Korean Heaven

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The Koreans love DONUTS. There are so many shops offering donuts that neither Homer Simpson would be able to eat them all.

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You can feel the Korean food THREE TIMES. First when you eat it, second you feel heartburn, and you might be able to figure out the third time.

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Our second day in Korea: „A Kingdom for a fork!“

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We really enjoyed the fish markets in coastal cities. Fish were always fresh, only occasionally an octopus lacked a tentacle, a crab a knob, or a fish was swimming bottoms up.

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A raw octopus stuck to our tongue once. We preferred to eat it only dried ever since.

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SPAM. We need to find out whether Korea is not the world’s largest consumer of lunchmeat. There are countless spam brands and you can buy this delicacy even in the form of a gift set. Here is a link to one funny sketch it always reminded us of.

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We always appreciate an ADVICE, but what we like the most is FOOD. On one trip we managed to get five different snacks from different people. Most often it was fruit and biscuits, once they gave us wine. Feels like you don‘t need to take a snack for a hike at all 🙂 And once, we’ve been even invited for a dinner by complete stranger!

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When the waiter in a restaurant tells you that your choice is SPICY, it is SPICY. That’s what we always told ourselves. Even when it happened for the third time.

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We fell in love with Korean food. It is full of vegetables and flavors. Even so, after a month, we have come to this situation – Dari: “Dom, do you think we could have McDonalds for dinner?” Who knows Dari and her hate of fastfood will understand the importance of this statement.

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Koreans are very nice and honest people. Dari received more compliments on her looks during a month in Korea than in her whole life in Europe.

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Whenever you visit South Korea, there´ll be some festival. Festival of kimchi, spring, lanterns, sunset or even migrating birds.

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When planning a trip to Korea, be prepared to take off your shoes everywhere. Not only at the entrance to a temple but also in some restaurants. That’s why it’s good not to have LEAKY SOCKS.

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Maps, especially in the national parks, have given us hard time. Their orientation is randomly changed. At the entrance they point to the NORTH, in the middle of the park they are oriented to SOUTH.

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Koreans are tourist enthusiasts. Their mark is branded sport clothes and trekking poles. THE TINKLING OF POLES has always driven us forward (meaning: uphill). The reason of what was that we estimated the average age of a tourist around 60 years.

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Young Koreans do not like hiking so much. Their domain is sitting in cafes and taking SELFIES with ears and whiskers.

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Do you remember these machines, when you had to catch a toy by navigating a robotic hand? In Korea, it is still popular. Unfortunately, we were not able to catch a PIKACHU in his pink skirt 🙁

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Dari means LEG in Korean.

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They have rules for everything, we even saw a sign saying 50cms of toilet paper only, in public toilets.

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The toilets are FREE. Everywhere and for everyone. And they always think of unexpected situations. Why else would they build a wheelchair toilet in the middle of a rocky mountain trail?

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We had a garbage problem. There are no trash bins on the streets. Everyone has to take care of their waste and take it home. The idea is nice, but what are we supposed to do with a banana skin in the city center?

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There are few things Korea disappointed us in. Especially WASTE. There are plastic packages for everything, and when they can duplicate it, they do it. What we hated the most was when we bought a box of biscuits and each biscuit inside was wrapped separately. At the stores, they’re putting your goods into plastic bags despite your protests. And even though you can get everywhere by bus, we never rode in a crowded one. On the contrary, about four out of fifty places were normally taken. But in a country where a third of the population wears a mask in the street, and sometimes you can not see the sky because of the POLLUTION, it is a bit unnecessary.

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Conversation a week before departure.

Dom: “And what if we just stay in Korea?”

Dari: “But we’ve got the tickets and we want to see Asia.”

Dom: “Eh, we can download photos from Google.”

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