South Korea

Happy new year,
I spent ten days of my Christmas vacation in South Korea, based in Seoul. I will try to add pictures later. I had a very nice time. I stayed in a private room at a youth hostel and met some interesting people there.
Seoul is huge, 13million people and bigger than Tokyo. There were many interesting sightseeing places there. Among them Gyeongbok Palace, the most impressive of the Korean royal palaces. It was well preserved and beautiful, a match for anything you'll find in Kyoto. There were many good museums, the best of the lot was the Korean War Memorial museum. It was a very interesting look at Korea's complex history of colonial invaders and finally the Korea War which split the country in two. The Olympic park (from the '88 Seoul Olympics) was cool and the modern skyscaper's and entertainment districts were like Tokyo only busier.
I also took a trip to Busan on the south coast. It's the second city and a different atmosphere to Seoul. There was a surprising amount of nature and parks for a crowded city of 3.5 million. The views of the city from the coastal cliffs on a freezing December day were spectacular.
You can't visit South Korea and not take a guided tour of the border with North Korea. It's billed as the 'most dangerous place on earth' but the fact it is a popular tourist destination suggests it is more high farce than real danger. The situation between the countries seems to be improving with rail services starting between the two for the first time in fifty years. On the tour we saw (from a distance) the reunification village, an uninhabited village controlled by North Korea with the worlds biggest flagpost and a massive North Korean flag. We were shown down an attack tunnel dug by North Korea and found by South Korea about 20 years ago. The North Koreans painted coal onto the wall to try and make it look like a coalmine. The tour was very interesting and quite funny. Of course, the situation in North Korea with all of it's human rights abuses and hunger and Stalinist personality cult government is a real tragedy, too.
I got to try many Korean foods. Kimchi, basically spicy cabbage, is quite popular and easily available in Japan too but in Korea it was much nicer and there were more kinds. Bibimbap, a staple rice dish, is very nice even for unadventurous people and I highly recommend the seafood. I ate a lot of things that I didn't what it was but I think I avoided eating dog (it's a delicacy here). Something I ate gave me food poisoning which laid me low for a few days and stopped me from skiing in Korea. The people in the hostel were friendly and we went out drinking on a few occasions. Despite getting ill I had a good time and it was an interesting (and cheap) trip.