Year of the Dog's Weblog

I returned to Japan from Korea today. The verdict is in. Here is what you need to know about Korea:

Korea is noisy. On so many occassionsI wanted to tell the people around me to be quiet, turn your cellphone ringer off on the train, put your headphones on if you want to watch tv in public, stop honking your horn because it doesn’t make traffic move any faster, and turn the volume down on your ipod. But I didn’t say anything because it’s their country and I was just passing through.

Korea is delicious. For all the noisiness, Korea has some delicious food. You can get just about everything you would want to eat in the US. Fast-food, Mexican, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, and more. Dunkin Donuts is huge in Korea. They were everywhere. I tried some of the food from the street vendors and it was very delectable.  In the hot dog contest between Japan and Korea, Korea wins hands down. Best dang hot dog I had in a long time.

Korea is almost there. If I had to describe Korea in terms of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd world countries, I’d say korea is still stuck at 2nd world, but moving up fast. I stayed in Korea’s too largest cities and some parts looked futuristic and enticing, and other parts looked shady and a bit on the wonky side.

Korea has personality. Compared to Japanese and Americans people Koreans and downright gregarious. People are always out and about and talking away either on their cellphones or with their friends and family. I bumped into a Korean guy by accident and he wasn’t afraid to say something. I apologized and he let it go. Now if that was a Japanese guy he might of apologized to me even though I was at fault. I visited a convenience store last night in Pusan and the girl at the counter never once cracked a smile. She welcomed me in the store and blurted out the price in English in irritation when I couldn’t understand what she was saying in Korean. Tonight in Japan I went to a convenience store the staff was all smiles. Even if didn’t understand Japanese I would have clearly been able to see the price on their full color lcd displays. Not to say that all Korean people who work in the service industry are impolite, but if I had to give it a number, I’d say about 6 out of 10 are impolite. 3 out of 10 are polite and the other 1 is somewhere inbetween. If I went back home and rated Americans， I don’t know how they would rate. You tell me.

Korea is cheap. I’ve never been to a country where it was so cheap to get around. The subway was super cheap. A trip that would cost $5 dollars on the subway Japan would only cost you $1 in Korea. I rode the bullet train (KTX) in Korea and it only cost about $50 one way from Pusan to Seoul. If I want to go from Fukuoka to Tokyo it normally costs at least $200 unless they are having a discount campaign. Taxi’s in Korea were a thing of beauty. They were so inexpensive! I took a 30 minute taxi ride and it cost me less than $12. I took at 20 minute taxi ride in Japan and it cost me nearly $50 and that was before they raised the prices because of gas prices.

Koreans might be paranoid. When I rode the subway and trains in Korea, I saw gas masks in glass cases in the station. In each one there was maybe twelve or so masks. There were maybe two or three cases in a station. Now if a gas attack occurred I very much doubt that people would be able to get to the masks in time. Also there are more than 36 people in most subways stations in Korea. People on vacation in Korea can’t use the lockers at the subway stations. I tried at least five different times. I even asked people for help and it was futile. The biggest reason is that outside of bullet train stations and international harbors, the lockers don’t take cash. All the subway lockers take e-money from the t-card, credit cards, and cell phones with an RF chip. This pissed me off because I had nowhere to put my bag when I was in between hotels. Plus all the directions were in Korean. There was no option for English as far as I could tell. I guess they don’t want foreigners using their lockers.

Koreans speak English…sometimes. On the whole I think more Koreans can speak English than the Japanese. I think it has to do with exposure. Koreans are really into English. When I watched TV in Korea there were so many channels in English I couldn’t believe it. When I went to the big bookstores they had aisle after aisle of books in English. Not only that, but Koreans were actually buying the books and reading them. Not books on studying English, just normal books written in English. I saw tons of college students with textbooks on various subjects written in English. The downside is that the people I needed to know English didn’t know English. Not a single taxi driver or hotel clerk spoke even semi conversational English. They understood please and thank you, but not much else I said. However a hotel manager and the cashiers at starbucks understood and spoke English pretty well. The staff at On the Border and Bennigan’s understood English very well. But aside from chain restaurants from America it’s hard to find fluent English speakers in most Korean restaurants.

I enjoyed my stay in Korea, but I think you should know at least 300 words of Korean to make your stay more enjoyable. For example: numbers, days of the week, please, thank you, excuse me, how much, direction words, and color words.