Yancy's entry

I'm a little behind so bare with me....

Wow! A 13 hour flight across the pond! Needless to say, my ass was in need of medical attention. But, If anyone ever wishes to get over this way, I highly recommend Korean Air. Very clean, very efficient airline. Amazing service! Free movies, TV, music playlists, and plenty of food and beverages offered. They made such a long flight pass by extremely well. But my ass still knows it was ALL of 13 hours!

There's approximately 15 hours (ahead) time difference between home, and South Korea. We landed at Incheon Airport near Seoul at about 6:30 pm, and I was all of a sudden older than when I left, given the time change.  After getting through the airport, and waiting for transportation, it was dusk. The bus ride in was a bit of a let down, only because it was dark, so we couldn't see much of the foreign land we were so eagerly anticipating. However, Koreans drive with an ability that Mario Andretti, Dale Earnhardt, and Al Unser, jr. would be proud of! This made my aforementioned medical condition a bit worse, but also gave us a little excitement as we rode through the city.



We checked into our hotel, and headed to a traditional Korean restaurant. Great food. Great service. Did I mention great food? I do love the food here so far. Koreans are very driven, diligent, and detailed people (sounds like someone I know).

After a good nights sleep, we rose to take in the "changing of the guard" ceremony at Gyeongbok Palace. Google it. They're better at describing things than me.

After lunch at a North Korean restaurant in Seoul, we took a "bullet train" to Busan. These things travel at 300 kph, which is about 186 mph. We were able to see a lot of the country side go by very quickly on the way down. It turned an otherwise 7 hour drive into a 2 1/2 hour ride.
 This is a mountainous country. The mountains aren't huge, like the Rockies back home, but they are all solid granite. It was explained to us that the country is 70% mountains and has only 30% of the land to develop. So 2 things are a result. Anything made by concrete, such as roads, sidewalks, steps, etc., are substituted with granite. This gives them a little more land to develop by harvesting the granite, and it forces them to build everything vertical. There are only high rise buildings here. Commercial buildings, residential. Everything. There are no homes in Seoul. Only what we would call high rise apartment buildings. Only good thing about that....no lawns to mow!

When we arrived in Busan, a city on the southern coast,  we went to a place called Spa-land. I guess you could call it a modern traditional Korean spa.  Let's just say it differed in some areas, (and made me nervous) to what most of us think a spa is. Hopefully Robbi can describe it for you, but it's gotta be a cultural thing!
We signed up for the foot massage, during which I fell asleep, without my CPAP machine, and snored my way right through it. I'm sure they were impressed. Robbi was not!
So tomorrow we hang out here in Busan, and to be honest, I can't remember exactly what we have planned. But I'm sure it will be another experience. I need to find time to explain to you all what our tour guide calls,  "way-go power". I know that's misspelled, but I can't spell in Korean yet. It involves me, but I'll require a little more information, and experience with this so called power before I explain.