I went to Korea with X. Things you should know about having X as a travel partner; he sets a grueling pace. I got progressively tired and grumpier until I made him slow down and give me some rests everyday. Even then I felt pretty exhausted physically at the end of the trip. I honestly don’t know how he has so much energy!
I was surprised because during the entire trip not one restaurant served me barley tea. I’ve gotten into the habit of drinking it everyday at home. Can a Korean explain this to me? Is barley tea an outdated trend in the motherland now?
Similar to China I visited a lot of outside food markets. I don’t know if it’s the norm for Koreans to do grocery shopping at these kinds of places or if they are mainly concentrated in touristy areas. Korean culture is still very opaque to me. The one time I interacted with a Seoul resident, he asked me what my impression of Koreans was and I realized I didn’t have much to say.
What is indisputable is that Korea is the beauty capital of Asia. I noticed on the streets lots of Koreans with pale, glowing skin, youthful faces. Many women are walking about wearing fashionable coats and clothings.
There were lots of tourists in Seoul but most of them were from other parts of Asia, like China and Japan. Lots of savy Korean workers can speak Chinese and English, which probably covers 90% of communication with foreigners.
I brought two cameras, one digital and film and actually spent the majority of my time shooting film (I shot 5 rolls of film while I was there). I haven’t gotten those developed yet, but in the meantime enjoy the digital pictures! I’ll post the film ones later once I get those processed.