A mere 14 hours after leaving the US, Christopher and I found ourselves in Incheon, South Korea, a small island just outside of Seoul. Thanks to a cocktail of modern medicines, I actually slept almost the entire time. Christopher was not so lucky, which was unfortunate because we were seated next to the baby bassinets. On the bright side, no one was reclining into our faces, but of course sitting next to infants is less than ideal. The babies by us, luckily, were actually pretty good and slept almost the whole way. We got to Korea ahead of schedule (!) and went through customs without waiting (!!). Then we had to try to figure out how the heck to get out of the airport.
Christopher and I paced up and down by the 207 million bus lines that apparently connect Incheon Aiport to the Pacific seaboard. Thank Buddha, a Korean-American dude came over and generously helped us out. We were able to catch a bus into the heart of Seoul, and despite some language-related problems we ended up basically where we needed to be. We enjoyed foreign Dunkin Donuts (sticky rice donut anyone?) before joining a bus tour that took us all around downtown. We were able to get off and on as we wanted, and saw highlights like classical palaces, a "traditional" Korean village, and even the US military base (should that be on a tour?). Seoul was really different from what I expected. It was a nice blend of modern and the typical cramped, ramshackle development of third world cities. There were also lots of nuns walking around, tons of American chains, trees and flowers everywhere, and an abundance of pop art that was about as Asian as it gets. It was a really nice city, and I guess it liked me back because at the end of our tour the guide chased me down to hand me a replica of the City Tour bus. Yessss!
Unfortunately we had to leave, because our journey was not yet over...
