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“See China right in front of you? (Bono)
“You will be the same person in ten years as you are today, apart from the books you read and the people you meet? (anon.) [I don’t really agree with this one, but it is an interesting thought]

Southern Japan and South Korea

Rob Lilwall
2007-12-01 14:37:07

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how peaceful and pleasant... ahhh.... that is until over a hundred tanks and lorries rumble their way past on their way to the annual wargames (hopefully not war preparations) in the hills.

The other reason for staying on the back roads is that it increases your life expectancy. In Japan, there is a wise and commendable law stating that should a bicyclist be hit by an automobile - the fault always will be laid on the driver. In Korea there is no such law. In fact, the most well accepted rule of the road seems to be "perform maneuver first... and then take a look and see what you managed to hit/strike down?. So Koreans are amusingly bad at driving... amusing that is until, as you cycle dreamily and merrily through a quiet village, a big truck reverses into you, knocking you off and coming frighteningly close to squashing both you and your bicycle. A close shave is sometimes not a bad thing to heighten awareness and remind us of mortality.

And now I am in Seoul. The adjective which continually springs to my mind when I think of Seoul, is "grey?. The buildings all seem to be grey, cars are black, white or silver (giving a kind of grey feeling), the clothes people wear are grey (or that's what jumps into my mind now)... even the air is grey. There are lots of neon signs and exciting shopping streets (if you like shopping), but to me it feels just... grey!

The most out of the ordinary tourist attraction of South Korea is its border with North Korea. Since the full on war of the 1950s, the two halves have continued to point guns (a lot of) at each other - across a 4 km wide area of no-man's land known as the demilitarized zone (DMZ). Specialist Pipkin (or something like that) from the US army was our tour guide. In our briefing he ordered us: do not to communicate with North Korean soldiers in any way, do not take photos unless told, and do not to go to the toilet unless it is a "must go? situation! We were marched into the truce village ...