Korean Characteristics

After being in Korea for almost a week now, we wanted to share with you all some insights we've gained about this lovely country. Based on our limited experience so far, these twelve observations represent a solid piece of the Korean portrait we have drawn for ourselves. Enjoy!


1. The sidewalk is a vastly under-rated area for both parking and driving.

2. Pringles potatoe chips are a universally tasty food. I have yet to meet a culture that does not worship their deliciousness.

3. The term "mild" is an unknown word in the Korean mind.

4. Pizza Hut is quite a swanky and respectable eating establishment, with a salad bar to boot, which happens to be saladless.

5. Flat Screens TVs are everywhere, I mean everywhere; public buses, bathrooms, and divey restaurants.

6. Every meal has two staples. No not green tea and white rice, but kimchi and pickled yellow beets. And when i say every meal, I mean every meal.

7. While few people seem to speak it, English is everywhere. Its on restaurant menus, advertisements, clothing, and roads signs. Sometimes entire businesses and advertisements are in English, with Korean characters crammed unobtrusively into the margins.

8. Tea is expensive, much more so than in the U.S. Iced Tea is the splurge item on coffee shop menus and our hotel lobby charges $7.50 for it.

9. In Korea, rain jackets are for the fashionably unsensible or the financially unsupportable. Umbrellas are definitely the cool way to go. Everyone has one.

10. Hoegaarden is the new Bud. Nearly every convenience store we've seen, including 7-11, sells this relatively illusive and pricey European wheat beer, and for a reasonable price.

11. The way to get lunch in Seoul is by motorcycle delivery man. These delivery guys are more common than Portland bicyclists, McDonald's even has their own fleet of them. They ride on every navicable surface disobeying most traffic laws.

12. Korea is a homogeneous culture, at least in the area where we are staying. Leslie and I could count the number of westerners we've seen since we've been here on our fingers. But nearly everyone has been both kind and gracious to us.