Why not South Korea?

Good morning from Seoul! We arrived here a couple of days ago, but getting over the jet lag has been a bit of an uphill battle, as has the humidity, which is unlike either of us has ever experienced.

More than a few people, both back home and here, have asked us why we decided to come to South Korea, as opposed to other, supposedly more popular destinations for American travelers such as Thailand or China. American tourists are not a common sight in these parts, and our sense is that we'll see fewer and fewer Americans the further we get from Seoul.

For those of you that have read our blog before, you'll know that one thing that gets us excited -- really excited -- is good food, and we both love Korean food. So yeah, that was a major factor in our decision. Using our interest in Korean food as a springboard for our research, we found that not only is there a lot to see in Korea, but the price is right: our lunch yesterday came out to less than $6 between the two of us for rice sticks (a chewy, thick noodle) in spicy sauce, tempura-style fried seafood, and fish cake soup. Delicious.

The first thing that has struck us about this city is its sheer size. It rivals Tokyo in terms of its magnitude (although it feels much more spread out). The subway system is like that of London, and the trains themselves appear to us to be at least twice as long as New York's (which, in turn, have always seemed to us to be be much longer than back in Boston). Second, as alluded to earlier, it is hot and humid, so any sightseeing involves numerous stops for iced coffee and air conditioning.

Instead of a few longer blog posts, we're going to try and put up more shorter entries. In the meantime, here are some photos from our first couple of days (our apologies if some of the pictures are sideways -- we're having a bit of trouble on this Korean computer).