Jessica Goes to Korea to Visit Kristen (hi!)

Over Golden Week (Japan's equivalent to spring break), I visited my friend, Kristen, in… Korea! We spent three days in Seoul and two in Sinchang, a small city where her university is.

When I arrived at Incheon airport I went to our designated meeting spot and gave Kristen a call. She was still on the train and about a half hour away so I decided to sit and watch the TV they had in the waiting area. A man in a suit, probably in his 40's sat down next to me. He turned and asked me if I could understand what they were saying on TV. When I told him "no" he must have taken that as an invitation to start a conversation.

He asked me what I was doing in Korea, what my job is, etc. When he heard that I live in Japan, he told me about his Japanese friends and even tried speaking to me a little in Japanese.

I told him Kristen goes to a university in Korea and he starts telling me about the three best universities (one of which he went to) and which Japanese universities they were comparable to. I know nothing about Japanese universities (I don't work with college students) so I just nodded politely figuring this was just chit chat to pass the time since I was pretty sure he was there to send off some of his business associates (that's what he said) and he knew I was waiting for my friend.

I wasn't taken aback by him talking to me. I'm used to people trying to talk to me in Japan. I chalk it up to cultural curiosity. However, he then offered to give us a tour tomorrow of Seoul. In his car.

Red flag alert.

I laughed awkwardly and said that was very nice but Kristen had planned everything so I had no idea what our plans were.

He then asked what hotel we were staying at (Alarm! Alarm!) and I said I didn't know.

Fortunately Kristen shoed up and the guy said, "Oh, hey!" which should have been my reaction but instead Kristen and I were trying to silently communicate as we analyzed the situation. We just kinda said, "hi" to each other and tried to develop ESP.

He asked Kristen the name of the hotel and she told him but he pulled us over to the information desk and Kristen said, "I know how to get there. We're meeting our friends. We gotta go."

So we start walking away to find the train platforms and he says we should go to the restroom because it's a long ride to Seoul. (Yes, we know and we're taking the train.) He rushed off to the bathrooms and we took off to one far, far away.

We waited in the restroom for 15 minutes and switched bags and coats so he wouldn't recognize us if we happened to pass by him again. I put the hood on and it practically covered my entire face. Now who's the creeper?

Kristen and I finally had our reunion hug and then walked slowly and cautiously to the train platform.

The rest of the trip was a lot less creepy and really fun.

I was so surprised at how cheap everything was (waaaay cheaper than Japan). Also, the food was AMAZING.

It got off to an… odd… start but it was a great vacation.

Now, here are some pics.

Here's the gate to the castle in Seoul....

and me in front of it.

The little place where we had tea....

and the delicious tea.

Finally, some nice homemade noodle soup with kimchi. Yum!

That's all for now. See you in the next post!