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Monday, May 26, 2008

First glimpses

"the temperature is 13 degrees celsius..."

it wasn't the touchdown at incheon international airport, but the purser's announcement that woke me up with a jolt. thirteen degrees?!?!?! i was totally not prepared! marlon and i stared at each other -- we both wore cotton tops and jeans. good luck to us!

as we lined up at passport clearance, i surveyed the outfits of arriving koreans to see how we would fare with the weather. girl in sandals, long t-shirt, leggings and cardigan: okay, i think we'll be fine. girl in floaty, sheer slip dress: hell, more than fine. woman in jogging pants, ski cap and puffy hooded parka: we're f*cked. talked about mixed signals!

this is my guerrilla shot of the airport. marlon grumbled: "the more i travel, the more i see that the philippines is the only country that doesn't have an airport that looks like this."


not true, i countered: thank god for india.

we arrived at 7:30 a.m., and got to seoul just in time for the morning gridlock.


korea is known as the land of the morning calm. i have a sneaking suspicion that "calm" may have been a diplomatic euphemism for "gray". check out the view from our hotel room.


thank goodness, it's not smog -- it really is just early morning mist. the air is extremely clear, and after the sauna that singapore has been the past couple of weeks, beautifully refreshing. the 13-degree temperature hasn't turned out to be so bad and is really great to walk around in, although i have a bit of a morning cold. 

looking at these pictures, i realize the first glimpses i had of seoul were not too inspiring -- kinda drab, actually. fortunately, they were replaced pretty quickly, and i think i'm beginning to like this city. 

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