Korea: Food and Sleep
On the morning of my first full day in South Korea, I met up with one of my company's other employees for breakfast. Dick had been working with the customer on this particular project for about eighteen months, alternating between the US and Korea in roughly two-week blocks. Part of the reason I'd headed over on such short notice was to overlap with him, as he was supposed to be headed back home soon, but we'd never actually met in person before. He knew the area, and after breakfast we took caught a cab to the customer site. I'm glad Dick was with me, because I would have had no idea how to tell the cabbie where to go if I had been on my own.
I spent part of the morning at the customer site getting set up, but I couldn't actually get access to the machine (which I needed to do to diagnose the problem they were having) until the night shift. We'd expected that this was going to happen, so after lunch (which was pretty terrible cafeteria food) I headed back to the hotel to get a few hours of sleep before coming in that night.
That's not quite what happened. I figured that since I had some time available to me, I might as well go out and explore a little bit. I was staying in the area where most of the 1988 Olympic Games were centered, and you could tell. My hotel on Olympic-ro, which connected the stadium/sports complex with Olympic Park. On the median were sculptures of all sorts of athletes. Wondered around the area for several hours, mostly to get a sense of scale on my guidebook's map. Just as I was thinking about heading to bed, I started to get hungry, so I ended up in a restaurant in the massive food court under the shopping center next to my hotel. I chose that particular establishment because of the menu.
Pictures and numbers were my salvation, as I still had no idea how to read hangeul. When my waiter came, I pointed to the #29. It turned out to be rather good, and after finishing, I headed up to my room and slept.
Originally published at paultevis.com.
I spent part of the morning at the customer site getting set up, but I couldn't actually get access to the machine (which I needed to do to diagnose the problem they were having) until the night shift. We'd expected that this was going to happen, so after lunch (which was pretty terrible cafeteria food) I headed back to the hotel to get a few hours of sleep before coming in that night.
That's not quite what happened. I figured that since I had some time available to me, I might as well go out and explore a little bit. I was staying in the area where most of the 1988 Olympic Games were centered, and you could tell. My hotel on Olympic-ro, which connected the stadium/sports complex with Olympic Park. On the median were sculptures of all sorts of athletes. Wondered around the area for several hours, mostly to get a sense of scale on my guidebook's map. Just as I was thinking about heading to bed, I started to get hungry, so I ended up in a restaurant in the massive food court under the shopping center next to my hotel. I chose that particular establishment because of the menu.
Pictures and numbers were my salvation, as I still had no idea how to read hangeul. When my waiter came, I pointed to the #29. It turned out to be rather good, and after finishing, I headed up to my room and slept.
Originally published at paultevis.com.