In the land of morning calm

(The first few weeks...)

Welcome to Incheon, South Korea, where kimchi abounds...

This is our place. A three bedroom unit we share with a Kiwi who's been living in Sydney. As you can see, on the ground level of our building is the Non Stop Chicken Stop, with dudes that scooter chicken around town (a bit like a homemade KFC). After ignoring us for a few weeks the "chicken boys" have now taken to bowing to us, saying "Annyeong Haseyo" (hello) and then having a good laugh at our pronounciation when we reply.

Our walk to school is quite nice. Although Incheon has 2.5 million people, the use of space is pretty good and there's parks on every corner as well as exercise areas.

We've also discovered a nice mountain about a 10-minute walk away from us, which has a pagoda at the top and lots of walking paths. There's a fresh spring up there where you can fill up your water bottles (you don't drink tap water here, only bottled water, though it's pretty cheap so you can survive).

We walk past many buildings on our way to work that all look the same, not so nice in the day but lit up with thousands of neon lights at night. It creates a great atmosphere. Korea comes alive at night....cars pull up a park wherever they want (half on road, half on footpath) and everywhere you look groups of men are swigging soju (rice wine, bit like vodka).

If we are not walking to work we ride our new bikes. It only takes about 5 mins to get there.

About 50 metres from our apartments is a wonderful galbi restaurant. You sit on stools (or, more usually, on the floor) around a little table that has a pot of hot coals in the middle. Your meat is then brought out and you grill it right in front of you. The silver things from the ceiling take the smoke away. You eat the meat wrapped in sesame leaves, and many other side dishes such as steamed egg which comes out boiling in a pot, dried fish bits, kimchi (of course), a kind of coleslaw mix and rice. It can cost from about $7 each. It's fantastic.

Eating out, in general, is very cheap in Korea. Most meals cost between AUD$3 and AUD$4...however there ain't a whole lot of choice.

You've got to love your noodles and gim bap (what we call sushi at home). On the other hand, buying fruit and veges at the supermarket is really expensive. A fist-full of broccoli can set you back about $2.50, while a single piece of fruit can be about $2.

Everyone lives in apartments, or "apatus", here and these countless rows of apartment blocks are a common sight. I am not sure that houses even exist here.

Shopping centres are nothing like home. Here is Bupyeong, one of the many shopping centres which are completely underground. They seem to run for miles in any direction. Carmen is having shopping withdrawals. Shopping is not a serene experience like it is at home. And the clothes seem to be very poor quality, with some odd fashions thrown in. Pulling your socks up to your knees, while wearing high heels, is quite big here at the moment. ha! As is really sloppy clothes.

A beautiful spring day riding our bikes. We came across a new suburb where there are literally hundreds of high rises being built. It is like they just decided to build a new city. This new city is near Songdo. It's called New Songdo City (!).

Fun times in Seoul

(The remaining photos are from our first few ventures into Seoul)

Catching the bus and listening to our ipod.

Walking through the streets in Seoul. There are restaurants everywhere.

A wonderful arts, crafts area in Seoul called Insadong. There is so much going on there. It's an area with lots of traditional Korean activities, displays and shops etc. One tasty example is ginger and peanut toffee. At the end of the day this man rolled up a big slab, shaved the toffee off and stuffed whispy bits around a stick like a lollypop. Wes didn't like it....I was seriously concerned I wouldn't be able to prise my jaw apart. Below is honeycomb which they chip off a big block.

Still in Insadong. There are plenty of tourists but there are also thousand of locals. This building gives a great view of the street below and to the mountains in the distance.

This is one of the more famous parks in Seoul.

South Korea has some interesting markets. Here is Namdameun Markets, near Seoul station. Despite the amount of people in the area it is really fun walking around and it is a great place to get things cheap. There's loads of odd food items (they're big on ginseng), and of course there's heaps of restaurants. There are some pretty nice Korean treats, one called Hottok, which is a fried pancake filled with brown sugar. They also have these glutinous rice balls (not like rice as we know it) that are really chewy, but not sweet.

A 500 hundred year old pagoda, which is encased in glass to preserve it.

The staple dish of South Korea, 'kimchi'. There's different vegetables, but mainly it's just Chinese cabbage, that is fermented in chilli (yes, it can blow your head off). Some are pretty good, but others are not so nice. You always get kimchi with your meal. It's pretty stinky too...

The Seoul Drum Festival was excellent. It was held in an open grassed area in front of the city hall. The temperature's really starting to drop here and this was a cool night. There were drum groups from the USA, Cuba, Japan etc. And of course, when the head of the Cuban band greeted the crowd in Korean, everyone roared with laughter.