didn't. Carol and her mom, Pat, kindly invited me to shower in their room. It was an act of kindness that was beyond words as personal hygiene was at its sketchiest after a 13-hour plane ride. We had a random breakfast of cold corn, cream soup, rolls, cereal, a tiny yogurt drink--either in oversized vials or mini Sunny-D-ish containers.
After resting Carol and I went to a smoky PC cafe to send email. We called the teen-aged boy several times by calling out "Yobasayo!" He helped us but then laughed with a friend at our ignorance. I kept hitting the hangul / Roman character key on accident and it slowed my typing down quite a bit. I lost my blog entry to a Korean prompt so I'll have to investigate that later.
We then headed to the Co-Ex shopping mall via subway. On the way, I took a yuan bill and coin and pantomimed to a local vendor that I needed more change for the bill. He shook his head and made a cross with his two index fingers. It looked really hostile, like a "soup nazi" gesture--NO coins for you!! Yet, I decided to try another vendor who kindly gave up some coins for my 1000 yuan. By the way, 1000 yuan roughly equals 1 US dollar. We had a Japanese lunch of ton-katsu-don. When several people asked for "lite" or "diet" soda, the waitress made the same X with her forefingers, and we inferred that this may be a Korean gesture for "I don't have any."
On the subway ride back to the hotel, Carol accidentally sat in a handicapped zone and drew hostile stares. Our loud laughter after realizing the mistake, drew stares as well.
Back at the hotel, we met the Nelson-Kennedy family: Michael and Mary with their two sons, Aengus (12 years old) and George (8 years old). They had just come from a 10-day visit to Japan and were joining us on our tour for the last leg of their Asia trip.
We ended the day at a cooking class. Beautiful and delicious-->mung bean pancakes and bulbogi. It felt like kindergarten since everything was pre-measured and set out. Fun. I entered a jet-lagged fog and spoke of childhood candy with Jen Strong and Bo-Yoon, an InKAS volunteer. When we got home I fell into bed and watched Spiderman on TV until my eyes blurred about 20 minutes at 7:45 pm Korean time.We are waiting for word from my roommate, Tamiko, who did not meet us at O'Hare and was not on the plane when we left. We're concerned for her.
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