Holy Buttload of Asians

So you always hear about how over-crowded Asia is. Everyone's like "oh look at China and it's billion people." But you never really take it seriously until you are crammed on a subway train with the entire population of Korea, and you can't breath or you will vomit from the overwhelming smell of Korea, which your stomach has not yet adjusted to. I think my two biggest complaints about Korea are that it's dirty and it smells funny. I understand the overcrowding. Korea is kind of a small place and because it can't learn to get along with its sister (North Korea) the there is no where for them to expand to. So the fact that they just keep building on top of things that are already there is only because they have no where else to go.

But it does smell funny. I read about the Korean red pepper paste before I came here, but I had no idea to what extent the Koreas love their paste. The whole country reeks of it. The other day, I went to a sushi place with a couple people, I didn't get anything because my stomach and I still weren't speaking at the time, but it gave me ample time for observation. At most restaurants in the states, you'll find ketchup bottles, salt, pepper, and maybe some fake sugar on the table, at this restaurant, there was a HUGE bottle of red pepper paste, which any American would probably mistake for ketchup, (they would get quite an unpleasant surprise with that one), a tub of Kimchi, and a bucket of chop sticks. Which I am actually getting pretty good at using.

Speaking of chop sticks, friday night I worked the late shift at school, which had me working from 1-9. This meant I got to help out at dinner. Dinner on friday was an attempt at an American meal. They tried to make chicken patties, and some form of pasta, and rice of course. But western night meant that the chop sticks were put away for the evening. It was incredibly amusing to watch the children trying to eat with forks. They had no idea what to do. They were taking their forks and their soup spoons and trying to use them like chop sticks. It made my night.

Today I went on an adventure to Seoul. This was where I realized that not all of Korea is dirty and ugly like Incheon. Incheon has it's good points, but it is not a pretty city...well, basically it's ugly. Anywho. I took the subway down town in search of an LDS church. When I got off the subway, rising before me was a huge royal palace from the 1300s. It was beautiful. I walked around it, very impressed. Then went into the museum next door, realized I was too tired to be in a museum, went back outside, and happened to be there just in time for the changing of the guards. Sadly there were no fuzzy hats, but there were some pretty awesome swords, and axe-type things.

I found church saw some cool Asian things, basically I had a decent exhausting day and I think I'm ready for bed. Although, it's barely past nine. I am very lame.