Heart and Seoul...

Greetings from South Korea (land of Hawkeye and Honeycutt and Hot-lips Houlihan)!

I was so stunned when I saw that my trip trade request was awarded and before I knew it, I was jetting off to Southeast Asia. Twelve hours later, it's dusk in the world's SIXTH most populace city. The only city larger than this that I have ever visited is Sao Paulo, Brazil, and I loved that city. I think I'm going to love this city too.

As we travelled by bus from Incheon International Airport to our hotel in the heart of the city (it took roughly 70 minutes with very little traffic jams) the lights everywhere were amazing. I tried to take pictures of it but my didgital camera doesn't take moving pics very well. I suppose if I ever do this again, I will put it on video...I'd have better luck with it then.

Since I didn't really know much about the country, I thought I'd share with you some interesting facts that I got from an information brochure I got here:

• The country is approximately 70% mountains of granite and limestone (not dissimilar to Utah) making it one of the most mountainous regions in the world.
  
• The So. Korean flag has some unique characteristics. The yin-yang circle, divided equally into a blue portion below and a red portion above, represents the dual cosmic forces of yin (blue) and yang (red). It symbolizes universal harmony, in which the passive and the active, the feminine and the masculine, form the whole. The four trigrams of Geon, Gon, Gam, and Li, which surround the yin-yang circle, denote the process of yin and yang going through a series of changes and growth. Geon, with three solid bars in the upper left-hand corner, denotes "heaven". Gon, with three evenly divided bars in the lower right-hand corner, denotes "earth". Gam, with one evenly divided bar on each side of one solid bar in the upper right-hand corner, denotes "water". And Li, with one solid bar on each side of one evenly divided bar in the lower left-hand corner, denotes"fire".
  
• The national flower of South Korea is the Rose of Sharon -- I have four of these in my garden!
  
• Wednesday, October 3, 2007 is one of the biggest national holidays in Korea: National Foundation Day, in celebration of the founding of the Korean nation in 2333 BC. Festivities begin tonight...I will let you know if I see anything fun and exciting. There are So. Korean flags everywhere in the city in commemoration of the event.
  
• A quirky little thing I noticed as we drove into the city: If you are ever in need of a Christian Church, you only need look for a red neon cross...they adorn every church here in Korea!
  
• The archetecture here is amazing...some really unique structures here...again, I hope to capture some in my photo journal for you to enjoy.
  
• Along with the archetecture is their unique use of lighting on their buildings and bridges. So far, I'm very impressed.
  
• Along our route into the city, I took notice that almost every car was equipped with video screens mounted on the dashboard of the car, some pointed directly at the driver. I don't know if they are catching up on the news or tracking their position via GPS, but I thought that was unusual. Also, I only saw 5 makes of cars on the road: the most was Hyundai (probably 85% of the cars), followed by Mercedes, BMW, Kia and Daewoo. The bus we rode in on was a full-sized bus, like one of our Greyhounds only much mor plush and comfortable--and manufacured by Kia! And I thought they only made micro mini cars!

I will be reporting back more stuff as I get out and about in the city today. We are 15 hours ahead of Mountain Daylight Time (it's currently 7:30 a.m. on Tues. Oct. 2nd here). In the meantime, here's a pic of the view outside my hotel room window this morning before dawn.

Catch up with you soon! Cheers!