Korea day 1

laurie and i got our own rows on the flight from auckland to oskaka. Once again air new zealand was fantastic. we then switched planes in osaka to air asiana and flew into seoul. It took 3 hours to get out of the airport. I decided to put our surfboards in storage at the airport instead of lugging them around.

we found a bus that took us to our hotel. i was glad to be in the bus with air conditioning . we have left the winter of the southern hemisphere and we are now in summer and it is hot and humid.

We decided to go to korea to visit my good high school friend james ahn . Its his busy season with work but he was excited to have us visit, and especially during the world cup. The hotel he booked for us was super nice, and he is refusing to let us pay him for it. he keeps telling me its a korean hospitality thing, but i keep telling him , i met him in high school in the states, so that falls under states friendship, but he decided we have a worldly friendship and we agree we just have a really great friendship.

once in the room we decided to head out and get some lunch . we walked into one restaurant and were not sure what was being sold. I have decided to eat there on my last day, since we now wave at the owner when ever we pass it.
we walked around this back street amazed that it was packed with restaurants. we did not know what place to head into, and after walking back and forth a few times we just chose a busy place. They spoke no english, but we pointed to dishes on the menu, and smiled and bowed a lot. We lucked out, because we got a beautiful cold noodle dish and a hot beef bulgoi dish. laurie started inhaling the kimchi, she just loves it. they give you all these amazing side dishes. we shared a hite beer. we loved it so much. I tried tipping at the end of the meal and the lady thanked me and then gave it back. they just do not tip. we did a lot of bowing and smiling and rubbing our tummies and headed out the door. we went back to the hotel and then walked around the area.
That night james took us out on the town. we started at a beautiful resturant that had a waterfall. we had the most amazing korean bbq. we just kept laughing, that we were finally in korea. we drove around seoul. traffic puts the 405 fwy to shame. we had coffee at 10 at night, and the night was just warming up for seoul. james works early mornings teaching kids how to take the sat's and toeffl. so we called it a night.