Now I’m really starting to relax a little bit… Yesterday I have been more stressed by everything — but I guess that’s the way it is supposed to be if you arrive somewhere totally alien 
Yesterday I’ve been mostly walking around Itaewon, getting to know the streets, and finding my way to some food and coffee. It’s quite interesting that Korea seems to have a very strong coffee culture. You can find coffee shops at every corner, with nice blends and a wide range of varieties (me drinking cappuccino most of the time, which is a bit different than the Austrian one: It’s a shot of strong coffee with loads of steamed milk on top — 1:5 or so).
Today I decided to stay in Seoul for at least another day or two, and that I want to see a bit of the city. So today at my morning Cappuccino I read the Wikipedia entry on Seoul again and made a list of things to do. Btw: Having my netbook with me is great — it’s light and perfect to surf and write mails. Also the Korean power plugs are exactly the same as ours, so I can just plug my laptop in at the terrace of this Coffe Shop (Tom n Toms Coffee).
I thought the National Museum of Korea could be a nice place to see, and decided to spend the afternoon there. Taking the subway was a really funny experience — no foreigners at all! But it was quite easy to navigate around as I have a subway map, knew where I needed to go, and finally the subways display the basic infos in English as well. The subway stations are huuuge. Many times as big as in Vienna. There are more than 10 million people living in Seoul and I’ve read that the subway is one of the most busy in the whole world. It sure didn’t feel this way — probably because I took it during working hours. They are quite cheap too — 1.000 Won (~ 60 cents) was the fee (it depends on how far you travel). The vending machines can switch to english and give out a RFID card (adding 500 Won deposit fee which you get back at exiting the subway).
I enjoyed the subway ride and made my way to the museum (pictures below). It has a huge space in front of it where people hang out and relax. I checked my money and briefly thought if I really should afford it, but then i noticed: the entry was free (!), and I got my free ticket. The museum is huge and is very well organized. I saw a lot of ancient artwork, pagodes, sculptures, asian fine art and other things. It was interesting to wander around for an hour or two, and then I made my way back to Itaewon.
A really interesting thing I’ve noticed (and didn’t expect) is that many Koreans actually have dogs! You see them pretty much at the same frequency as you do in Vienna — small ones and big ones. I like that a lot 
The sidewalks around here are really wide — 4 meters or so, and it’s normal for bicycles to ride on them as well. What I noticed as well is that I haven’t really seen many Koreans with overweight, and with my prejudices I also expected Korean people to be small on average — which turned out to be not so true as in India for example. Most people are around 1.60 or 1.70m, but there are actually quite a few people (mostly male) which are like 1.90m. I don’t feel large at all
Interestingly, my phone cannot connect to any service around here. Most Koreans seem to have very advanced mobile phones, mostly with touch screen and large displays (QVGA). And they watch a lot of TV on those — as I noticed in the subway. According to Wikipedia, “Seoul is the only city in the world featuring DMB, a digital mobile TV technology and WiBro, a wireless high-speed mobile internet service, as well as a 100Mbps fibre-optic broadband network, which is being upgraded to 1Gbps by 2012.”
The checkout time at my Motel is 12:00, which means if I haven’t got a plan where to go, I’ll probably stay a day or two more in Seoul. On Wednesday I will move to Daejeon, with the Congress starting Thursday morning. I look forward to it and am already quite excited.
Again, I sure wish I had brought a package of Manitou tobacco; I hate this filter cigarettes and am just about to finish my first package of Dunhill… 
One last thing for now: Korean food seems to include _a lot_ of meat, mostly chicken. I’ve been eating Indian food today and yesterday But of course, if I find it, I’ll try some vegetarian Korean food as well!
(currently at home)
