Thoughts & Musings...

Good news... you've gotten to the end of my travelogue posts. (Aren't you glad I didn't share the 10,000 photos with you?) What did I learn on my Trip to Korea? What were the best experiences? What was my impression of Korea? Lots of positive thoughts but I'll focus on just a few things.

One insight I left Korea with is their respect and value for their physical environment. This is a country about the size of Indiana and a population over 50 million. It's terrain is mountainous with lots of coastline ranging from sandy beaches to rocky crags. But a remarkable characteristic that I noticed is that Korea has not built on their mountains. Instead, their buildings are in the valley floor and to accomodate the population they have apartments. No urban sprawl that stretches for miles! This feature was noticeable to me and I thought it was a big positive. Many young Americans yearn for walkable places to live; Korea has accomplished that with its focus on high rises versus sprawl.

View of one section of Seoul. Notice that mountains and hills are not developed.

Another thing I noticed was how incredibly clean the country is. I didn't see food wrappers, plastic bags, or paper blowing around either in the cities nor in the countryside. And that's surprising since there are absolutely no public trash cans this Gmama could find! We learned that if you had trash to dispose of while wandering the markets you would give your trash to the vendors and they would dispose of it.

Their kids are super friendly. We encountered several school groups plus random kids on the street, and to a number they would greet us with an exubberent 'Hello!' ... probably to practice their English. They willingly interacted with us and always were excited and friendly. (look how clean the street is in this photo with friendly teens)

Korea has to be the most bilingually signed city in the world. Every street sign had both Korean and English. So, although we struggle with saying the words we could at least see the letters and begin to recognize words. Train stations, bathrooms, etc were similarly translated and this mono-lingual American appreciates this.

So did I find some things I didn't like? Yes....

Firstly they have pitiful napkins. Apparently despite their enthusiastic eating they never need to wipe their face. The paper napkins at restaurants are about 4" square and about as thick as a Kleenex. Totally unsuitable for this Gmama.

Next, Americans still do better on showers. I don't know about you but I need to use both my hands to shampoo my hair. The very nice hotels we stayed in use those hand held things that are great except I couldn't get them adjusted to hit anything above my waist without removing them from the holder. And, their shower curtains overhang the edge of the tub by about 1/2" so inevitably the floor would be soaked when I was done. Granted these showers were much better than those seen in 'wet rooms' in China or Japan but I still think Americans have the lead on this.

And that's about it on the negatives. Pretty amazing, isn't it? To even quibble about napkins or showers means Korea is a pretty fabulous place to live and visit. Our group had a blast and I recommend it strongly!

Pat here. I couldn’t agree more on the napkins. I ended up using so many it was embarrassing. Perhaps this is because I was trying to use those chopsticks that resemble dental tools and really couldn’t pick anything up with them.

I disagree about the showers, and that’s because I’m a bath person. Unlike American hotel bathrooms, almost all of the rooms I had tubs, so I was in heaven. Love a good soak!

Until next time....