An even smaller Korean (and Japanese) sojourn!: If only Neil Diamond, the Boss, et al. could see us

One time warp later and we're finally back. It seems as if we left for just a couple of days. Good thing Laura took 1,500 pictures so our souls are solidly frozen in Japan/S. Korea. That's right folks, fifteen hundred!! And you thought we were showing you the good stuff.

I'm not going to go into all the differences between the Koreans/Japanese and N. Americans, that'd be pretty boring. But I will tell you all about how Seoul was perhaps not as relaxing as it should have been.

On arriving in Seoul, with Bonnie still as tour guide, we took a cab to our fancy schmancy Ramada hotel. Not that much more expensive than a hostel, and a way better stay, or so you would think. At the hotel the bellboys rushed out and unpacked all the bags and told the taxi to drive off. Except at dinner, I think to myself, hmmmmm don't remember bringing my backpack up to the hotel room. Sure enough, after a quick jog in my sandals, no backpack.

After overcoming the horror, bonster and I go to the front desk for some help. They are both not very good at speaking English and not very sympathetic. We talked to the bellboy for any clues and he suggested checking the CCTV video cameras. Of course, at 12 midnight the engineer is not there to help but they promise someone will look at it in the morning.

We take our DMZ tour, which was quite bizarre, and come back to hear that, of course, they cannot make out anything identifiable on the taxi. Good thing they have all of those cameras around. Laura convinces them to let us watch the tape ourselves and while we can't make out a license plate or anything, we manage to print out some pictures that sortof show the taxi logo and info.

So there we are, detectives four, sitting on a sidewalk cafe drinking espresso watered down to make "American coffee". Lo and behold, we spot a cab and phone # that looks like our blurry picture! The race back to the hotel desk begins, again.

Despite Laura's brilliant idea for picture sleuthing, the cab company has no bags that turned up and none of the drivers that were scheduled on the routes we took "remember" anything. Oy vey. And that was the end of new bag + camera + pottery + postcards + book w/ japonais bookmark + my fun time in Seoul except thankfully my passport.

But back to the DMZ tour and the bizarrity. You can tour one of the 3 tunnels discovered by the South Koreans, although there are believed to be about 10 in existence. They are all about 50 or so km from Seoul and one that was discovered is large enough to fit tanks and armored military things through it. And now... they're used for tours of the "peace and unification zone"! An exact quote from a South Korean propaganda video we got to watch. A peace zone with about 1.5-2 million soldiers staring at each other.

Everything was just as odd through the rest of our tour, from our unification loving guide, to the train station built 5 years ago showcasing pictures of our beloved still president bush. The train station was full of tourists and yet none of them could actually get on a train. A train built for noone.

Friday and Saturday went pretty quick. We walked around downtown Seoul Fri. Independence day ceremonies took place in the morning, these we slept through. Who has time to see ceremonies when there is sleeping to do? There was also the worst Modern Art Museum right near where the giant stage/korean flag were set up. 9,000 won (~$9) for 5 rooms of artwork which included a woodblock with Frida's signature. Where they kept the paintings, we'll never know.

And now we've been back for almost a week and I'm still adjusting. Not sure about Linda and Laura. Finally weather that doesn't feel like hot mold spores attacking your lungs! I've said it before and I'll say it again, never thought I would miss NY weather in the summer.