South Korea

South Korea was never a destination intended to be on our bucket list of must see places. To be perfectly honest, we have witnessed enough tourists from this country to have an opinion that I shall refrain from repeating or sharing. I had hoped that visiting the country would shed new light, alas, I was wrong.

Our next destination is our place of choice. To go there, we wanted to land on a certain day of the week. With Japan being a rather expensive country, we opted to fly to Seoul for a few days, then move on. What could possibly be wrong with visiting yet another new country?

If flight prices had been more favourable, then we would have flown into Busan, a coastal destination, but alas prices dictated that the Capital was far cheaper to fly in and out of.

And that is how and why we came to be in South Korea, and Seoul.

Don`t get me wrong, its not all bad, our hotel is perfectly adequate. Exceptionally clean, very small, just 8 or so rooms, and one of the cleanest kitchens so far. Such a shame cooking is not an option. We have Netflix, a window that opens, and a private bathroom. The hotel manager is lovely. Very different to anyone else we have met whilst here. From his equivalent of our Amazon App he has purchased Teabags and SD Memory cards for us, we gave him the cash, order placed at 9pm arrives at 6am. We have required both for quite some time, not so much the T bags, but even in Japan, the land of tech, we were never in the right sort of place to find the memory cards. South Korea is a country of coffee shops, ever second shop leading away from our hotel is a Coffee shop, and not ones that have Tea tucked away in the corner of any menu. Its Coffee or bust.

Mr and Mrs Bunny are not wanting to venture far from the central part of Seoul, google maps doesn`t work here, and though the local mapping app is good, its just not the same. Little B wanted to go on a trip to the DMZ, we were not particularly bothered. Of everything she learned whilst on said trip, more of which I will expand upon later, was the fact that Koreans are workaholics, and learnaholics. They strive to be the best English speaker, have the best white collar jobs, aiming always upwards, but gaining this by endless learning, school all day, quick nap, and additional advanced learning each evening until the early hours. Every day. Pretty much sums up why they drink so much coffee! (and why they look permanently miserable and tired)

Seoul. From the moment I arrived I confess that I just didn`t feel or get the vibe of Seoul. It is not a pretty city, it is not a happy or bustling city, it just Is. Tourism doesn`t seem to have a place here. Very much, `Oh, your a tourist, well you can go here, or there, play dress up if you want, but just get on with it on your own please`. I do admit to arriving into this country very much feeling the pain and sadness of losing a very dear lifelong friend, but there is nothing here to take my mind off it, or cheer me up. I find Seoul, soul less. We went to the `Palace` we know they have a changing of the guard ceremony. Prior to watching this ceremony, we wandered the grounds of said Palace. Truthfully nothing about it looks like a palace. It is not a lived in palace, it looks more like a collection of Temples, a smaller version of the Forbidden City in China, and everywhere we looked we saw people playing dress up in the local traditional dress of the country, the Hanbok. Fine, go ahead and play dress up, but why? It looks perfectly wonderful when you have the face that suits the dress, but western people wearing the Hanbok looks, sorry, stupid. (my opinion only) Putting a pleasant quizzical look on my face (at times hard) I asked an older English speaking lady why she was wearing it, her reply `to be a part of it` ? Eh? You want to be part of a culture that does not wear its traditional dress everyday (unlike say Ecuador or Peru) I tried to keep my opinion of `well I think you look stupid` well and truly masked. Like I admit to earlier, I really do not get the vibe of Seoul. My frustration towards the dress was exacerbated when a white foreign person from a country which I deign to refer, had a hissy fit about having to pay an entrance fee because as per all the notices stated Persons wearing the Hanbok are exempt from paying. He was wearing it, but partly. Wearing scruffy jeans and trainers under the smock does not a traditional outfit make. The cost of the Entrance Fee? £1.50 for goodness sake people, get a life! The time of the changing of the Guard approached. They fenced off the area, people walked into the fence multiple times dragging it across the ground purely because they couldn`t bear to tear their eyes away from their phones. Oh I was getting so cross. At least let this ceremony be good. It wasn`t. It was a painfully boring and amateurish recreation of how the changing of the guard was done, way back when. 40 or 50 persons, in recreated traditional dress, some with stick on beards, marched about in some sort of formation, waved a few flags, and left. I may have found some humour in the situation if some infuriating bint behind me hadn`t used my head as a phone rest. I was so angry, but alas the parade ground was respectfully quiet. 20 mins of biting my lip, but she clearly knew as she scarpered pdq when the parade ended and I rounded on her in a fury. Poof, she was gone. Two younger end boys, possibly early 20s most probably from Korea, were my only salvation to the day. We saw them standing ever so proudly in their very smart Hanbok outfits of the most beautiful pale blue near the lake. Taking each others photo, they brought a smile to my face that day.

Later in our stay in Seoul we visited the temple. A lot less people playing dress up, and a very fine room that you could view through the window were about as much as I recall. My patience with temples, is waning fast. We could have visited the secret garden to see the cherry blossom, but, you know what, we all agreed we were pretty much done with the cherry blossom. Starbucks hot chocolate and cake, Mr B having beer and chicken in the bar opposite, finished our day.

That, my bunny friends, is probably all I can tell you about Seoul. We walked to a pasta restaurant one afternoon to find some real food, Pasta always works and a box was ticked. The choices of food here in Seoul are vast, and I promised myself that when we came away I would be brave and try different foods, but as per the food found across Asia, be it Singapore, Kl, Taiwan, Japan and South Korea, if you cannot stomach fish of every variety, sea foods, chicken every part still with skin on, or even more bizarre sandwiches made with egg, crab meat, mayo, carrot, vinegar, onion, sweet corn and strawberry jam, on the same sandwich at home, then your taste buds are not going to change that much when away. I have really struggled with food these last few weeks, the 7/11 in Japan was a lifesaver with its huge choices of wonderful and almost `normal` foods, but in a few other places? Mars Bar anyone?

South Korea, I may not understand you, but I respect you. It is unlikely we would choose to return and wish you every kindness and peace in your lives.