Anyeong Haseyo, pt. 1

I stepped out of my apartment in Nashville on June 11th and arrived at my brother’s apartment in South Korea 25 hours later. Travel time included a total of about 16 hours in the air, a brief layover in Japan, and 2 hours of rush hour traffic through Seoul. After sleeping only 4 out of 48 hours and crossing 14 time zones, I would not have been able to pick out where I was on a calendar.

We don’t hear nearly as much about H1N1 in the States anymore, but it’s a big deal in Japan and South Korea. Entering Japan, everyone has to fill out a sheet compiling a list of all countries visited in the past week and detailing any ailments one might have experienced therein. I’ve been to Japan before, so the face masks didn’t strike me as bizarre, but they were far greater in number this time around. There are fewer masks in South Korea, but every passenger’s temperature is taken before they let you pass through immigration.

My brother lives in a township called Gunpo, which is about a 30 or 45 minute train ride from downtown Seoul. Tokyo and Seoul are similar in a lot of ways except for these: not many people in Seoul ride bikes because it’s too hilly, Korea is much cheaper, and the Japanese are better dressers, even though they kinda defeat the purpose with those face masks. There are also far more ex-pats here, and, on the whole, Koreans seem to speak better English.

Today we hiked up a mountain and I nearly died because I think I’m allergic to hiking mountains.

Taekwando

For some reason these dogs get this haircut.

Cable car to N Seoul Tower

Acrophobes don't like packed cable cars

Seoul

N Seoul Tower

N Seoul Tower

Trail up mountain whose ass we were forced to kick

Bro

The most exhausted I've ever been in a picture

Gunpo