Travel to Seoul

Our scheduled departure from SIL Bagabag was 4:30 AM Easter Monday. Our destination was Manila and the main highway, EDSA (I have no idea what the acronym stands for), only allows certain vehicles access from 10 AM to 2 PM. They call it color coding, although there are no colors involved. I gather that it means that if your license plate number ends in a 1 or 2 you can drive in Manila on Mondays and if it ends in a 3 or 4 you can drive there on Tuesdays, etc. If your vehicle does not meet the criteria, you are able to drive on the major highway only outside rush-hour times (i.e. 10:00-2:00). Since our hired van was restricted, we had to get in and get the van & driver in and out before he turned into a pumpkin or something like that.

We spent a day and a half in Manila just lying low and recuperating from our whirlwind touring in the northern provinces of the Philippines. Carl accompanied us so we had an expert guide for finding our way to the shopping center, McDonald’s and back to the SIL Guesthouse Manila.

We ran errands, wandered the streets and got to see much more colorful jeepneys on the streets of Manila. The jeepney passengers in the provinces may be more colorful, but the vehicles themselves are definitely a sight to behold. Two major differences 1) no riding on top and 2) the paint jobs. These could be the most bizarrely-painted vehicles on the planet!

On Wednesday, our Korean Air A-330 was undoubtedly the best flight to date. The flight attendants were all dressed in a business suit-type uniform with hair pulled back into a bun with the world’s most attractive single-ribbon bow with tails that stick out on the left side. When I first saw them, I was convinced that the light blue protrusions from the back of their hairdos were a pair of light blue chopsticks. Nope, when one of them turned around, I saw the ribbon. It was very attractive.

It was also my first taste of authentic Korean food. One of the choices was bibimbap, a dish with meat, several vegetables all artistically arranged in a low flat bowl. The stewardess helped me with the preparation, by spooning in a generous portion of rice and then squeezed a dollop of chili paste and mixed it all with the spoon. Next, it was ready to try and it was delicious, except it needed more chili paste. Those of you who know my eating habits should not be surprised by the need for additional hot stuff.

We landed in Seoul and after two hours had:
1. checked “big blue” (our name for the battered blue roll-aboard that was overweight when we left Minneapolis, split a zipper in the Moscow airport and exposed a reinforcing rib between Siem Reap and Bangkok) which we shrink wrapped and stored all the stuff we wouldn’t need for the rest of the trip.
2. secured enough local currency ($1 US dollar equals approximately 1,300 won) to supposedly last our stay in Seoul
3. determined that the directions I had for train and subway connections were far to complicated and settled on a bus connection
4. rode the bus to within a few blocks of our hotel
5. negotiated the blocks to the hotel
6. checked in to our postage-stamp size room
7. collapsed
The room was clean, it was tidy, it was tiny. It was so tiny that we had to make certain that no more than one of us wanted to stand on the floor at the same time. The bed was adequate, the rate was reasonable (why else would I have booked it?) and there was an included breakfast in the rate. Next morning, we discovered that “breakfast” consisted of do-it-yourself white bread toast with your choice of strawberry or strawberry jelly from a small container that threatened to stain your fingers forever. The other option (I guess you could have both) was (shudder) Korean rice porridge. We opted for the toast.

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