Things we've noticed about S.Korea

The first temptation when you arrive in South Korea is to compare it to Japan. However, you soon realise (and if you didn't, the South Koreans will forceably tell you) that they are very different countries, probably as different as us and the French.

The differences become obvious as soon as you hit the streets:

• people talk above a quiet level here. Hooray! Back to normal levels of speech for us both!
• car horns are used A LOT
• it's bustling, it's energetic, it's slightly chaotic... none of this ordered calm stuff
• there's much more variety in fashions and how people present themselves (ie less of all the women looking like immaculately made up dolls). There is more mix of very well dressed, regularly dressed, and badly dressed
• it's the fashion for women of a certain age to wear HUGE sun visors. This makes them look like miniature riot police
• you see a lot of young men in military uniform (not on duty) on public transport. Not too surprising for a country with compulsory military service
• you can use your phone on the trains and metro here
• the food is SPICY!

Being a pedestrian in South Korea

Why did we pay for adrenalin sports in Australia? The Koreans are very open minded. Why should there be separation between pedestrians and other forms of traffic? It's still a bit scary walking across a zebra crossing, partly because the cars more or less ignore them but also because motorbikes often use them as a handy shortcut. The trick is to always have another pedestrian between you and the traffic. We've taken to following old ladies round.

This is a flexible bollard, the only protection between pedestrians and 5 lanes of crazy traffic at crossings. We think this says a lot about the average life expectancy of bollards in this country.

The people

First, people assume we're from the USA, as there are so many troops over here. We make sure we correct them :-)

We get a kind of strange reaction. Within 48 hours of being here, we'd had 2 Koreans (separate occasions) approach us to offer help and just chat, been waved to by 2 policeman while we were out on our run, and given a free gift by the owner of the cafe we went to. When they find out we're English, they are quite surprised.

We've also had people get up and move when Martin sits next to them on the train. This cracks Kara up.

Today has been our most random encounter...

So, we're at a Shamanist shrine. To set the scene, this is a lot of steep steps up a hillside, with lots of strange rocks and alcoves. Along the way you can see people praying and offering gifts of food and drink to their dead relatives. The Guidebook warns you to treat the area with respect - not to take photos, speak loudly, or generally be a tit. We're pretty sure his name was Mr Bu. He's 66 years old with a little dog wearing a coat. He accosted us. Martin went for a wander to come back to find Kara wearing Mr Bu's glasses and holding his dog and posing for a photo (reluctantly, Kara would like to add). Martin helpfully stood at a distance and killed himself laughing, rather than coming to the aid of his wife.

Kara dug out the Korean Phrasebook and shouted "husband" while pointing at Martin. He HAD to join in. So began a round of photo taking. We have a business card with an address on to send them to. Then, Mr Bu decided to share the offerings he'd brought for the spirits. His offerings turned out to be mostly high strength alcohol and boiled sweets. We had to do shots of shoju and then eat a sweet. It was 2pm. When Kara managed to find the Korean word for "Enough, enough" he just stood there and howled with laughter.

The end result of this is:

• it's 5.30 now, we're hungover and drinking coffee
• we have a bag full of shoju, mokuli (another spirit) and boiled sweets
• we have to somehow print out the photos we took and post them to this guy's office
• we possibly have a bunch of Korean dead ancestral spirits pissed off at us for nicking their booze. Fortunately these are spirits rather than gods so we think it might be more "haunting your house" than "laying waste to your city" kind of revenge...

Matt assures us that nothing like this has ever happened to him. Martin is convinced Kara attracts eccentrics. When he is by himself (scowling) nothing like this ever happens to him.

Domestic arrangements in S. Korea

So, they have wet rooms. This is as it sounds - a room with a toilet, sink and shower head. You shower and for most people, a corner of the room gets wet. For Martin, the whole room gets wet.

The BEST thing ever though are the ondols - heated floors. Amazing. Like the other place, you have to take your shoes off in homes. You then can wear the ubiquitous slippers or walk round in your socks, and enjoy the warm floor (note for future trips to Asia - bring socks without holes in).

Koreans also sleep on thin mattresses on the floor called yo. There is nothing nicer than waking up with a warm tummy from the heated floor.

Matt and Sophia live in a flat that is perfectly designed for city living. There is no separate bedroom - there is one room for sleeping and living (like a studio flat). The floors are clean because there are no shoes on them (and Matt and Sophia are the cleanest people we know, beating even our mothers for domestic cleanliness).

Mini-break time

The great thing about kipping on your mate's floor for free, is you can afford to stay in a 4star hotel for the night! (some very good last minute deals online). Apart from the obvious pig out at the all you can eat breakfast buffet, the greatest joy was the toilet. It was Japanese style ie a control panel that Captain Kirk would envy.

Here is a photo of it:

So, Kara found it a bit strange to have a blast of water for 2 minutes (spot the digital countdown on there, currently at 1 min 58) on her bottom. Martin was more adventurous and went for EVERY button....He now feels slightly violated but very clean. There are many jokes we want to put up here but won't because of our mums. Let's just say, those 30 minutes hitting every button was worth the cost of the hotel.

South Korean Food

There is a great variety to Korean food. However, whenever you have a meal, you get a lot of little cold side dishes. Some are initially delicious, some take a bit of getting used to but reward the effort. Korea is known for Kimchi - shredded cabbage in red chilli sauce. Wind-tastic.

A lot of dishes are served with lettuce leaves. You use these as a wrap to put whatever you are eating in it. Last night we went to an Italian restaurant called "Mad for Garlic". Martin had pizza - that you wrapped in lettuce and covered in chilli sauce. Expect this to be prepared at a dinner party near you soon.

We also ate some interesting sea food at the weekend when we went to a port. Photos do more talking than any description...

Our sea food stew, complete with whole baby octopus.


Typical selection of cold side dishes. The raw crab and whelks not so typical (Martin's verdict: raw crab, better than expected once you get over the texture. Kara's verdict - no thanks, I'll stick to the carrot sticks and little eggs).


Martin pulled this out of a shell. All of these photos come from one meal. Culinary comfort zone left way way behind...

Same stew, after stirring. Check out the large lump of fish roe, next to the spoon.

In Korea, the watchword is FRESH. A lot of food is cooked at your table in front of you with fresh ingredients. Some of it isn't even cooked.

Oh yeah, and we did some sight seeing, looking at temples, beaches, palaces and shrines. Tis the food and the domestic stuff that has really grabbed us though!