Corea
So it was a big secret but last week I went to Korea for five days. It was a lot of fun, despite basically flying by the seats of our pants. My friend Ti basically asked me if I'd like to come along with him, and so of course I did. We booked tickets on "The Beetle," a highspeed ferry that runs from Fukuoka to Busan and takes only 3 hours. So with nothing our clothes, money and (what turned out to be bad) directions to a hotel, we were off to Korea. It turns out one of Ti's friends was in Korea at the time, and we met up with her and one of her friends, so that was nice too. Since I took a bunch of pictures I decided to post the ones that had random people in them.
We didn't really travel around the country but rather stayed in Seoul, so there are not a lot of beautiful country landscapes. But there are several large palaces within the city that are like big parks and are really nice. This is one of the pictures from one of the largest ones.
This is another view from the same palace area.
I thought this hill was pretty keen.
I took a picture of some random girl posing for a picture being taken by someone else. It looks like she's playing hide and seek.
This is the guy that invented the Hangul writing system, that is the writing system of Korea. It's completely logical and designed to work perfectly with the Korean language, which makes it pretty neat. Actually, I lied, this isn't really him, it's just a statue.
The food in Korea was really good, and spicy, with kimchee served at every meal. But this creepy place on the street that Ti wanted to try that served ghastly sausages and pig faces was, believe it or not, not that tasty. Ti apologized afterwards for making me eat "peasant food" and bought us our next meal of Korean pancakes. Seriously though, everything in Korea EXCEPT THIS STUFF is really really good and I want to eat some right now.
There were a lot of frozen yogurt shops in Seoul for some reason, and this one rivals the Japanese for it's superkawaii (supercute) atmosphere. You can see Ti, his friend Sun Mi, and her friend Jaeman. Jaeman has the coolest name ever. His name is "Oh Jaeman" which is like "Oh! J-man!" in English. Isn't that the awesomest name in the world? He's a really cool dude too, worthy of the name.
Instead of showing you a picture of a temple that you'd probably not find that interesting I'll show you a picture of a woman retouching the artwork on a temple because it seems more interesting, at least to me.
I think Korea is the most romantic country in the world, or at least the most romantic one I've ever been to. Everyone seems to be in love, or at least acting like they are. It seems like being a couple is latest trend or something. Completely different from life in Japan where it's no doubt they have a pitiful birthrate and population decline. Anyway, this picture, I thought, was fun. Earlier we had seen a pair of teenagers wearing matching "this is my boyfriend/girlfriend" shirts, and I didn't get to take a picture of it. So when I saw this woman walking alone wearing a "this is my boyfriend" shirt, I had to take a picture of it.
This is the picture you've all been waiting for! If you look closely, you can see North Korea. Sorry, I can't make out if there are any type-0 dong missiles there or not. But you can just barely see the North Korean flag hanging from the flagpole. Well, not really, but you can just barely make out that there is a flagpole. Apparently it is the largest flag in the world or something because of the propaganda war of having the biggest flag, which eventually South Korea gave up on. The reason you can't see anything is because they make you stand behind a yellow line so that you can't take a good picture.
The demilitarized zone was a really cool place to visit, but of course it was well-regulated. I didn't know anything about North/South Korea before I went really, so it was good to learn about it. South Korea really wants to reunify, something I didn't realize before I went. They even opened up industries in North Korea (because you don't have to pay them much) They see it as a mutually beneficial relationship. The South actually dislikes Japan and worries about them more than they worry about the North. That's interesting!
This is Sun Mi drinking some yogurt soju (Korean alcohol which translates to shochu in Japanese) on our last evening in Korea. It was a tasty beverage.
That's the end of my Korean photo tour, I hope you could enjoy! Eat your kimchi folks!
We didn't really travel around the country but rather stayed in Seoul, so there are not a lot of beautiful country landscapes. But there are several large palaces within the city that are like big parks and are really nice. This is one of the pictures from one of the largest ones.
This is another view from the same palace area.
I thought this hill was pretty keen.
I took a picture of some random girl posing for a picture being taken by someone else. It looks like she's playing hide and seek.
This is the guy that invented the Hangul writing system, that is the writing system of Korea. It's completely logical and designed to work perfectly with the Korean language, which makes it pretty neat. Actually, I lied, this isn't really him, it's just a statue.
The food in Korea was really good, and spicy, with kimchee served at every meal. But this creepy place on the street that Ti wanted to try that served ghastly sausages and pig faces was, believe it or not, not that tasty. Ti apologized afterwards for making me eat "peasant food" and bought us our next meal of Korean pancakes. Seriously though, everything in Korea EXCEPT THIS STUFF is really really good and I want to eat some right now.
There were a lot of frozen yogurt shops in Seoul for some reason, and this one rivals the Japanese for it's superkawaii (supercute) atmosphere. You can see Ti, his friend Sun Mi, and her friend Jaeman. Jaeman has the coolest name ever. His name is "Oh Jaeman" which is like "Oh! J-man!" in English. Isn't that the awesomest name in the world? He's a really cool dude too, worthy of the name.
Instead of showing you a picture of a temple that you'd probably not find that interesting I'll show you a picture of a woman retouching the artwork on a temple because it seems more interesting, at least to me.
I think Korea is the most romantic country in the world, or at least the most romantic one I've ever been to. Everyone seems to be in love, or at least acting like they are. It seems like being a couple is latest trend or something. Completely different from life in Japan where it's no doubt they have a pitiful birthrate and population decline. Anyway, this picture, I thought, was fun. Earlier we had seen a pair of teenagers wearing matching "this is my boyfriend/girlfriend" shirts, and I didn't get to take a picture of it. So when I saw this woman walking alone wearing a "this is my boyfriend" shirt, I had to take a picture of it.
This is the picture you've all been waiting for! If you look closely, you can see North Korea. Sorry, I can't make out if there are any type-0 dong missiles there or not. But you can just barely see the North Korean flag hanging from the flagpole. Well, not really, but you can just barely make out that there is a flagpole. Apparently it is the largest flag in the world or something because of the propaganda war of having the biggest flag, which eventually South Korea gave up on. The reason you can't see anything is because they make you stand behind a yellow line so that you can't take a good picture.
The demilitarized zone was a really cool place to visit, but of course it was well-regulated. I didn't know anything about North/South Korea before I went really, so it was good to learn about it. South Korea really wants to reunify, something I didn't realize before I went. They even opened up industries in North Korea (because you don't have to pay them much) They see it as a mutually beneficial relationship. The South actually dislikes Japan and worries about them more than they worry about the North. That's interesting!
This is Sun Mi drinking some yogurt soju (Korean alcohol which translates to shochu in Japanese) on our last evening in Korea. It was a tasty beverage.
That's the end of my Korean photo tour, I hope you could enjoy! Eat your kimchi folks!