Is this thing on?

I'm old and not so tech-savvy, but hopefully I'll get this blog thingamajig to work... I haven't gotten the layout figured out quite yet, but we'll get there.

First of all, for those considering a visit to Singapore this year, I should tell you that my first trans-pretty-much-everything-but-the-Atlantic flight really wasn't bad. In fact, some parts of it were even fun. You read, you sleep, you eat, you watch a movie, you sleep, you watch the little video of your plane flying over the map, you get up and stretch... the time goes quickly. And they give you decent food - I even had an ice cream cone. snazzy.

So, first stop in Asia for me: Seoul, Korea.

Aaron and I both really liked it. The tour books emphasize that Seoul is a combination of the very old and the very new, and you do get that sense... I think you can see that in some of my photos, like the one above.

Its an enormous city, population ~10 mill. And it feels big - but not at all diverse. As far as we could tell, everyone we saw was Korean, except for a handful of people. We also saw very few children or pregnant women... Korea has one of the lowest birth rates in the world.

Most people we interacted with did not speak English, and signs were rarely in English... Aaron did try to work on his Korean a little, at least saying "thank you" in Korean (gamsan hamnida), though it tended to come out like a soft hiss.

Practically everyone we encountered was friendly, or at least polite. I stopped by a 7-eleven on my first day there and, having not yet adjusted to the place, was momentarily taken aback when the guy behind the counter handed me my change with both hands, smiled, and bowed repeatedly.

In fact, check this out, NYers... people lining up to board the subway:

After seeing this, I started to feel a little badly about NYC behavior and train behavior in particular... but I was reassured when there was pushing and shoving to get off the train at a busy stop. People weren't really moving out of the way to let others off, and Aaron and I were almost separated (he was off the train, door was closing on my leg... all very familiar). People also cut each other in line at the ticket counter, fyi. I feel better.

Its winter there now, but despite the snow and cold we saw some beautiful things while we were there, including the Changdeokgung Palace. The palace was built in 1412, then burnt to the ground by the Japanese in 1592. No one lives there now, but it looks pretty nice today...

On top of the roof are some sculptures of monkeys, which were meant to protect the palace (if I understood the tour guide correctly). The more monkeys you have, the better off you are.

(John and Sherri - this photo goes out to you).

The wood was painted not only to make it pretty but also to protect it.

"Commoners" were not allowed to paint their homes, but they looked quite nice, too -- at least the "commoner-style" home on the palace property did (see below).

We also went to the Chongdong Theater to see some traditional music, singing, and dance. Below are some of the performers posing for the camera after the show. These ladies did some wicked drumming.

And we wandered around a bit to check out some different neighborhoods. These are some new homes going up... they look incredibly dreary to me from the outside, but we got the sense they were nice inside.



And of course Aaron made sure we got out to see some nature. Here he is hiking:



And here I am resting:

I'm sitting, by the way, on the steps up to a rock that people pray in front of in order to bring themselves sons. That's not what I was doing though. Just resting.

One attraction we decided to skip this trip was a visit to the DMZ. Here's a pamphlet I grabbed, in case you're interested...



The only thing I can say that I didn't like about Seoul was, believe it or not, the food. Yes, I know, everyone loves Korean food - its fabulous, beefy, delicious..blah blah blah. A lot of the food looked amazing, but was just not my thing.

Aaron liked a lot of it though. Here he is eating one of his new favorite dishes, bibimbap. (If he adds enough chili sauce, he can hardly even tell its vegetarian).

These guys were making some sort of little rice cakes at a market. Again, looked cool - didn't taste so cool.

One food I did not expect to be so popular in Korea was sausage. There was a lot of it. On sale here were all types of sausage on a stick, including one that is covered in dough and has french fries stuck all over the outside of it before its deep-fried. I can't believe this hasn't made it to the States.

This is a photo of a food cart at Dongdaemun Market - a night market we went to that was packed with people and just about everything you can think of was for sale... "NY-Garden State" sweatshirts (huh?), orthotics, ski goggles, ties, and fancy North Face jackets for practically nothing.

Despite different taste in food, I felt a certain kinship with Seoulites because they all seem to dress in my favorite color...

This is the lobby of the hotel we stayed in. Every morning there were scores of businessmen in black waiting here, I guess to meet up with other businessmen in black. (This photo doesn't really capture how many there were - it was impressive).

So that's a little snippet of our wonderful trip to Seoul. If you want to see more pics, I have posted some on flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/23248565@N02/2234351824/in/set-72157603832536287/