Seoul, South Korea

As I write this, we are sailing through the Bering Sea.  It’s a rough one!  The roughest waters we have been in on any cruise, which I think is over 20 at this point.  Sometimes we hit a wave that takes the front of the ship up in the air and down with a bang that rattles the whole ship. This is the first time I’ve gotten a little queasy on a cruise ship.

At at a park by the Seoul Tower

Getting to Seoul, South Korea

On April 24, we took the train to the airport in Osaka to head for Seoul, South Korea.

Everything went smoothly until we got to Seoul. For some reason, even if the train system in a place is easy to navigate, the trains leaving an airport can prove tricky.  We had problems in Osaka and Seoul with the outbound trains from the airport.  Rome was no problem, but these two, we had problems with.  The difference between Osaka and Seoul, is that Osaka was confusing from the get go and the people working at the train station at the airport were quick to look at the tickets we got from the machine and tell us they were wrong and direct us to a human that got us the right tickets to the right place.

Before I get into the trip to our hotel that took around three hours, I have to mention that we were also using a new navigation app - Naver (pronounced NAAver like in naval not naver like in navigate - which seems silly to me because it’s a navigation tool).  Every place we have ever traveled to, we have used Google Maps to get around and it works great. In most places it will tell you what train or bus to get on, when it will arrive, its terminus, how many stops you have before you get off, and what time that will be.  Same for buses.  If you are taking a bus to a train or vice versa, it will show you the walk between the two and what time the next one leaves so you can catch it.  Traveling would be SO much more difficult without Google or some form of GPS.

Naver is necessary, we found out, because of the laws regarding maps in South Korea.  Google is not accurate in the least in South Korea.  If you want help getting around, you must use Naver.  That is what everyone in Seoul uses.  In many ways, Naver is superior to Google Maps, giving you multiple times of arrival for buses and trains and will dynamically change your options if you miss a train or bus. Naver will tell you how many stops away your bus or train is as well as how many minutes until it arrives.  It is also great at notifying you when you are on the train or bus when your stop is coming up, letting you know one stop ahead of time to prepare for exit.  We think Google Maps could learn a thing or two from Naver. That is once you have learned the app.  It took a few minutes of effort and a YouTube video.  Once we knew, it was easy peasy.

The other day, Blaise googled if you can use Naver in other countries since it is superior to Google Maps.  The answer was yes, but it will not be accurate because it only provides information for South Korea.  So really the answer is “no,” right Google?  What a dumb answer.  

I digress.

In Seoul, we thought we knew what we were doing when we got to the airport.  It was supposed to be a train and then a bus that dropped us off right in front of our hotel.  Unfortunately we were still learning Naver which we learned later on doesn’t tell you what platform (like Google Maps in Osaka) or give you the terminus (like Google Maps in Rome), it gives you the next stop on that line which isn’t always readily available on signage. It is important to know what direction to go since you can easily get on the right train line or bus number going in the opposite direction from which you need to go.  What was difficult for us other than learning Naver was that all trains at the Seoul airport go out.  They aren’t going two directions.  The airport is the starting point for all the trains, you just need to find the one that is going the direction you need to go with the stop you need without knowing the right platform.

After much discussion and confusion, we got on a train.  Turns out, we were wrong and it didn’t have any stop we needed.  It was a long train ride out of the airport so we had some time to learn Naver and figure out where we needed to get off the train.  We opted for riding it out and getting off the train at Seoul Station, the biggest train station with the most options for trains and buses.  After getting off the train, we had Naver figured out and had a plan to get to our hotel.

After a couple more trains and a bus, we arrived at the bus station right next to our hotel around three hours later. Quite the learning experience!

Our Hotel

Our Hotel was the 3S Doksan Boutique Hotel, in the Doksan area of Seoul which is totally NOT near anything touristy.  This is something we don’t mind at all.  We like staying in areas that are not tourist focused so we can get a true picture on life in the area and interact with regular people who are simply living their lives.  We like getting that true picture of regular life in a place.  We certainly got that but at the expense of time since the touristy things we wanted to do were 55 minutes or more away, requiring at least one bus and one train, often more.  Nothing was a “hop on one of the many buses that stop right in front of the hotel and go straight there.”  You had to hop on one of those many buses and go to a train station or hop on yet another bus. If there is one thing I hate more than standing on a train, it is standing on a bus for a prolonged period of time.  

We learned a lesson on this one regarding how to find a good location for a hotel.  It is fine to be in a non-touristy area so long as you have an easy way to get to the tourist sites, like being near a train station where you can catch one train there, not five trains. It’s all a balance.

Cool building in our neighborhood - It is a daycare.

The hotel was interesting.  We stayed there for two weeks which is fine but they had absolutely no place to put your clothes - no drawers (not a single drawer anywhere), no closet, no wardrobe.  Nothing. So we literally lived out of our suitcases the whole time.

It was one of the most unusual hotels we have been to with a fancy remote control that turned everything in the room on and off, including the lights.  The guy at the reception desk says “we are known for our remote controls.”  I don’t know if “we” meant the hotel, or Seoul, or North Korea in general.  But he was quite proud of their remotes.

 

The room had interesting things like a flat iron for your hair, an air purifier, and a very expensive and very large massage chair.

Getting Around

Even with a very comprehensive train and bus system, you can potentially walk a lot in Seoul.

There are just as many buses in Seoul as there are in Rome.  They are relied upon just as much as trains and if you catch either during rush hour, you are standing shoulder to shoulder like sardines.  But there is no noise.  Everyone is quiet, like they are in Japan.  If you talk on a train or a bus, you better do it in hushed tones! And the cardinal sin is talking on your phone.

Speaking of how quiet the public transport is and phones, I have to mention this.  No one is standing around looking, reveling in the quietness on the trains, they have their earbuds in and are listening to and watching something on their phones.  And they don’t stop when they get off the train or bus.  I cannot tell you how many times we saw people walking down the street watching videos on their phones not paying any attention to their surroundings.  This was so common it got annoying. Maybe this is one of the reasons the birth rate in Korea is so low.

In South Korea and Japan, you always stand off to the side IN A QUEUE waiting for the train.  The people exiting the train get off in the middle and once they are off the train, then you can get on in order; never rush the train entrance.

The Culture

The culture in Korea is not hugely dissimilar to Japan.  Koreans may be appalled by this comparison, but this is just how I see it. It is clean but not as clean as Japan.  It is quiet but not as quiet as Japan.  It’s automated, but not as automated as Japan.  There are several of those types of comparisons.

South Korea absolutely does this better than Japan: retractable sun umbrellas at intersections so you don't burn in the sun waiting to cross the street.

We saw the biggest cabbage ever in Seoul!

Beauty Products

One of the things Korea certainly does better than Japan is beauty products.  They are top notch in South Korea and you will find many of those products in Japan so I think Japan may know South Korea is superior in this area.  I picked up some anti-aging eye and face cream, concealer, and shampoo and conditioner.  They are definitely superior to what we have in the U.S. and cheaper!

Their big beauty store is Olive Young and they are everywhere.  There are more of these than convenience stores, which is saying something in Asia since convenience stores are king in Asia!  There were places where there was an Olive Young right across the street from another Olive Young.  Beauty really is the business to be in in South Korea.

Kimchi

They like their kimchi in South Korea.  So much so that there is a specific rule that you cannot carry kimchi with you on an airplane because of the smell.

 

Dogs

They love their dogs in Seoul.  The dogs are just as clean in South Korea as Japan but what we saw much more than Japan is that people in Seoul would put their dogs in baby strollers.  This was more common than the dogs being walked on a leash.  We even saw a couple of dogs that were walking with shoes on.  And they must wear them often because the dogs weren’t trying to fling them off which is what our dogs would have tried to do.

Cost

South Korea was the most expensive country we have visited on this trip but still about 20-30% less than the U.S. I suspect we will have culture shock with prices once we get back to the U.S.

The People

The people in South Korea were so kind and were quick to volunteer to help you if you looked confused.  And most of the time when they helped you, they didn’t speak English.  Most were speaking Korean with hand gestures.

We had a younger Korean woman who spoke English at a train station where all the signs were in Korean, stop and ask us where we were trying to go.  I am sure we looked so confused as we tried to match the Korean words on Naver with the ones on the signs.  Not an easy feat when they all look like intricate pictures.  We told her where we were trying to go and she directed us to the right platform.  Would you have done that for a foreigner in the U.S.?  I am not sure I would have before this trip, merely as a result of shyness. But I certainly will now!

One day, we were stopped in a park sitting on a park bench near some elderly women and when they left, they attempted rather diligently to speak to us in Korean, even after we told them in English we didn’t understand. They just kept on going - all smiles.  They seem excited to talk to us. It was sweet.  I pulled out my phone and brought up Google Translate and tried to explain the live translate so we could speak to these lovely ladies.  They didn’t understand and finally walked off.  I am sure they laughed at us.  We tried but if a conversation in Korean involves more than hello or thank you, we are out.

We had a rather sweet encounter with a man in a laundromat.  We were trying to figure out the washers and dryers since everything was in Korean.  An older man was there washing his clothes and pantomimed how to navigate everything for me.  He just walked up and started helping.  I didn’t ask.  Later while our clothes were washing and he had already folded his dry clothes, I saw him get some dryer sheets out of the machine.  I thought that was odd. And then when he was leaving he handed those dryer sheets to us as a kind gesture.

On the opposite side of things, we got a lot of stares. This happened more so in South Korea than any other place we have visited.  So often that we both noticed.  I don’t know if it was because we were both tall to them, if it is because I am taller than Blaise, or if it is because I am so tall.  Or perhaps it is our stunning good looks. Perhaps not the latter.  Or maybe staring is more culturally acceptable in South Korea than other countries.  At times it was unnerving.

Thoughts on South Korea

Overall, we loved Korea!  I think we would have enjoyed Seoul much more if our location were more central to all the sites we wanted to see.  It became a bit annoying traveling over an hour to see any we wanted to visit.

South Korea is one we want to return to and spend time in the southern parts and Busan.

I’ll spend my next blog talking about the places we visited in Seoul, just to break this up into smaller pieces.

If any of this writing sounds odd, it was because I was extremely distracted by the trivia going on while writing it.

Osaka - Final Thoughts

I am going to try something a bit different this time.  I have waited so long to blog and there is so much to say that I am going to post this in smaller bits.

I need to wrap up our time in Osaka, talk about our time in Seoul, our cruise, and then maybe talk about my overall thoughts looking back on the trip as a whole, the latter with, maybe, some superlatives (favorite/least favorite, most/least scenic, cleanest/dirtiest, etc.).  Let’s not forget the time in Alaska to come!

If there is anything you want to know about, let me know and I can include it in a future blog.

Thoughts on Osaka

We only spent three weeks in Osaka but could have easily spent three more, we liked it that much.  I am not sure what it is about Osaka.  Maybe it is Japan, in general, but we really loved it there.  I don’t think it is that Osaka is incredibly aesthetically pleasing.  It has beautiful parts, with its parks and gardens, and the cherry blossoms the first week we were there sent it over-the-top amazing.

One last view of the cherry blossoms

The architecture is not that memorable. It’s not gritty like Hanoi or cosmopolitan-feeling like Kuala Lumpur or as diverse as Bangkok.  And there was not as much English spoken there as other places we have been. But there was something about it.  The people were kind.  The streets were crazy clean.  And the society there, in general, is orderly. Except I really don’t understand why they drive on the left but go up escalators and stairs on the right. I think that leads to confusion when walking.  That problem is only in Osaka.  Everywhere else in Japan, everything happens on the left.  The right-side thing in Osaka makes no sense.

Escalator in Osaka (and the back of my head). You stand on the right so people can walk up on the left if they are in a rush.

All the streets have ample sidewalks where you are not dodging parked motorcycles, cafe seating, and potholes.

Every place we went seemed fairly accessible by train and a few minutes of walking without a bunch of transfers.  But I think that was in part due to our location near Osaka Castle.  The nearest train station was about a 7 - 10 minute walk which really didn’t even seem that long because it was straight down the street.

While we were looking forward to Seoul, we were sad to leave Osaka.  We are already talking about returning, if not to Osaka, to other places in Japan.  They don’t speak much English there but that really didn’t detract from the experience or keep us from doing things we needed or wanted to do.

Although, when trying to find a place to get my hair color, cut, and style, one salon turned me down because I did not speak Japanese.  They were afraid the language barrier would be a problem in figuring out what I wanted done.  This was ascertained from Google Translate.  It all worked out because I found an English speaking place to get my hair done and it is the best it has looked in months.

They love their dogs in Osaka.  They love them small,clean, and not stray.  We saw several people clean their dogs' butts after they pooped.  The white dogs were crazy white they were so clean.

We got used to the vending machines for drinks.  They were everywhere and cheap.  We got so used to it that when we got to Seoul, it was a convenience that we truly missed.

But most drink machines did not have plain bottled water since the tap water in Osaka is super clean and as a result, everyone drinks it.  This was the first place since we left Osaka the first time back in October, where we were able to drink the water from the faucet.  AND it tasted like bottled water.  I had no taste issues with it at all.

The Japanese do love their automation, from the money machines when you pay for things at stores to the website ordering in restaurants to the mall police robot.

Automation Example #1:  Carvana-style parking lot

Automation Example #2:  I like to call this a lazy Susan for cars.  You find them in some tight parking lots.  You pull your car onto it and it rotates so you can easily drive out of the parking lot.  Genius!

Restaurants

The restaurant ordering was weird to me.  You had a waitperson but you had to use a QR code to order your food.  They would give you a physical menu but when it was time to order, you scanned the QR code to place your order.  The waitstaff would then just show up with your drink and food.  BUT, you didn’t pay with the QR code.  Usually, you would go to the cash register near the hostess stand and pay there, dumping your money in the machine which would automatically spit out your change.  I am sure I drove some people nuts because it took me several iterations to figure out, you didn’t have to feed your bills and coins one by one.  Just dump your change in the bin like you are dumping coins in a CoinStar and it sucks them in and counts them for you.  Same with the bills - just feed your stack of bills and the machine takes care of the rest.

There were some street vendors and carts where you did not order directly from the vendor.  They had a machine off to the side with pictures of the items they sell on individual buttons that corresponded to the menu.  You press the buttons of the things you want to order and then pay the machine.  When you are done, you stand there and wait for your food.

One thing you absolutely cannot do in Osaka is customize your food.  You take it as they prepare it.  It is considered extremely rude to request changes to what you order - asking for things on the side or without something or with something additional.  If it’s not on the menu the way you want it, you don’t get it the way you want it.  You get it the way the chef wants you to have it.  So if you are one of those people that routinely specializes menu items at restaurants, you are screwed in Japan.

Bakeries

Osaka’s bakeries rival Paris.  Not quite the fanciness of a Paris patisserie but the taste is on par. Had we not been walking so much, weight would have been gained.

One of the things the Japanese bakeries are known for is “salt bread.”  It looks similar to a croissant, without the flakiness.  It is crispy and buttery on the bottom with a touch of coarse salt sprinkled on top.  Salt bread is delicious and if you like bread, I highly recommend it!

Bathrooms

The bathrooms in Japan are amazing!  They are plentiful and clean.  Every garden and every park had public restrooms.  They were always clean. Every time.

The women’s and men’s restrooms both had little urinals for little boys.  Most stalls in the women’s restrooms had little pull down seats for the little ones.  Some even had a separate place for the kiddos to go to the bathroom within the women’s restrooms.  These places consisted of low walls so the parents could watch from the outside with a little urinal and little low-to-the-ground toilet.

The nursing rooms were palatial.

Most restrooms had the fancy toilets with various types of integrated bidets, with music and/or water noise (“for privacy”).  My favorites were the ones that assumed you wanted the noise as soon as you locked the stall door.

Music Makes Everything Better

We noticed that if there was an unpleasant or rudimentary activity, there was some sort of pleasing music to go along with it.  The trash trucks would play music as they made their rounds.  Oftentimes, it was Camptown Races (which by the way, is an American folk song from the 1850's) or some sort of nursery song.  Some convenience stores would play classical music as you opened their doors.  They would play music as a train would arrive.  I wish I could remember all the examples but it was always some sort of campy electronicy music.

Big Regret

Our one regret for Osaka and Seoul is that we thought about going to a baseball game too late.  We tried but the games were sold out.  How fun would it have been to experience a game in a place other than the US where baseball is just as beloved as it is at home?! Yet another reason to return.  We will be sure next time to buy tickets long before we ever get there.  Being huge baseball fans, we both still want to do this.

On April 24, we sadly left Osaka, Japan and headed for Seoul, South Korea, our last stop before we got on the cruise ship and headed back to North America, specifically Alaska.

I think this is a great stopping point.  My next one will talk about getting to Seoul, South Korea and our time there.  Hopefully, the time between blogs this time will only be a few days, if not tomorrow.