Uncle In Chul Kim of Seoul

While planning for my trip to South Korea last October I was a bit overwhelmed because my group grew from 5 people to 10. The Guest House that we booked previously couldn't accommodate the increasing number so I had to find another place. I had no problem to find a decent but affordable hotel in Busan, but in Seoul it's not that easy.

Someone suggested me to check airbnb.com and finally I came across this very nice 3 bedroom apartment called Apartment in Insadong. Even though we found out later that it's not located at Insadong at all, staying at that place was definitely the best experience of my whole trip. Not only did I get to experience the Korean hospitality (that sadly, I didn't find many during my trip), but I also gained a new extended family in Mr. Kim In Chul.

The place actually only accommodate 8 but after our exchanging email he agreed to added some mattress so we all could fit in 1 place. The reviews from previous guests were nothing but 5 stars and it's what a relieved to find that (except for the location) everything was true according to the description. And these are the 3 rooms in the house, I stayed at the bunk-bedded room :) 

From Incheon International Airport, we had to take a bus to Daerim Station for KRW 9.000, it took a little more than 1 hour. Before we got to Daerim Station, the owner of the apartment, Mr. In Chul asked us to call him to pick us up. When we got off, he's already waiting and greeted us warmly and drove us to the apartment, a couple of hundred meters from the station.

When we got to the apartment, his wife had been waiting with a smile to welcome us! We were tired from flying a red eye flight, but we felt a lot better after meeting the kind couple. Although Mrs. Kim didn't speak English at all, she's still tried to communicate with us, helped by Mr. Kim. They showed us around the small apartment and I fell in love with kitchen instantly! LOL It was neat and the cutlery was cute. The living room had a big LCD and he also provided a PC and wifi connection.

What really surprised us was that the couple also provided us with dozens of bottled water, lots of instant noodles, cooking oil, detergent for the washing machine and a hair dryer at the bathroom, also train and Seoul maps to get around! Basically everything that will make your trip easy.

After we rested and freshened up, we were ready for our first exploration in Seoul. How nice it was to find that Namguro Train Station was only 20 meters away from the apartment! Considering there were lots and lots of stairs in every station, and everytime we returned home most likely we were exhausted, having a nearby train station was totally convenient.Although it took around 30 - 40 mins from Namguro to get to Downtown, it didn't matter much for me cause I'm an early riser and we were not in a hurry to get around.

During our stay, Mr. & Mrs. Kim often dropped by our place just to say hello or asked where we had been, whether we enjoyed our stay or not. He's living in the 5th floor of the apartment while we're in the 1st floor, right by the entrance of the building. In the middle of our staying we went to Busan and other people stayed there. The night before was raining so our laundry wasn't dry enough. Mrs. Kim kindly asked us to move the laundry to be hung at the rooftop and let us left all our luggage at her home. 4 days later when we returned, our luggage was all  ready with our laundry neatly folded in the living room!!

Even though Mr. & Mrs. Kim kindly invited us for a barbeque at the rooftop with their family, we sadly didn't get the chance to do it since we always got home late LOL And here are the kind Mr. & Mrs. Kim :)

  

On the day of our departure, we took a morning flight so we had to leave the apartment by 5am to catch the airport bus from Daerim Station. Mr. Kim kindly took 3 trips back and forth to get us all to the station. It was raining but he still waited with us until the the bus arrived. He hugged us all tightly in turn (until the bus driver had to honk us to hurry) and decided to call him Uncle In Chul. I sent him a Christmas card and a framed picture of us together.

About a week ago I installed KakaoTalk in my phone and suddenly he sent me pictures of Spring Flowers in Seoul with a message: I missed you and your friends so much. We exchanged texts and he asked me call him anytime when I have free time just to talk. Surely, we missed him and Aunty Kim as well and I hope that we will meet again in the near future.

So when you're traveling to Seoul, you might want to stay at his place, and more than just a memorable trip, you'll find other people to call family. Till we meet again, Uncle In Chul!

Toilet Wonders

Whenever someone asked me why I like going to Japan (though I I've been there just twice) my typical answer was: "I love the toilets."

Though I was indeed joking, it wasn't entirely wrong. It's one of the reason that I like traveling in Japan. Sadly, even after my 2 trips I was so enticed with it that I didn't even remember to take its picture ^^'

So rather than making you imagine it, click here to read about it and here's the picture, credit goes to the same website.

credits: JapaneseStuff.net

And this is just the basic. There's actually a more advanced one with a box of buttons attached to the wall separately from the closet itself. My first time in using the highly modern toilet was probably somewhere in Kyoto in my first trip - 2010. I think it was in the hotel. I couldn't find a place to push to flush and as I frantically searching for it, I saw a large black square on the wall next to it. As I tried to push it a couple of time, it flushed! *phew* Apparently I just had to put my hand on it to flush, no need to push anything... talk about feeling relieved just because I can flush!!

So it wasn't a surprise to hear my friend shouted from the toilet when first we checked-in into our room at this hotel, the first place where we stayed. There's a sensor above the door that informs the closet (sound strange, I know) that someone just entered.

"WHOA!!! THE CLOSET LID OPENS ITSELF!! THIS IS SO COOL!!!"

Cool indeed. At least in Japan, I won't need to worry about drinking water too much cause I'll gladly go to the toilet anytime I want :)

Naxi Women

In 2010 I got to visit Lijiang, a city in Yunnan - China for the firm's offsite. The flights were painful to get there. Not only that we couldn't fly directly from big cities like Shanghai, Beijing or Guangzhou; even with the limited flights we couldn't fly together due to the company policy. My flights were: Jakarta - Hongkong (overnight stay) - Kunming (sh*tty airport and no one spoke English!) - Lijiang. And my return trip was: Lijiang - Shenzen - driving to Hongkong - another overnight stay - Jakarta.

But I had to admit that the scenery over there was marvelous. I'll show the picture in another post. But for now I'd like to share something that kinda made me feel a little bit... overwhelmed?

NAXI tribe is the native of Lijiang. When I was walking around the Old Town of Lijiang I saw a lot of old women walking hand in hand with similar clothes with some kind of a basket on their backs. I thought it was beautiful and interesting until I heard the real story behind it.

On the first day of our tour, our tour bus' guide was a young Naxi guy in mid-twenties who preferred to be called Daniel -- the English name that he chose after learning English. He revealed that in Naxi culture, it's the women who work their as*es off and make a living for the family while the men were not doing anything except socializing and drinking with their buddies! Naxi women also responsible to maintain a peaceful and harmonious family, thus I couldn't even imagine the physical and spiritual burden that they carried in their whole life!

On their dresses, seven patterns were embroidered to symbolize the spirits of Naxi women. If I wasn't mistaken, some stones were also hung around their waist to remind them of the responsibility (or should I say burden?) to carry the honor of the family. Since then, I saw them in a different light. They're holding hands to share the difficult life and the responsibility they were born with -- or at least that's my impression. The lines on their faces were the lines of wisdom and hard works until they were old. I couldn't hold back my tears when I saw 3 Naxi women were sharing a snack and then walked hand in hand along the stoned path of the Old Town in my second visit there.

If you think you have a hard life as a woman, think again. At least you don't have to work for your entire life. They do, physically and literally. And they're doing it not only for themselves. Perhaps it's for the sake of the culture they were born into, but they accepted their destiny and live their lives with dignity for the honor of their family. To that, I salute them.