My Visit To South Korea

I am back from my 8 days in South Korea! I have over 800 exotic photos in my phone camera. It is bursting now together with the thousand photos of my visit to Taipei after the trip to England, Scotland and Wales. I will go crazy soon on how to update my blog postings. Let me warm up a short brief about South Korea first.

1. It was the first time I ever traveled overseas for a week without my wife. I wish she was together with me but she had other plans. So she encouraged me to have a reunion with my Korean buddies during our US college days. I managed to find time to buy postcards and quickly ran to the post office nearby the hotel in Seoul to post them! So happy lah!

2. This trip, it was a good time to visit South Korea in Spring with blooming flowers everywhere. My first trip many years ago, was during Winter which was solely for skiing in the Korean mountains. Lately, the weather has gone freako in Korea as the temperature was below 10C degrees every night in Seoul, Busan and Andong. It was so windy and cold lah for Spring! Brrr Brrr Brrr ...

3. I stayed in a few good hotels around Busan and Seoul on the advice of my Korean buddy friend Lee JS. I saw pretty looking guys and gals with milky white flawless skins walking on the streets everyday. When you see a Korean family walking closely with an entourage, you can tell that they are very wealthy. Suddenly, their tinted big vehicles would show up to fetch that old man & his matriach. The whole family would have to bow at the old couple as they closed the car doors. The K-dramas we watch on TV are often scripted from real family feuds and marital affairs today. South Korea has top rankings for divorces, suicides, hard core drunkards and the most spy-cams in the world! I am not kidding.

4. I was truly blessed throughout my trip as this Korean buddy's wife who is a bank President insisted that he chauffered me everywhere from Seoul to Busan and back with a night's stop over at the ancient village at Andong. It was an honour that his wife accorded me with this high respect and warm hospitality that I will cherish forever. He even had to foot for all the meals for many days. It was almost the last leg of my trip when I met another Korean friend Lee HS. He took me on the crowded subway to have a special dinner in another place at Jongro 3ga which was 10 minutes from Myeongdong or 30 minutes from Gangnam.

The statue of The Great King Sejong of Joseon Dynasty - Korea.

5. This old friend Lee HS who holds a high position at Price Waterhouse is the descendants of The Great King Sejong of Korea. He was so pleased and touched as I bowed deeply and paid respect to his ancestor's statue which sits prominently along the downtown Seoul's Gwanghwamum Boulevard.  I always nicknamed him The Last Prince of Korea and this title tickled him a lot.

6. This Last Prince made me walk for miles in the chilly night to admire at all the prominent landmarks. My other Korean friends raised their eye brows in disbelief when I told them how I walked all night and my watch clocked almost 20,000 steps that day. Hihihi..

7. We walked pass this colourful building which belongs to the Dong-A Newspaper company. It seems to be the most loathed tabloid in South Korea as they often reported nonsense and biased news. Sounds like The Star. No?

8. The Last Prince took me into the back alleys at Jongro 3ga where you will always find popular and good restaurants. 

9. This is the most famous Korean dish that is only available in Seoul. It is called Gull Bosam which consists of raw oysters together with delicious porky combo.

10. The Last Prince is a very good host ever since we were students in US. He often drove me in his car for midnight bowlings with the other gang of Gangnam Koreans. We also traveled in his car to Washington DC, New York, Maryland, Virginia and Niagara Falls where the Canadian customs arrested us for entering Canada without passports. We could laugh back on how we were individually interrogated by the Canadian officers and had to sign deportation papers to confess the crime we 'accidentally'  committed. It was solely his mistake for driving into the wrong highway that entered into Canada.

11. My delicious meal came with this signature flavourful and mildy spicy broth of pork bones that had been boiled for over 24 hours! 

12. The Koreans must drink some alcohol whether it is a happy or sad occasion, even at funerals! This one is their popular Rice Wine! Burp!.

13. Too much good food and happy wines made Jack A Sick Boy. I had severe diarrhea on my last 2 nights and still purged onboard the plane. The aircraft shook violently when I exploded into the toilet in midair over China. Muahahahahaha

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