~~~Lara Zielin~~~

I am leaving tomorrow for South Carolina, after a late-October trip to New York and an early-November trip to Seoul. It’s been a whirlwind of traveling lately, but I lurve adventures in other cities and I’m super-ooper thankful that I’m able to get up and go.  A lot. Here are a few photos from my recent excursions.

Colleen and me at the Waldorf-Astoria for a fancy-schmancy U-M Business School event. I love that a.) she’s holding a Zagat’s guide even though she lives in NYC and b.) the flowers look like they’re coming out of our heads.

John, Colleen’s husband, has a leetle something in his teeth.

Stupid taxi shot. Poor driver.

Could I BE any cooler? Clearly not. JT is enthralled.

This photo is a great pre-cursor to my Korea trip. See the chopsticks? See?

Okay, and now on to Seoul. Not such a bad place if you’re a tall white American girl. You stick out, but it’s totally managable. Totally.

This was my first meal in Seoul. How do you eat soup with chopsticks? That was my first thought. Until I saw the spoon.

Dude, Starbucks was like two blocks from my hotel. I knew it from afar, even though I can’t read Korean. See the green calling me home? Ah, how I love you, grande Americano.

This is the main court of one of the many palaces in Korea.

Not one, not two, but two two fried chicken.

A folk dance on the streets in the Insadong neighborhood of Seoul.

Think the DMZ is sad and barren? Not on the South Korean side. There are shops, food, music, even carnival rides.

Wonder Woman! She is strong for her battles from eating kimchee.

Seoul from the height of their equivalent of the Space Needle. The Han river divides Seoul into two sections: North and South.

We were totally hard to spot in Seoul. Where are the foreign tourists? Where, I ask you??

STATUS: Very, very, very awake.

FAVE LINKEY-POO RIGHT THIS SECOND: The Interwebs is pretty slow here in Seoul, so it’s hard for me to find one and paste it in. Why not just visit Publius.org and get smartified on the candidates before election day?

A few years back, there was an Economist cover showing Kimg Jong-Il with his sunglasses and crazy bouffant, waving at the crowds, and with “Greetings, Earthlings” as the caption.

At present I’m in South Korea and a mere hours away from the DMZ and Kim Jon-Il, who is reported to be pretty sicky-poo. It’s amazing to me that one day of being on a plane can get you so far away from things. The same amount of driving time would get me to my parents’ house in Wisconsin, if we went through the U.P.

It’s been a while since I’ve been out of the country — 2o05 was my last trip, I think, and that was to Italy where, even if the public transportation sucked and people weren’t super nice to me, I could still sort of grasp the Latin-based lingo. And order a glass of wine, thank you very much. That’s not really the case here.

Last night, half asleep and starving, I stumbled into the Korean restaurant that adjoins my hotel and asked for “hot tea.” I didn’t see a picture of it on the menu, so I couldn’t point. Oops. They brought me kimchee, which I’d only seen on the Travel Channel (thanks Anthony Bourdain). I didn’t expect to like it but I found myself really into it. It’s the hotness that does it, I think. One hotness relating to another, I think. O snap.

After much non-communication that made me think I had a hand in placing my order when really I didn’t, I was given a steaming bowl of yumminess with chunks of bones (with beef and fat clinging to the bones) floating in the broth. I figured these were just for flavor but, no. Graciously, my waitress showed me how to eat them, which I obviously wasn’t, by using your chopsticks to pull them out, then dip them in a sauce, then gnaw the hell out of them to try and get the small fibers of meat and fat off them. It was a little visceral but, I gotta say, hella good. I felt kinda dumb doing it, but so was everyone else so I figured, when in Rome … or Seoul …

My hotel is lovely. I laughed when I pulled out the ironing board and it was short. Like really short, even on the tallest setting. The coffee in the room is some Korean version of that Nestle international coffee stuff that was so popular back in the day, but I did see a Starbucks and a Dunkin Donuts when I came in so I may adventure out for a pumpkin spice latte. Or maybe just a tall house coffee.

I’m here for a week and, tomorrow, will be joined by a work colleague. I expect we’ll have some bumbling adventures to share but I gotta say, I’m excited not to look like an idiot alone.

For the time being, farewell, Earthlings.