Eisenhower, of course, I'm not. But I thought about that famous election slogan of his a couple of weeks ago. At some point during our stay, we needed to make a brief trip out of Japan, to allow Rachel and Nate to extend their tourist visas. One thing led to another, and suddenly it was mid July, and timeon their visas was running out. I wanted to go to Hong Kong (where an old friend, Prof. Garry Bruton from TCU is now teaching a course),but the timing didn't work out. The only affordable flight was on a Wednesday--when I had to be on campus to deliver my farewell/appreciation address to the U. Hyogo faculty. So we opted for Seoul--in my case, a one night stay since I wanted to return the day before my speech.
As we boarded the Asiana flight from KIX to Incheon airport, we took one of the English newspapers provided and settled in. On the front page of our Seoul-based paper: "Asiana pilots on strike." Yikes. Luckily none of our flights was cancelled. I was ambivalent about this: we had completely non transferable tickets, so we could well have been stuck in Seoul unless we shelled out a lot of money for new tickets. And although there was no picket line, even an informational one, I didn't like supporting the airline.
Incheon is still quite a new airport, about 30 miles east of Seoul. The airport bus past drove through Incheon city with vast mudflats, tall narrow apartments, the occasional huge factory. Seoul is a big, lively city with a gritty charm. It reminded me of central Mexico City. There are sidewalk vendors, little huts with cobblers, plenty of hand-pulled carts dodging between cars and pedestrians.
Our hotel was in the Insadong neighborhood in the north of the city, which is full of little craft shops and restaurants. Alas, the garbage had not been picked up for a few days...so the olfactory factor was high. We did a quick walk around before dinner and came across a few finds. One was a lovely Buddhist temple much more colorful and ornate than those in Japan. I couldn't get a good picture of the whole building, but the arch outside gives some idea. The main exhibition hall on the third floor was quiet, brightly lit and had a fantastic mural. I felt peaceful after our visit.
We strolled through a portion of downtown Seoul, through an underground arcade and past one of the main parks in the city: with Samsung Tower in the distance.
Though I'm usually eager to try new foods, I wasn't in the mood for spicy kimchee. So we settled for Italian food, in a restaurant featuring huge photos of classic Hollywood stars. A short night's sleep, and I was back on the bus, at the airport and back in KIX. Rachel and Nate were able to spend two more days in the city and had a wonderful time.
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