I’m finally getting around to writing about some of my world travels. I suppose it’s fitting that I’m writing this on a Delta flight. Thank god for in-seat power! And for complimentary upgrades to first class!
Where to start? I guess it makes sense to just intersperse ‘historical’ blog posts, where I reminisce about past trips, with current ones. That way I’ll be able to keep sort of up to date while catching up with old stuff.
So here we go!!!! 
In late January, I spent some time in Seoul, visiting Peter and Ken, friends from work.
Here’s a shot of the view from Peter’s place.Most of those massive apartment towers you see are actually pretty empty. At the time I figured Korea was in store for some serious real estate price correction, and from what I’ve heard, this is happening. 
I ended up meeting a bunch of cool expats (turns out the expat community’s quite small), and hanging out with them well into the mornings. If you thought New York is a town that never sleeps, you really should check out Seoul. The subway shuts down early, but the taxis are so cheap it doesn’t really matter.
One of the reasons I love Korea and Japan is that there’s one of the few places I’ve been that is really different but strangely familiar. That contradiction is quite elusive; the closest I can get to describing how I feel is that the layout, plan, and feel of the city is sort of Western which makes me feel sort of at ease, but the culture is very different, and of course, I don’t speak the language. I’ll try to come up with a good example of this and post it.
One day, I went to Coex, which is supposedly the largest underground mall in Asia:
It was really hyped up, but it was honestly a bit underwhelming. Maybe my being from Montreal biased me (we have a seriously massive underground mall/tunnel complex connecting most buildings in the downtown core — who wants to go outside when it’s -30C ?). All the same there were some things worth noting. For one, the preponderance of western chains was a bit disappointing. Note the Dunkin Donuts. 
At the rate cultures are converging, by the time I’m 60, we’ll basically have one homogeneous world culture. Very disheartening. (But maybe by then they’ll have some Dunkin Donuts in California!)
But check this mall directory out! Instead of the usual stupid static map that is endemic to every mall in North America, the Koreans have come up with a technological solution. 
The directory is actually a massive touch-sensitive screen hooked up to a computer. Tell it what you want to buy, or where you want to go, and it will give you step-by-step directions to get there. Cool!
They also have a escalator-hand-guide-thing sanitizer-and-ad-display system deployed everywhere. Kinda cool. 
At this point I was starting to get hungry. The last time I came to Korea, I had some trouble finding vegetarian food. But this time, having memorized a few key phrases, I found it much easier. I decided to get a tomato and cheese sandwich along with some fries here, at Kraze Burger. 
Their food was, as they claimed, quite tasty and seemed to be prepared on site. I think it’s kind of inspired by In `N Out or something. (Ironically, I later discovered that Kraze is actually a Korean chain, and there is a branch on the ground floor of Peter’s apartment. Ha!)
Next up, I wandered out through the convention centre to check out this famous temple that’s just across the street from this mall, the WTC, and a few other tall buildings. 
It turns out that this temple used to own a vast expanse of forested land, and sold it to developers (who later built these buildings) for an obscene amount of money. It’s now one of the richest temples in Asia. Or so the random tour guy told me.
When I was heading back to the subway, I noticed Timothy’s coffee.
Does the logo look familiar? I couldn’t help but feel that it was a direct knock-off of Tim Hortons! Some Canadians I asked seemed to concur and said it was probably because a lot of Koreans go to Canada to study English and end up craving Tim Bits. I can’t say that I blame them!
The streets are all incredibly wide: 
Since the city was basically totally destroyed and rebuilt in the 50s, it was designed with the automobile in mind. I find the scale of the streets really intimidating as a pedestrian, not because I’m scared of getting hit (like in India), but because the thought of crossing the street seems like a huge endeavour. I like New York and old London’s small streets way better.
OK I’m gonna try to keep these short, so people will actually read some of this stuff. But the next post will include my trip to a Korean batting cage, the top of Seoul Tower, a long walk along a newly reconstituted river, and some other districts. Please let me know what you think.
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