Have spent the last two days wandering around Seoul. What a completely different experience than the last 4 weeks.
There are 11 million people in Seoul. The sidewalks are crowded with people, bicycles, motorcycles, scooters, food stands, newspaper stands, the wares from all the shops (it seems like everyday is a sidewalk sale). Definite hustle bustle. Great people watching from high fashion ladies and teens in their sparkly shirts, beautiful old people resting on benches, cute couples wearing matching outfits and kids everywhere -- today is Children's Day.
Seoul seems to be divided into districts -- the fluorescent lighting district, the hardware district, fashion, food, arts and crafts -- with row upon row of stores selling the same items. Suzie, our 21 year-old translator and professional snowboarder, told us that they set it up that way so that shopkeepers can share the shipping costs.
There is what I thought was a 4km and turned out to be 7km man-made waterway that runs through the centre of the city. Thank goodness they planned this, otherwise where would the children play and where would I run? I had a longer than expected run this morning along the waterway and enjoyed watching the city wake up. We are less noticeable here as there is probably one foreigner for every thousand people here. School kids do stop us though as part of their English studies they have a set of interview questions for us -- How long have you been in Korea, what is your favourite Korean food, where are you from, etc. After the interview we usually receive a gift of some kind (candy or chips). I have enjoyed giving out Canada pins, pens, pencils and stickers to the kids. Today even the adults were coming up to us once they saw that we had treats to give out. One lady after I gave her kids some goodies came back with a rose for me.
I love Korea. There is so much more, but right now I need to rest my feet after 7 hours of wandering.
Two of our team have gone and tomorrow Mina, Brett and I leave for Japan for a week.
There are 11 million people in Seoul. The sidewalks are crowded with people, bicycles, motorcycles, scooters, food stands, newspaper stands, the wares from all the shops (it seems like everyday is a sidewalk sale). Definite hustle bustle. Great people watching from high fashion ladies and teens in their sparkly shirts, beautiful old people resting on benches, cute couples wearing matching outfits and kids everywhere -- today is Children's Day.
Seoul seems to be divided into districts -- the fluorescent lighting district, the hardware district, fashion, food, arts and crafts -- with row upon row of stores selling the same items. Suzie, our 21 year-old translator and professional snowboarder, told us that they set it up that way so that shopkeepers can share the shipping costs.
There is what I thought was a 4km and turned out to be 7km man-made waterway that runs through the centre of the city. Thank goodness they planned this, otherwise where would the children play and where would I run? I had a longer than expected run this morning along the waterway and enjoyed watching the city wake up. We are less noticeable here as there is probably one foreigner for every thousand people here. School kids do stop us though as part of their English studies they have a set of interview questions for us -- How long have you been in Korea, what is your favourite Korean food, where are you from, etc. After the interview we usually receive a gift of some kind (candy or chips). I have enjoyed giving out Canada pins, pens, pencils and stickers to the kids. Today even the adults were coming up to us once they saw that we had treats to give out. One lady after I gave her kids some goodies came back with a rose for me.
I love Korea. There is so much more, but right now I need to rest my feet after 7 hours of wandering.
Two of our team have gone and tomorrow Mina, Brett and I leave for Japan for a week.
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