When we were getting ready to leave Sacramento last year, an old Asian man who lived in the neighborhood warned us that Korea is COLD in the winter and HOT in the summer. He was right. They’re not kidding about those “four distinct seasons.”
Heat, of course, I can handle, being from the Central Valley, but I can’t wait to escape this freezing, dry winter! It’s clear and cold right now–one of those days that looks glorious through a window but chills through you if you step outside. Spring is flirting with us, like it does everywhere, but here its teasing seems cruel. I’m dying to go outside without my bulky ski jacket; I can’t wait to feel the sun on my face!
Last weekend we went to Haeundae Beach. When you’re away from home for this long, you look for ways to get a “fix” of Western culture; Haeundae is ours. There’s a surprisingly good Mexican hole-in-the-wall restaurant, a white-sand, hotel-lined beach, and a Starbucks overlooking the ocean. We stayed in a love motel and had tacos and beer on the boardwalk. The sky was overcast that day, allowing us to pretend, for a few hours, that we were in San Francisco. Of course, in San Francisco you can’t get an ocean-front hotel room with a whirlpool bath for $50, and you can’t drink $1 convenience-store beer on the beach. Korea has its perks.
In a way, the timing of our year here couldn’t be more perfect. We got here after the summer rainy season but before the winter hibernation, allowing us time to get our bearings and check out the country. Now we’re Korea-savvy enough to really relish Spring, the best time to be here (Koreans prefer Autumn, but I think it’s because they’re afraid of getting tanned–Spring is warmer and sunnier). The cherry blossoms will be in bloom soon, and we’ll get to lay on the beach and picnic in the park and hike without fear of hypothermia! We’re going to ramp up the sightseeing in these months: I can’t wait to see more of Gyeongju–the big UNESCO hotspot!
By the way, if anyone is interested in visiting us here, Spring is the time to come! Flights here are arduous (12-15 hours) and expensive ($600 RT from SFO is the best I’ve seen), but you can stay at our place for free, and the food and fun are really cheap. The best time to visit would be between now and early June, since summer is rainy and rife with mosquitos. PLEASE, PLEASE don’t come just because you think we’re lonely–we’re okay!–but if any of you want to explore this culture, or if you’re thinking about doing this yourself, we’d love to show you around!
Speaking of Asian travel, one of the most disappointing little discoveries we’ve made is that South Korea is extremely protectionist about everything, including air travel. When we want people to “Buy American,” we run ad campaigns and write patriotic country songs. Korea doesn’t bother with PR, they just slap a mammoth import tax on everything not made here and make vacationing out-of-country cost-prohibitive. A Honda Accord costs $38,000 here. I just paid $17 for a package of Quaker Oats. And there are NO airline tickets off this island for less than $300.
We’ve just learned that our vacation week will be May 5 to May 12 (a nice coincidence, since May 5 is my birthday!) We’ll probably use it to explore Korea and really see Seoul, but our feet are a little itchy, so we checked prices. A round-trip ticket to Tokyo–a 100-minute flight–is nearly $500; you can fly round-trip from San Francisco for that! Shanghai, 90 minutes away and a place we’ve wanted to visit long before we even thought about teaching here, would cost at least $350 each.
While it’s tempting to spring for these, I don’t think we can bring ourselves to do it. Not when it’s SO cheap to travel to these places from the U.S., when we’d have more time and maybe more money. Plus, it would be hard to spend any money on Asian travel without getting the fantastic Cathay Pacific Airpass: For $1400, you can get round-trip airfare from SFO to Hong Kong and go from there to as many as 23 Asian cities in a 21-day period. It only works from certain U.S. gateways (SFO included), so we can’t do it now. But someday…
So, send us an e-mail if you’re interested in visiting, and enjoy what I can only imagine is shorts weather in California. I’ll try to make it through these remaining frozen weeks!
– HEATHER
