Korea Day 1 - The Best Airport in the World

We needed to get to Shanghai early the previous day because out flight left at 8am. The train options were pretty limited. There was a D-train that left at 9:30 and two of the slower numbered trains that left at 10:30 and 2:30 in the morning. I was thinking about getting one of the later trains but the woman at the ticket counter said that they only had standing room tickets left. The price difference was also surprisingly small. Ken later thought that while they rarely sell standing room tickets on the D-train the other train might have been standing tickets only and at 2:30 am on a Thursday we would have gotten seats. There were actually a pretty good number of what I guess were commuters on the train and as always a large number of people mulling around the Shanghai train station. As soon as we got off the train we were mobbed by people trying to get us to go to their hotel or ride in their taxi. One of my favorite things about Changzhou is that it's too small to have people hounding tourists; also I don't think Changzhou gets any tourists. We walked over to where the airport shuttle was and found out that it stopped running about an hour before. It would start running again at 5:30 which might have gotten us their in time but it would have meant either standing around with all the migrant workers or spending another night in a McDonalds so we decided to take a taxi.

We ignored all the people trying to sell us one, though some were incredibly persistent. Eventually we just walked a little way down the street and got a metered cab to the Shanghai Airport. Shanghai actually has two airports but by far the larger one is located some distance from the center of the city. It cost close to 200 RMB, about $30, to get out there since all the other options were closed. When we got to the airport it was virtually deserted except for all the people peddling rooms for the night but we decided it would just be easier to hang out at the airport. At first we just found some normal seats to sit in but they didn't really offer enough space to spread out. While Ken was looking for a bathroom he discovered that there was a Burger King open all night on the second level of the airport. We moved down there since they had nicer seats and benches. In America it might be inappropriate to sleep in a fast food restaurant but in China it's just par for the course. Ken got something to eat but my stomach was hurting the whole night so I didn't eat much. Ken was able to sleep a little while I read.

Even though they worked at a Burger King when it was time for their dinner the people who worked their took out a big thing of rice and vegetables they had clearly brought from home. But while that may be very Chinese in many ways the Shanghai airport seemed like another country. It was clean well organized, had nice toilets, western food, it was simply not China. Eventually the next morning rolled around by which time my stomach was actually feeling somewhat better and we got on our plane for Seoul. I had originally talked to Ken about going to Korea during the May Day break but it turned out that that wasn't much of a break so we put it off. I was then talking to Dave about going to Tibet but that just proved too difficult so at the last minute I called Ken up again and we headed off to Seoul. The Seoul airport actually isn't in Seoul it's in Inchon, a place made famous by MacArthur's surprise landing their during the Korean War. Actually the airport isn't even there it's on a small island off the coast from Inchon. The airport has apparently been named the nicest in the world for four years, and it was nice though I didn't notice a huge disparity from Shanghai.

They had us fill out a couple of medical forms I haven't seen before in my travels I'm sure because of the pig flu. I think we also passed a place where they used thermal cameras on us to see if we had a fever. Outside the airport it was very green and I could see a lot more of the sky than I can in China; you never realize how much you miss blue skies till they're gone. We got a bus for about 9,000 won, it's 1,200 won to the dollar, to Seoul. Seoul is gigantic essentially encompassing several cities with a total population of about 25 million about half of South Korea. We went over a bunch of bridges and came to the city proper. It was very big and built up but seemed more spread out like Shanghai then built up like Manhattan. It was also more clean and colorful than the sometimes drab and dirty cities in China. We got off near a metro station in one of the central tourist areas. We tried to navigate around using the guide book map but got lost a couple of times. Eventually we found the area we wanted to go to and the Holiday In, no connection, a nice little hostel. The receptionist was actually Chinese, though ethnically Korea, though he seemed way too laid back to be Chinese.

After unpacking in the basic but nice room we headed out to look for a greasy spoon type place the book recommended. The problem was that street addresses don't seem to be very popular in Korea and while the Holiday In had it's name in ten foot high English letters most places just use Korean characters, which look a lot like Chinese; so while we may have found the restaurant we were looking for since the name was in Korean we'll never really know. The most shocking thing about Seoul is just how many American chains there are: 7-11 Pizza Hut, Dominoes, McDonalds, KFC, Baksin Robins, Starbucks, Burger King, Outback Steakhouse, Subway, Quizznos, Smoothie King, and my favorite and the most common Dunkin Donuts. When I saw a Dunkin Donuts at the airport I was excited but soon learned that they're every five feet in Seoul. The restaurant we went to though served the traditional Korean dish of a bunch of vegetables, rice, eggs, and meat, all served in a dish and mashed up into giant mish mash. Actually the mish mash is pretty good and ever meal comes with a side of Kim chi, a sort of boiled spicy cabbage. While the prices aren't quite a good as China it was still pretty cheap at 4,000 won.

The guide book said that you haven't experienced Korea unless you go to a Korean sauna, and we were both pretty tired so we went to find one. Again we went to about where the guide book said and think we found it with the help of an incredibly small sign. Inside we paid the owner and got a towel and a locker for our cloths since all Korean saunas are naked. There were showers just inside with soap, shampoo, and even razors. We showered and went over to the various tubs. One tub was a standard hot tub with water around 50 degrees Celsius. Another was cooler with the water closer to room temperature. The final tub was in between in temperature and for some reason the water was green. I went into the hot tub than after a few minutes the cold and the warm. Changing temperatures was supposed to produce a good feeling, the book said euphoric, it was nice but certainly not that nice. Ken was disappointed there weren't enough naked Korean people to pal around with. There were a few Japanese tourists but they didn't say much. The other interesting thing was the various sauna rooms at different temperatures. The coolest was at about body temperature, the next was at about 50 degrees Celsius, 122 Fahrenheit, the last though was at 80 degrees Celsius. 80 is around 180 degrees Fahrenheit and close to the boiling point of water. Going into the 80 degree room left a little like being baked alive. It felt like standing in front of an open over but all around. After that even the hot tub seemed cool. We had talked about going for dinner but as soon as I got back to the room I just passed out.