Day 5

Friday, our last full day in Korea, involved a trip to the smallest island in the collection of South Korean islands. The beaches in South Korea are most certainly not like the beaches in California! More sludge than sand, and a hojillion shells. We also visited their fisherman's wharf, which was kind of like San Francisco's.

Also, before you see the next photos, I should explain 'couple sets.' Department stores in South Korea sell sets of clothes that are the same style, but one cut for males and the other for females. Couple sets were popular with young Koreans our age. We saw one couple who had matching shoes, shorts, shirts, and hats. It was very cute ^^

So, of course Lauren and I went native and got a couple set of shirts. They were very thin, and so felt just fine in the heat.

Back on the wharf, there was a variety of food onna stick being sold by vendors inna cart. They had eggrolls, chicken, corndogs, corndogs covered in french fries, squid, eel...

After the wharf, we headed back to Incheon.

The afternoon was spent in a kind of shopping mall. I particularly enjoyed seeing modern Korean culture. When I travel to foreign lands, I don't care so much about the ancient history, except as warning signs of what to avoid in the future. I like seeing the people today, doing what they do now. What are South Koreans doing now? Putting corn on pizza and selling peaches for $5 a peach.

The pizza was quite good; I didn't pony up for the peach.

For all of the cool stuff about Korea, I still found myself eager to return home to America. For one thing, the humidity. I can't overstate that enough. For another thing, the stench. The smell was partly due to the fact that we were in a coastal nation, and I hate sea food. Also, they had boiled squid on every street corner, and every dish they make is either heavily pickled or comprised almost entirely of garlic and onion. Now that's a bouquet you can't miss.

But also! They have no dumpsters. Like, you know those giant metal containers we put all our garbage sacks in, and then garbage trucks empty them? South Koreans just put their garbage sacks in the street, and the garbage trucks get them from there. 100 degree weather. 95% humidity. Pyew.

And don't get me started on the bathrooms! Each bathroom in a hotel or apartment was, like, a shower stall. The shower head would be right next to the toilet. All the same floor, no bathtub. Drain next to the sink. No windows or fans in the bathrooms either, so...mold. Yeah.

And the toilets! Many were squatters -- holes in the ground. I actually found it worse when I encountered the porcelain squatters. Don't legitimize this practice, please! And they had little trashbins next to the toilet...for the used TP. Right.

The tap water seemed fine, though. Tasted fine, and I didn't get sick, and no one told me to avoid it.

Alright, rant off! Here's some more good stuff about South Korea:

The authentic Korean restaurants are way cool. Each table has a barbeque pit in the center, and they bring you raw meat and seasonings. Then, you cook it yourself! It was a lot of fun, tasted great, and I didn't have to haggle with a chef over what "medium" constitutes.

We went to one of these restaurants for our last meal in South Korea. Usually, food service joints have photos of the meals, making it easy for me to just point at pics and hand over money. This place had no pictures at all. And no one there spoke English. So I ordered by looking at what the people around us were eating, and pointing at the best looking meal.

We got lucky, and the people behind us knew what the good stuff on the menu was! We got this marinated pork that came with a metal cup full of white...stuff, that also went on the grill. We didn't know what the white stuff was until the meat finished and we dipped it in there, and found out it was mozarella cheese! Crazy, and delicious.

Our last meal in South Korea was fantastically tasty. And because a monsoon was unleashed on us right before the meal, we were soaked. Having a barbecue pit right there at the dinner table was much appreciated!

Tasty meal devoured, we returned home to catch some sleep before flying half way around the world.