all part of travelling with Dan Faria

So on our last night in Seoul we were talking to the lady who runs our hostel. Quite possibly the most bizarrely amazing ajumma I've yet to encounter; Aside from the muffins she bakes every morning, she told me, our neighbour, and pretty much all of the guys in the group that we had such big wonderful noses. Ever time I entered her office she'd tell me more and more about her daughter (how she used to be nervous but now she isn't, how she loves Japan) and how her daughter thought I was very smart. Apparently she also told this to all of the other guys as well, lol. No wonder she has the highest rated hostel in all of Seoul. Something from the constant eye-rolling emanating from her daughter told me this kind of thing happened a lot.

As an aside I miss Korean toast. Had it every day for breakfast during the Kyung Hee days and it was back in my life briefly. With the exchange rate its about 70 cents for bread fried in an obscene amount of butter, sandwiching an omelet, ketchup, and Korean salad.


But yes, the hostel. On our last night I told Mary (the hostel keeper) that we were looking for some quality jajeungmyeon. She then replied with "You want food? OK! I will arrange something. Wait five minutes. We can have a party!" Five minutes later she had invited a bunch of other guests to come with us for Korean BBQ. It was pretty baller. We met a guy from Minnesota/Philly (double holla) who was skipping class in Japan by spending a week in Korea, a French guy finding himself after quitting J.P. Morgan, a Korean couple that worked for a credit card company, and a Danish girl who got our side of the table into a international discussion of who is hot and who is not on LOST. Once again, Jason's opinions on Juliette were wholly shunned (Actually, I don't remember if that's true but I choose to believe it).

After a quality dinner we were about to go out on the town when we stopped in to an ATM. As I put my credit card in the machine the lights in the building went out and the machine rebooted/ate my card. My official reaction was "Really universe? Reallyyy?" We lost our group because we had to wait for a guy to get my card out (Thank you random lady for calling!!) and then just ate a waffle and went home.

In China now ... I need to shower ...