South Korea by www.born2travel.it

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22.03.09 Seoul (SOUTH KOREA)

It's 3.56 in the morning… Everyone is asleep around me… My stomach, my body, my mind are completely wrecked by now… What time is it? Is it morning, afternoon or evening? And what day? In Italy is it 21 or 22 March? And here?

This morning at dawn we left our hostel, our cars, Christchurch…. With a Qantas flight we returned to Auckland. Everything began there and everything ends there…. During the flight, Bruno reflected thoughtfully: “It's incredible, in an hour and a half we covered what we did in three weeks…”! In Auckland we slowly begin to “switch”. Already in the airport waiting room, while we waited for our flight, Westerners could be counted on the fingers of one hand… Around us only almond-eyed people (Chinese, Japanese, Koreans), even the hostesses and even our plane (Korean Air) has almond eyes!

New Zealand is by now a distant memory… We're immediately catapulted into the Eastern world, ideograms are everywhere, we no longer understand anything… even the menu is Eastern… Noodles and salmon or Korean rice? Ten long, uncomfortable and interminable hours carry us over various earthly paradises, from the Fiji Islands to the Cook Islands, from the Marshall Islands to Guam… But our destination is the capital of South Korea! I think of Seoul and I remember the Olympics, the football World Cup and the referee Moreno, the elimination against the host team… We land at 20.20 and try to get through all the bureaucratic formalities as quickly as possible; we're too curious to at least get a taste of this mysterious city!

45 minutes by bus and we reach “In-Sa-Dong”, the area a Korean woman we met at Auckland airport had told us about.

We'll encounter enormous difficulties even in doing the simplest things or reaching the most famous places, given the total ignorance of English on the part of Koreans, of all ages, from young people to taxi drivers…

We dine in a typical little restaurant, eat the most traditional things suggested to us by the waiter, and off in search of our “In-Sa-Dong”. Inevitably this city reminded me a bit of Hong Kong, though on a much smaller scale. I expected enormous blocks and majestic skyscrapers but nothing of the sort… It's true that we didn't get around much, but that was the initial impression! On the other hand, between a Korean beer and a Japanese sake, between a Pepsi and a cuddle, we spent part of the evening joking and chatting…

The courtesy and respect typical of Eastern countries can be felt here too… Bows to greet us or take leave of us, everything offered with grace and both hands (even the bill).

Meanwhile it's 4.25 in the morning and, like so many campers, we're lying on the benches of Incheon international airport…

Thank you Korea

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