Kakinoki James

Last time I used that title it refered to an aborted attempt to go. That attempt to go showed me that things have changed in the last 10 years. I used to be able to just show up on a holiday at the ferry boat terminal in Shimonoseki & buy a ticket for that day's boat. No more. A few years ago Korean TV dramas became very popular in Japan and many Japanese (mainly women) have been heading to Korea whenever they have the time.

This time I tried to reserve my tickets 2 weeks in advance, and still couldn't get a spot on 2 of the 3 ferry lines going to Korea. I ended up with tickets for the Beetle (a hydrofoil boat) out of Fukuoka. [Odd story about the Beetle: In nearly 15 years of opperation they never hit a whale. Last year they strapped really expensive noise makers onto their boats to scare whales away and proptly starting hitting them.] On the way to the boat I met a nice young Korean guy that was returning home after his first trip abroad and was really happy with his trip. I never met any young Koreans visiting Japan 10 years ago. His name was Han something. I just mentally called him Han Solo, which worked because he was a Star Wars fan. On the boat over I sat next to a Korean girl who worked in Japan and was going home to visit family & friends. She was keeping her trip a secret, so she took the battery off her cell phone. I'm not sure why, but many of the phones here do have GPS and maybe someone could track her. Not sure, but I do know many phones (incl. mine) can e-mail maps of their current location.

The boat arrived in Pusan (or Busan if you want to use the new official romanization system, another new change.) Han & I shared a taxi to the train station and he helped me buy a ticket to Seoul. The train that was the fastest train they had 10 years ago is now the 2nd or 3rd fastest. Now they have a real bullet train that reached speeds 200 km/hr. Maybe it was 300, can't remember. When I arrived in Seoul I met up with a girl I met in Europe in '01. Was nice to see her again after all these years. She called up some of the hostels for me and asked if they had any beds left. I didn't even think of making reservations via the internet; another change since I was last in Korea.

Darn, have to go to work soon. Anyways, I didn't have much of a plan for my trip. Just wanted to spend time in a big city, eat lots of good non-Japanese food, and do a little shopping. I did all of that and did some sightseeing as well. Seoul changed a lot in the last 10 years. It's now very definately a very modern city with almost every major chain resturant that you'd find in America. (Don't think that means I ate a bunch of non-Korean food in Korea. I did make a point of going to a Pizza Hut and I did go to Chinese and Mexican resturants, but 90% of what I ate was Korean food.) Prices have jumped as well. The food is still great, most of the people are still nice, and I had a pretty good time.