Country of Lights

by Arthur Dent

It was far too early when we had to get up, it was -6 degrees when we were standing outside for the shuttle, and after it still hadn’t turned up 15 minutes after it was supposed to arrive, we caught a cab. The cab of course overcharged the hell out of us. And then they tried to tell us that we had to sit 5 rows apart on the plane. I’ve really enjoyed my time here, but it seems that it’s time to go.

Some seat swapping later and I didn’t have to sit alone for three hours, two hours more before our other travel companions arrived, and then started the 4 hour train trip west. At least we arrived a bit earlier this time, and didn’t have to rush to still manage to catch the last Shinkansen for the day (like 2 years ago). The upside of this is that I at least have some more time to smash my way through the travel guide. And the passing Shinkansen provide an interesting wobble to the suspension that gives the whole thing a different sense of speed.

A few final impressions of Korea:

  • Glasses appear to be a bit of a premium. Showing a taxi driver something on my phone seemed to be a complete hit or miss thing, and several people tried to hold my phone up to the light to try and see.
  • Originality really doesn’t appear to be much of a of a thing with shops. If there’s one shop selling something, then the 200 shops around it will also only sell the same thing.
  • This is especially relevant with food shops that sell local … delicacies.
  • Great for just picking a direction and walking till something interesting seems to appear. (If I come back for this, a warmer season is a must).
  • Traffic lights are suggestions and safely ignored. Your survival chances are far higher if you depend on other things.
  • Amongst my travel pack we have Chinese speakers and some Japanese. Korean is almost exactly like neither of those two.
  • Have I mentioned that it was cold?

At least the accommodation was quite a bit simpler than that in Busan. Managed to find it first go, two keys, nice place. And really close to the night life. After having found some dinner for the starving masses (without even having to search around for long, basically just looking for a queue and joining), we were tempted to just enjoy the night life and walk around. But whilst it is far warmer here than it was in Incheon, we still decided to catch the last train home instead of having to walk home.