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Sorry I didn’t keep the blog going last week… I was pretty busy with plenty of traveling. After HK I headed back north towards South Korea for one last stop in Asia. I only stayed there two and a half days but I really enjoyed Seoul and definitely think I’ll go back at some point. After a long day of travel on Wednesday (via Tokyo on a red-eye) I arrived in the evening at the Lee&No Guesthouse and was greeted by a few other travelers that were about to head to dinner. After cleaning up quickly, we went to a local restaurant they’d spotted earlier in the day which was a do-it-yourself type of cooking (very popular in Korea apparently). Basically we ordered a huge plate of baby octopus and pork slices and placed it on a stove located in the middle of the table and let the whole thing cook (it was covered in some sort of fiery hell-broth too). When it was all nice and hot, we all started digging in. As seems to be the custom in Korea, we were given a whole slew of side dishes to go along with this and wrapped everything up in lettuce leaves . We also drank our fair share of beer and soju (the local rice wine), which caught the attention of the businessmen sitting next to us. One thing led to another, and before we knew it, we were drinking soju with them. It turned out to be quite the long evening – parts of which are rather blurry – but in the end we all agreed to meet the following evening for dinner.

Thursday I tried to walk off the soju induced hangover by visiting a few temples and palaces around Seoul. The city feels very similar to Tokyo, though people are much more relaxed and easy going. It’s a really nice place to visit and there really seems to be something for everyone – shopping, eating and sightseeing. Anyway, I was on cruise control most of the day just kind of walking around aimlessly and not feeling quite right until about dinner time. Of course I’d agreed to go to dinner again with everyone, though I was sincerely hoping it would be a bit tamer. We ended up getting Korean BBQ, which was fantastic (something about being able to cook it yourself makes it taste so much better!) and only had a few beers this time – I avoided the soju like the plague. Apparently the businessmen had all stayed out all night at a karaoke parlor after the previous night’s dinner and gone from there straight to work – some without changing… so they were all a bit tired too.

Friday – my last full day in Asia – I went to an art museum in the morning to stay cool and walked around some of the markets and shopping areas of Seoul. I really can’t imagine anyone not enjoying themselves here – it’s really a great place and the food is fantastic. That evening I met up with Cathy, another Kellogg student, for some traditional Korean food and tea. She showed me around town a bit and we talked about the now rapidly approaching start of the school year.

So that’s it. 62 days in Asia comes to an end. The flight back was somewhat long but unadventurous. Now I’m back in Boston preparing to move to Chicago within a couple days. So thanks to all of you for reading the blog – hope you enjoyed it. Thanks to Steve, Rob, Paul, Nicole, the Irish, Daniel, Gorka, Anita, Yoda, Haskell, Richard, Trinh, Viji, Vickna, Dipti, Cathy and all the other random people who joined me on trip. And thanks to all family and friends who emailed and chatted with me while I was on the other side of the world.