and did I mention a very large head of the Buddha made out of canned fish? The blue wall comes to about my shoulder, so that gives you the scale.
Single experience - but highly recommend Korean Air. Almost as much leg room as First Class, and good food. Excellent service too.
Landing at Incheon Airport finally felt like being in a foreign country. Don't get me wrong - loved Hong Kong, but it felt very similar to being in San Francisco's Chinatown. South Korea is different. The language, the people and especially the buildings. They are quasi- military, somewhat old fashioned and yet futuristic. Lots of new apartment buildings to accommodate the growth. Interesting anachronisms too. For example, in the building housing Isabel's school, there is a Parisian bakery. I used the building restroom, with high tech keypad access. But, as I had been told, no toilet paper - you bring your own tissues, and drop them not in the toilet, but in the bucket on the floor. Also, sink had both soap and hand sanitizer but a cloth towel. We surmise that paper must be expensive? Note - our hotels had the fanciest bidets I've ever seen - multiple wash options, blow dry, heat dry, and some other options I couldn't figure out - there were pics but even so.
While I'm thinking about the city, the sidewalk curbs are 6-8" high. They have monsoons here, though not this year.
Back to arrival - quick snack of udon at airport, then caught bus to Daejeon. Bus was quite luxurious - assigned seats, window curtains, and big comfortable seats. It was dark, so I slept most of the 2 hour ride. Dropped our bags at hotel, then went to Isabel's apartment. It's one of the nicer expat apartments - small by American standards, but cute and comfortable. She's in an older neighborhood, so lots of little businesses.
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| Exterior of her building - she's 2nd floor left |
She's fortunately only a 10 min. walk to her school, with lots of other teachers in the same neighborhood.
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| Exterior of her school building |
I had a great zucchini soup (in the black bowl - front left of pic), with rice that had small purple beans - no one has yet been able to say what the beans are - but they are yummy. The cooking platter is slightly tipped to drain the grease into the silver bowl on the right. At the top of the platter are strips of pork with cloves of garlic, and on the right of the platter is kimchi. When you order a main dish in Korea, it comes with a 3-4 sides, always kimchi, often soup, and in this case, a salad that is the right foreground of pic. In the back left of pic are various sauces - all of them SPICY HOT.
Back to Lotte City Hotel. Isabel chose well for us - we are right on the Gapcheon River, and overlook the Convention Center, and the twin arches bridge. Hotel is luxurious - inexpensive by US standards ($100/night) but quite pricey for Asia.
There were charcoal air fresheners in room along with the fancy bidet.
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| Couldn't figure out all the controls :-( |
You can google Daejeon - and find more. It's a city of 1.5M, but with only 6,000 expats, almost all of them teachers. There is tremendous pressure to ace 2 major exams, one at end of middle school to get in right high school, and another at end of high school to get into the right college. Basically, if you don't get into the right schools, you become a factory worker. Interestingly, there are no middle age workers in the stores - it's either a part time job for students, or the owners are staffing store.
According to Isabel's friends, the expat teachers have the lowest professional wages - they start at $2,000/month, but any other college educated person starts at $2,600/month. If you are wondering how Isabel can live on that, she actually started higher, her housing is paid for, and her utility bill is about $4/month. And food and transportation are super cheap. Our dinner tonight - 3 full meals, and 4 beers, was less than $30. Cab rides seem to be about $3 to get to most parts of the city, while bus/subway day pass is $1.
More adventures tomorrow.
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