My journey to South Korea and some remarkable history!

My jet lag wasn't even that bad.
I'm just up at 4 A.M. because of stupid cramps.
Ugh.

So hey guys!
I haven't posted in awhile because I was in South Korea recently!
I had a really good time and here's some things about my experience!

First of all I went to South Korea because my older brother teaches English over there.
He's lived there for the past year and a half and he's coming back to the states in six months, so if I wanted to visit him over there it was really now or never.

This was my first time out of the country and it was my first time flying alone.
On the way over there I had a 12 hour non-stop flight to Incheon airport.
Luckily I got the aisle seat and I sat next to a mom and her two well behaved sons.
It was about 6 P.M. there, my flight had been delayed, the transit train to the KTX gave us about two minutes wiggle room, and I was running on close to 24 hours since I cannot sleep on planes.
My brother and I finally got on the KTX and I tried to mentally prepare myself for a 2 hour train, which I ended up sleeping through most of.
I woke up and then we had to get on the bus for an hour.
Let me tell you something guys. That bus which I found out was very normal was so crowded. The bus was FULL they were still letting people on. I had to stand up for an hour while I was half asleep. They drive so crazy that I was practically falling down. I was already bitter because it smelled bad in a way I was not used to so that didn't help.
We were finally off the bus and then I found out we still had another 10 minute taxi ride.
All I could think was "Really?"
That's when I found out how jet lag treated me.
I almost puked in the back of the cab. Right before it came up the cab stopped and we were at my brothers apartment.
I passed out and woke up the next day.
I ended up going to my brother's school, but before it actually started I did puke and so I walked back to his apartment.
I skyped my mom and dad when I got there. That was probably the hardest thing for me. I just wanted my momma there to give me a hug and make me some soup. Skyping them I almost cried, but I ended up sleeping for a long time.
I ended up puking three more times that day and had to chug some bad tasting medicine.

The next two days were fun.
It was market day at his school.
So what market day is, is if students do good they get stickers, and then they cash their stickers in for fake money. They can then spend the fake money on various things in their market like food, drinks, stationary.
I also got to go to their movie day where they took all the students to see Epic.
After the movie there was a teachers dinner.
So all the korean teachers took the foreign teachers.
I had the worst meal of my life there.
So the Koreans think that buckwheat noodles in ice water with cucumber shavings is the best thing on earth.
I don't think so.
I don't think so at all.
But luckily that evening my brother and Marty took pity on me and took me to get chicken strips.

The rest of my time was seeing where he lived.
I went shopping with some of the girls.
We saw a movie on the imax.
Lots of food was ate.

My brother and I are very much the same.
We like being lazy.
So we would stay in the house until like 4 and then venture out.
It was hard to go outside because it was so damn hot.
It was like Minnesota's heat, but hotter.
The humidity sucked.

I got to go to a Nura Bong though so that was fun.
It's a room you rent by the hour with all your friends and you sing karaoke.
It was actually really pretty fun.

My last couple of days i went into Seoul.
We went to Meyong dong which is like a shopping district.
We went to the Tower of Seoul and to the Teddy Bear museum.
Yes a Teddy Bear Museum.
South Korea's history depicted by teddy bears.

The day after that I went to the DMZ (De-Militarized Zone)
That was really cool because you got as close to North Korea as you can go.
I learned that there was a train from South Korea that took you into North Korea that took you in to China which then took you into every asian country, some of Europe, and parts of Aftica.
Can we reflect on how truly amazing that is.
You could travel to three different continents by TRAIN.
but since North Korea and South Korea had the war they shut down the track going from their two countries, messing everything up.
We also got to go in this tunnel that North Korea had blew going into South Korea.
That was really astounding because a guy from North Korea had told South Korea about it.
North Korea had dug 30 tunnels, but South Korea has only found four.
They said that with these tunnels North Korea could invade in 1 hour without anybody knowing.
If that does happen they have a line of tanks that should hold them back for 30 minutes.
So technically Seoul, the biggest city in South Korea, would only have an hour to react.
what was really cool about these tunnels was that South Korea went to court basically and told them. North Korea said that they were coal mining. They even went into to the tunnels and painted the rocks so it looked like coal. But the way the dynamite blast happened they could tell that it was North Korea who dug it and not South Korea.
A truly scary thing though was on the way up it was a one lane road and we were in this huge tour bus. The tour guide said all in the forest on the side of the road were landmines that was dropped during the war. They don't know exactly where they are but they know their in that area. So technically if our bus had tipped over we might've been screwed.
The most powerful thing of all though would've been the freedom bridge. The freedom bridge was the bridge during the war that north Korea and South Korea traded back their hostages. Now there's a holiday in South Korea where it's all about family and if you were unlucky enough to have your family trapped on the other side, you would go to the freedom bridge to the huge wall blocking the border and sit there all day.

Now I'm back home at 5 A.M.
I had a really great time.
Thanks for reading
August 26th, 2013 at 01:55pm