Korea, part 3

Ayaaaa, on Thursday my last in Korea arrived! 

Lida was flying to Seoul at 20.30 and my flight back to China was at 21.30. Plenty of time during the day.

We started the day with a walk on the other side of the wharf. This was a 'safe' option with only a few steps and no steep slopes. I didn't want to drag myself on the airplane in the state I was in on Monday....

It was coooooooold!! Only 6C and very windy. I'm not used to such low temperatures and wind chill. My cheeks weren't happy at all, brrrrrr. It was nice to experience a hint of winter though. I think most of my energy had been spent earlier in the week and I got a bit faint and dizzy. No time for afternoon naps of course, as I didn't want to waste my time in Korea with Lida sleeping away.

It can go wrong in Korea as well.

We made it to a nice coffee shop where I recuperated and re-grouped for the walk back home. After only a few days in Okpo I already recognized a lady walking down the road. 

There are a lot of coffee shops around and it seems that the Koreans are more onto this lifestyle than the Chinese. Good terraces are still hard to find but Lida and Pieter scouted the whole island and did find a few great ones.

'Final' lunch

For lunch we headed to a hotel on the other side of the mountain. It was too cold to sit outside but behind the glass it was very comfortable. After lunch we got gas for the car and headed home to chill out.

Frozen smile ;)

We left for the airport around 17.30. We got there in good time and Pieter drove back home. Lida came with me to check in. Nobody in line, hurrah! We had to wait around for five minutes to make sure my suitcase was cleared for boarding. No problems there so we headed for the domestic departure hall through the cold evening. Also nobody in line, hurrah again!

We enjoyed a cup of tea and then it was time for Lida to board. I headed back to the international hall and had a snack at Starbucks. The other restaurants were only serving food until 20.00 and I didn't feel like sour, spicy soup anyway.

The English level in Korea may be even worse than in China. People are very friendly and like to help you out but cannot tell you in English what is up. I just used single words and that seemed to work well. We were looking for shredded coconut at the supermarket but couldn't find it. I asked one of the staff: 'coconut??' She went to the spot were it was available before, saw there wasn't any, searched around a bit and then came back with her arms crossed; the sign for 'no'. She also said 'no more'.

Well, that's basically all we needed to know! I kept forgetting what hi and bye was (somethingseyo and somethingsamnida or such) so I stuck to English. Worked fine for the time being ;) 

Learning to read Korean is not too difficult since it is phonetic. I can recognize a few 'letters' that Lida taught me. The hard part is learning what the sounds actually mean.

We did have some fun when Lida was driving the car and I was trying to look up some Korean phrases. Turns out that Lida's phone can speak Chinese, very handy! ;)