Seoul. I’m here and exhausted, but at least I’m in an absolutely gorgeous hotel, the Weston Chosun Seoul. There is music in the bathroom, a doorbell, plugs for both European and American standards, an electronic notification when the newspaper has been delivered, even an espresso machine in my room... I have had many close calls, but this might be the nicest, most modern hotel I have ever stayed in. I left Laurel this morning (after having slept with all the lights on for a grand total of 2 hours) in a huge rush because I had gotten up a half an hour late. Poor Edit was probably waiting for me downstairs; I woke up at the time we planned to meet. I rushed out and tried to make sure I had everything (nothing has been missing yet) and Edit and I got in the cab to the airport. I didn’t sleep in the cab, but I wanted to; I had a coffee Edit had gotten at the hotel for us so I couldn’t yet. We checked in with no problem and did some window shopping; I was exhausted and passed out pretty much the second we sat down. And then on the plane (intermittent with dreams about crashing, as always) I was in and out of sleep for the whole 2.5 hours.
When we arrived in Seoul it was cloudy out and once again it looked as though we were about to land on water because we couldn’t see a thing. For some reason, our phones were so far from even remotely working that we needed to rent local ones here. Then we took a limo-bus to the hotel – which was about an hour away – for $10 USD. Of course, I was immediately asleep. When we arrived at the hotel I got the sense that we were being treated like misfits, but this was most likely because we looked like them. Everyone else was in suits and skirts and had an air of elegance about them. Not us, and especially not me; I wanted to try a free drink sample and almost caused the glass it was in to shatter on the floor. Real smooth. Even though it was 2 pm, apparently Edit’s room wasn’t ready yet so they needed to give her a new one, once she insisted. (Really people? Last I checked we were staying at a 5 star hotel!) Edit thought maybe it was because we are women? In general the people at the hotel were just snobby. Maybe we weren’t dressed nicely enough (suits and skirts are the way to go here). Who knows. Again, once I got in my room I was out in lala land until Edit came to find me 3 hours later. We walked through the luxurious hotel, it’s 5 restaurants, full gym and pool, and a nice sauna where we saw many butt-ass naked much older women with floppy boobs. I’m hoping to take an aerobics class here during my stay. Outside the hotel isn’t much less in standard than the inside. The Westin is surrounded by many other high-end hotels, as well as countless malls with all the riches you could want inside of them. We took some time to check out the grocery store we would potentially survey (my favorite part of the survey, of course) and I got lost in a sea of homemade baked goods, kimchi, ice cream, chocolate, and organic aisles. Yes we would be back here to look at prices! We found that the basics of Korean might actually be more difficult to learn and remember than Chinese, though Edit’s all ready to have fun with the language. She likes it. I keep forgetting how to say everything. But, I’m already convinced that the food is better than Taipei. We went to an organic noodle bar for dinner tonight and I got Shanghai something or other with hot spices, noodles, cabbage, onion, garlic etc. I split a roll of sushi with Edit too. Delicious! I’m becoming an expert in my own personal way to use chopsticks. I’m really not sure if that’s a good or a bad thing. After lots of half-work, half-chatter boxing I’m ready for bed now. The streets are quiet and I want to use the gym tomorrow. Goodnight
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