Seoul, Korea Trip 2013

We just returned from a trip to Seoul, Korea and I thought I would share a few observations.
For those of you who know me, you know I have a deep connection, but every trip serves to offer a few more insights, as well as reinforce old ones. And you need to know as you read through this, I really do love the place. It is a city of contrasts and life, and offers just about anything you are looking for, and maybe some things you weren't.

The cost of living has hit here like everywhere else. The cost of food, whether buying at a grocery store or eating out is more expensive, forcing people to make wiser choices. That doesn't stop the people from buying something, it just means that they have to compensate. When they want something more on one side, they give up something on the other.
Housing is almost prohibitively expensive, and their system of jeonse would freak out the average American. It would make coming here to live pretty difficult. Most of us don't have that sort of money ($500,000 plus) on hand. If you want a reasonable place to live, that's what its going to cost.

The food is one reason I love coming to Korea. I have accumulated a number of places and dishes that you can't get anywhere else. I have tried to find places in Arizona that are similar in some way, but nothing even comes close to measuring up (except maybe our house). So when I get the chance to come to Korea, I make sure I get all of my favorite spots at least once during my stay, while on the lookout to add to my list with another great place. The food is basically healthy and low in the bad stuff. Of course you can get your Big Mac, Whopper, KFC, Krispy Kreme, Papa Johns, etc., if you want, but with all the choices of great Korean style cuisine, why would you want to? I find that I don't even give these places a second look.

Driving here is only for the brave or mildly insane. Koreans give new meaning the the phrases "every man for himself" and "go for it." It seems to be a perpetual game of chicken, and I found myself wondering, why do they even bother painting lines on the road (and for that matter, traffic lights about half the time), because nobody pays them any attention. I've seen city busses run red lights. If there is nearly a car length between you and the car in front of you (and often even if there isn't), you can be sure someone will try to insert their car in it. They can be the best and the worst  drivers I have ever seen, and all at the same time. And what we might call a California stop is time wasted waiting in one spot. I'm truly amazed there aren't more car accidents. It's a good thing guns aren't allowed in Korea, but horns are used with enthusiasm.

There are about a zillion motorcycles there of varying sizes, primarily used for transporting goods and food. From what I observed, there is no place where they won't drive, including the wrong direction down a busy street, sidewalks, and threading the needle between cars. It's more like two-wheeled anarchy, and they use their horns freely to tell YOU (the pedestrian) to get out of the way. Although there are traffic laws for motorcycles, I've never witnessed a cop citing one for anything.

Their use of technology and connectivity is far beyond the USA. They find it hard to believe that people in America still use any sort of dial-up, or low speed service. Our average internet speed is slow compared to theirs, and actually more expensive to boot.

Nearly everyone in Seoul has some sort of smart phone and it seems like they (especially kids and young adults) are connected almost continuously. To me this can be rather annoying, since they hardly look up to see where they are going when walking down the street. I observed a lot of young people only have one free hand, because their smart phone is usually in the other.
In one case, I was riding the bus (actually standing, because the bus was a little crowded), and an elderly lady got on. A young guy purposely stared into his phone, trying to look too busy to notice the lady could have been given his seat... so she stood next to him while he played with his smart phone. I guess manners and reverence for age in not as universal in Korea as is led to believe, or times for stuff like this has changed. If it was my seat to give, I would unquestionably got up and offered it to her. As I have seen in the USA, Korea is no different. It's "all about me", and I was here first, so manners and respect are dying out all over. Maybe I was just brought up in a different time and place.

I am definitely a guy who appreciates the female form. I'm not outwardly overt about it, but I do enjoy the view as much as the next guy, and just keep it to myself. The woman in Korea set the bar high, as attractiveness and sophistication is measured (just my personal opinion, I assure you, but based on many, many years of observational experience). You see no overly amply exposed muffin-tops, although I'm sure there might be an exception out there somewhere. The women there appear to be more conservative, and quite conscious of their outward appearance, taking to time to look good, if even going to the corner bakery for a loaf of bread. There are no Walmart people types to witness in Korea (although I'm sure they probably exist), but in the time I was there, I never saw anything close. There maybe one in 20 that they would consider overweight here, but by our standards, they are still reasonably proportioned. I think times are changing slowly though. With the introduction of KFC, McDonalds, Dunkin Donuts, etc, etc, the overall Americanized diet is creeping into the Korean diets, so it's just a matter of time before we begin to see its effects, but for now it's a girl watching Shangri-la, and life is good.

If you appreciate a great pair of legs, there is no place better. I would venture to say that after a few days, you might be a leg-man convert in short order. Fashion styles have changed over the years, but short skirts always seem to be in style there (and getting shorter, if that's possible), making the supply of shapely legs an ever present display. Is it any wonder I love to get out and walk around. It's a miracle my head doesn't spin completely around sometimes. There are some who see issues. Check out this report from March 2013.
I am just a guy after all. When I stop looking, you might as well fill in the hole, because I have probably died.

Koreans are quite brand conscious, and the more famous the brand, the more exposure it seems to get. Actors and actresses, and models from America are in many of their advertisements, promoting cars, clothing, alcohol, what-have-you. Places like the Hyundai and the Shinsegae Department stores are something wild to behold. Nothing we have (that I have seen) measures up. Of course out of 11 floors in the Hyundai Department store, six of them are fully dedicated to women's fashions and three of them are for groceries and restaurants. Guys, kids, and the rest of the stuff they sell get the rest of the floors. I guess we know now why women there look so good.

I continued to work out while we were there, and would jog several miles in the early mornings. We were staying next to a fairly upscale part of town, and I would always get a chuckle (and I felt a little strange) as this older guy dressed in sweats, would jog through this section of the city, passing shops you might find in Beverly Hills, including a Rolls Royce dealership. Stranger in a strange land to be sure.

I guess that about sums up my latest visit. The family time there was the best, and getting to know the new generation of the family is always fun. Being the only non-Korean on that side of the family has its downside to be sure, because I tend to get left out of some conversations. However, the rewards of the little smiles and playtime with them, and visits with good friends makes it all worth the effort, and I look forward to the next opportunity to travel that way.

Cheers!  :o)

Billion? trillion? The wonder of incomprehensible sums

Do the big numbers our government spend bother you? They should. In 2005, there were 1607 government funded programs, costing us nearly $2 trillion, but don't take my word for it. Check it out for yourself here. The list is staggering enough. but look over the names of some of them. I have no idea what their purpose is, or how they manage to still get funding every year... and you are paying for it. 

Getting your mind around such big numbers is tough at best, but maybe the following article will help.

A commentary by Tom Purcell

I remember when a billion used to be a number so big nobody could comprehend it, though it is still a massive number.

According to Snopes.com, 1 billion seconds equals 31.7 years. A billion seconds have elapsed since 1981.

One billion minutes is equal to 1,901 years — which would take us back, almost, to the time Jesus Christ roamed the Earth.

One billion hours is equal to 114,000 years — which would take us back to the Stone Age.

In more recent times, our inability to comprehend the sheer magnitude of 1 billion has been eclipsed by our inability to comprehend 1 trillion.

One trillion is equal to one thousand billion.

Our federal deficit has been averaging nearly $1 trillion since the collapse of 2008 — causing us to rack up more than $5 trillion in new debt.

In order to cover our nearly $4 trillion annual budget, the U.S. Treasury spends about $1 billion every two hours — accumulating $1 billion in new debt about every eight hours.

ABC’s Jake Tapper tried to simplify these incomprehensible numbers. He compared America’s finances to a typical American’s finances. By removing eight zeros from America’s $3.8 trillion budget, he came up with a sum of $38,000.

Now if you are a retiree, you are probably getting by OK if you are able to spend $38,000 a year — unless your finances are as messed up as America’s.

Though you are spending $38,000 annually, your income is only $29,000 — you are growing your debt by $9,000 every year.

What’s worse is that you already owe nearly $170,000 to creditors. Paying off that amount of debt with $38,000 in income would be hard under any circumstances.

But of course your income is $29,000, not $38,000, so you must borrow about $175 a week to keep up with your expenses.

In other words, the U.S. government is growing our debt by $175 billion a week, which is producing around $1 trillion in new debt every year.

Still not comprehending how much $1 trillion is? Then you’ll like this description by Bill Bryson, one of my favorite authors, from his book “Notes from a Big Country.”

Bryson asks his readers to guess how long it would take to initial and count 1 trillion dollar bills if you worked without stopping.

“If you initialed one dollar bill a second,” writes Bryson, “you would make $1,000 every 17 minutes. After 12 days of non-stop effort you would acquire your first million. Thus, it would take you 120 days to accumulate $10 million, and 1,200 days — something over three years — to reach $100 million. After 31.7 years you would become a billionaire. But not until 31,709.8 years elapsed would you count your trillionth dollar bill.”

We all understand that very large numbers are OK so long as they add up. So long as we have trillions of dollars coming in to the government to balance out the trillions of dollars we have going out, we should be OK.

But that is the frightening part. We are not even close to covering our spending. Our economy has not recovered enough to generate the growth and tax revenue we need to pay our bills.

Piling on new entitlement programs and lots of new regulations, rules and mandates certainly isn’t helping the recovery.

And so we limp along racking up debt and our leaders are doing little to address this incredible challenge. In fact, we have racked up more than $11 trillion in new debt since George W. Bush assumed office in 2002. We are the proud owners of nearly $17 trillion in debt, a startlingly incomprehensible sum.

Yet too few people worry about it. Who can blame them? After all, $17 trillion is only 17,000 billion dollars.

Tom Purcell, a freelance writer, is also a humor columnist for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and is nationally syndicated exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.