Welcome to Korea. It is dark and bleak today, as it is everyday. The entire country is shrouded by the blanket of harsh communist rule, where the government seizes your possessions and kills the Internet. Winter is cold and lasts all year long. The sky is grey but so is everyone’s clothes. The air is smoggy, and it smells of oppression and old potatoes. People never smile; they just wait in line for days to get a loaf of stale bread. And all meals taste like boiled cabbage. In the distance you hear someone dying.

Wait, that’s North Korea. I’m in South Korea…and having a great time! I’m sitting here in a restaurant, half-drunk on something called makgeolli, watching porn on my Samsung Galaxy phone. (Totally kidding about that last one. Everyone knows I only buy Apple products.)

Seoul is an extremely modern and hi-tech city, even more so than Tokyo. From its airport to subway system to taxis, everything here is computerized and extremely easy to use. (But really, the technology of both cities is streets ahead of the USA.)

Palaces
Seoul has many very old palaces but all were burned down by the Japanese during the invasion several centuries ago, so everything was recently rebuilt. Their most well-known one is Gwanghwamun, where they have a changing of the guards every hour. Pssht, I could do their job.

Tea, Gangnam Style
Apparently last year, a chubby young Korean guy made a song video about a neighborhood called Gangnam and put it on the international worldwide webs, and then lots of people watched it. I decided to check out this upscale neighborhood. There were plenty of elegant high rises but nothing overly flashy. I had me some fancy tea at the top of the Park Hyatt Seoul and got a nice view of the area.

And in case you’re wondering, no I never saw Psy.