Away Up North

This past week, I traveled to Tokyo and Seoul on business. It was my second trip to Japan and my first to Seoul.

Downtown Tokyo is an amazing place. The future is definitely here, and it's very much not evenly distributed. Next to buildings from last year are traditional buildings from the Samurai era. I stayed in Shinjuku, which is a commercial and government neighborhood. The subway station sees two million people per day, has dozens of entrances, and is so vast, you need a map to find your way through it. It was high summer in Tokyo, which meant warm temperatures (28C), two of three days of rain, and lush greenery. I had soba, raw horse meat, pub food, sashimi, grilled fish, miso, and lots of rice. I learned a lot more about the subway and train system, which are intricate and involve many different systems. I also learned a bit more of Japanese business etiquette. One of the things I enjoyed greatly was the profusion of gardens throughout the city. The exchange rate is roughly 100 Yen per US dollar.

Seoul is somehow alike to Tokyo, but oh, so different. Ultra-modern architecture. Masses of 25 story tall apartment blocks. State architecture on a grand scale. Unbelievable traffic jams. The Han River separates the city, and is crossed by bridge after bridge. The airport is 40k outside the city. The exchange rate is now 1083 Won per US dollar. Taxis are incredibly cheap; it cost me about 43,000 Won to get to the airport by taxi, while in Tokyo, a similar ride would have cost nearly $250. Taking public transport from the airport to my hotel cost $13 in Seoul, and $30 in Tokyo.

One of the most memorable moments of the entire trip was a walk I took on my first night in Seoul. It was nearly midnight. What had been a vibrant, bustling neighborhood, filled with people walking from place to place only an hour prior, was now dark and largely deserted. In just a few short blocks, I encountered dozens of men sleeping on park benches, street corners, and sidewalks. These were not homeless people, as we might see in the US, but rather ordinary looking blokes. I even saw one fellow in a business suit leaned up against a concrete pillar at a busy intersection. I've never seen anything like this before, anywhere. Prosperous looking people, definitely not waiting on anything, and definitely not prepared to be sleeping out of doors, propped up against almost any kind of surface, absolutely and completely asleep, in the middle of the city. It was the oddest thing to see some guy in a business suit passed out at a major intersection, a block away from a luxury hotel.

Oh, and the hotel. Western luxury largely wasted on me. It felt embarrassing to be staying there. One huge contrast between Tokyo and Seoul was that it was easy to eat the local cuisine in Tokyo, and nearly impossible in Seoul. I was delighted to try a wide variety of foods and styles in Tokyo. As I told my hosts in both cities, I was looking to enjoy food that ordinary people eat at home or every day. I was obliged in Tokyo, but my hosts in Seoul seemed oddly reluctant to indulge me. I'd guess the food I had at the company cafeteria was the nearest to local food, and I was grateful for it. One of my hosts said she "knew the quality of the food there." And yet, there was almost no Korean food at the hotel, and my hosts took me out for Italian food -- twice. At the cafeteria, I had a fish and vegetable soup that was ridiculously spicy, a sour kimchi with chili paste, some vegetables fried in egg batter, baby eggplant steamed and covered in chili paste, and rice with some sort of toasted seed. I ate with a spoon and pair of steel chopsticks. After lunch, the practice was to make a metal cup of water to taste by using a hot and cold water spigot. After drinking that, there was a pot of rice water, where you dipped a ladle into the pot and poured it into the same metal cup you used for the water. Following that was a station with serviettes, where you wiped your mouth.

One thing the Japanese do that I really like is to give you a Handy-Wipe/WetNap before your meal. Although I rarely used my hands in either place, sometimes it was required. Ensuring clean hands is something I appreciate, especially when my hosts hustled me around from one place to the next, and nobody really seemed to retire to the loo to wash hands ahead of time. So, yes, I do appreciate the Japanese approach to hygiene -- assume your patrons' hands are unsanitary and provide them the means to clean them.
I hope to visit both Japan and South Korea for vacation sometime in the future. It would be very nice to have time to get out into the country and see how ordinary people live. I'm sure the cities have only a weak relation to small town life. And, of course, one never sees the open spaces, parks, and ordinary places. Having some familiarity with the local language would be very helpful.

I had a great trip, and hope to write a little more about my experiences in future. For now, I'm back in Brisbane, and the weather has really turned the corner. I was in shorts and a t-shirt overnight for the first time in nearly six months. It was fanstastic weather today and I really hope this is a sign of summer soon to arrive.