| My Trip to Korea in November 2000 Days 1 and 2 |
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| Visitors so far! |
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| Background The powers that be, in the company where I while away my working hours, decide that it is high time I paid company HQ a visit. My Managing Director puts it like this: "So, since you have small kids, I suppose you're not interested in visiting Korea?" Swoon. Of course I want to go, and I tell him so in no uncertain terms. Preparations There follows the to-ing and fro-ing that always accompanies a business trip by one of us....... I think this is a "Korean thing" and it takes a lot of getting used to. The Managing Director tells me that I will have to be there between 13th and 15th (inclusive) November, so I had better fly out on Saturday 11th and back on Friday 17th. My doctor tells me I need hepatitis and typhoid jabs, and that I have to have one lot 4 weeks apart.... I have 3 days before the first one is due. Forking out a small fortune for the drugs (which, incidentally, turn out to be half the price I�d have to pay in a German chemist when I buy them just over the border in Holland) the I have the first jab. I book my niece in England (I live in Germany) for one week's babysitting - but decide to book her ticket at the last possible minute. The General Manager tells me that I should be there between 8th and 10th November. The Managing Director says, no 13th to 15th is the final date. This goes on for a while (around 2 weeks) - until I decide that I don't want to go after all. But I'm made of sterner stuff than this, and, after all I'm Saggitarian and have to travel to satisfy some bizarre inner need. Finally! Oh joy! The dates are set. Back to the original dates, of course, I should have seen that coming. But now my niece can't babysit. So my Mum (big thanks mum) says she'll come over for a week of indulging the grandchildren....... The ticket is booked, arms are jabbed, bags are packed (unpacked, re-packed). I'm given a schedule for this Staff-Training visit to Korea. I'm anticipating hours locked in small offices hearing stuff I don't quite understand......... it turns out to be a reward visit for the "best local staff" in the foreign offices. Things are looking good. And she's off.... Saturday 11th November 2000 My Real Story Starts With the Trip to the Airport... Got my ticket, got my passport, got my toothbrush. Everything else is just irrelevant. But I take it anyway. Armed with a bottle of water and a packet of asprins (so I don't die of the recently very well publicised Economy Class Syndrome) Mick drives me to the airport..... check-in � then follows other boring stuff.... and finally he's waving me, boarding card clutched in sweaty fist, through the security checks (During which I point out to a border policeman that a suitcase has been sitting all on its own for the entire half an hour I have been waiting to get frisked by a burly policewoman. He merely shrugs until I mention �terrorist� and �bomb� and �your boss would be interested, wouldn�t he?� when he picks up the bag and toddles off with it. Turns out I�m wrong about the bomb thing after all, when he ambles back ten minutes later, and tries to kill me with a stare. �Come back when you�re bigger, mate� I think, and submit to a cursory patting down.) I do a lot of waiting around, I'm used to that, and disguise my ever mounting excitement by nonchalantly pretending to read a news magazine. Finally we're on the vomit comet to Amsterdam, where I transfer (via the duty free shop for Dad's bottle of whiskey - Jamesons, if you're interested) to the other terminal. And terminal it nearly is� terminal waiting. Finally we're boarded, and I'm lucky. I have booked an aisle seat, and in my row only the window seat is occupied. We can spread out a bit. The usual pre-flight stuff ensues, I avidly read the safety instructions and annoy everyone by insisting that I physically see my lifejacket. Then we're up up and away, flying West to East into the night courtesy of the nice people at KLM. We're constantly being stuffed with food I'm "special" since I appear to be the only one who has booked vegetarian meals. Smug doesn�t even begin to describe my demeanour as I�m served piping hot food first. Every time. This, for some reason, fascinates the middle-aged business man across the aisle from me. I give him an enigmatic smile every time which pleases me disproportionately. Maybe the air is too thin in the cabin or something. Boring films, excitingly addictive electronic Yahtzee game (thanks Mum!), ear ache from the Walkman I haven't used in years and � thanks to the water � several trips to thenone to savoury toilet..... Pot Noodle type things in the middle of the night with chopsticks.... and finally, with a very slight bump I'm in Korea! Yaayyy! We all do the immigration and money changing shuffle. I love the Won. There are 500 to the Deutsche Mark. I'm rich!!! I take care to find the only taxi driver in the whole of Asia who can't speak English and we're off to the Grand Intercontinental hotel. (The company really does love me!). We arrive at the wrong hotel, where I feel almost sorry for the driver who is severely admonished by the door opening guy who, by the way, is wearing a rather smart uniform. We get to the right hotel � the other Intercontinental, half a block away - where I prepare to be pandered to. There follows a series of pampering, which I'm not going to describe in case you get jealous. Suffice to say, you know when you've been pampered here! Then its out and about in downtown Seoul in search of food. Which isn't too difficult since there's an underground shopping mall right next to the hotel. (Eventually I'm going to write here about the rock band I saw) I find a bookshop which sells books in English (bliss) and clutching my purchase I hotfoot it to the nearest Korean restaruant, where I dine like a king for very little money, hardly noticing that the staff, who have previously apologised profusely for the lack of forks (just as well I'm a whizz with chopsticks) are nearly having kittens when I dunk a huge dollop of hot chilli sauce in my dinner...(they're not to know I have been practicing Korean food). And Kimchee makes its first of many appearences this week.... After dinner I wander round the COEX mall, which is a new shopping area underneath the convention centre. I'm struck by how American everything is: Burger King, KFC, Starbucks (I finally get a "Caf� Latte to go" - something I have only ever seen on tv - which, incidentally, cost as much as my dinner!), all manner of clothing shops, Body Shop.... the list is endless, and reminds me of home. Which is odd, because I live in Germany, not America. One thing, which shouldn't surprise me, is that they're really into Miffy, the little Dick Bruna rabbit (from Holland). Miffy is everywhere and where there is no Miffy there is Kitty Chan. In places it is almost as though Kitty is staring down Miffy � daring her to come over and try to out-cute her. And, inevitably, the place is overrun with gaggles of giggling schoolgirls who in the universal tradition cannot possibly shop alone. Outside it is cold, but not raining. I'm staggered by the amount of neon advertising and posters, banners and signs covering every available square inch. It's back to the hotel for a swim, pack the bags up again - for we're off to Kumi tomorrow, after our visit to company HQ. Oh yes. There is some work. But first the hotel. |
The Grand Intercontinental, Seoul Now, I'm not that much of a stranger to luxury business hotels, but The Grand Intercontinental Hotel, Seoul, is really something worth seeing despite the fact that its adherence to the corporate identity makes it pretty anonymous. Outside there are chappies who just open car doors all day. And close them again. There are outside porters (or so it seems) whose sole function is to schlepp baggage inside and then hand you over to the inside porter (or I could be wrong, maybe there were just lots of them.) There is even a guy whose sole job - or so it seems, because I never see him do anything else � is to go around all the beautiful sand-filled ashtrays picking out the cigarette ends and stamping the Intercontinental logo into the now smooth and clean sand. Bizzarre. The check-in process is painless, and the assumption that one requires a non-smoking room is rather refreshing. I'm strangely and smugly glad that I look like a non-smoker. The porter whizzes through the lobby with my bags so fast that I am forced to break into a half-run to keep up. A zoom up in the speedy lift gives me chance to observe something else of the Korean character. I notice that the ground floor is number one. This I can cope with, it�s the same in Russia. Further examination, however, of the number keys reveals a quirk of which I was only later informed: there is no fourth floor � that number represents death, apparently � and there is also no number 13, the universal unlucky number). A quick dash through the plush, carpeted corridoors and I am in a giant room. Shurely shome mistake? But no: the massive room (with equally massive bathroom) is mine all mine! I'm glad to see there are the makings for tea and coffee, but am somewhat disturbed by the mini- stepper in the corner. I left my stepper at home without a backward glance. Ah well, I don't have to use it.... After the porter (no tipping allowed, the bill includes a 10% service charge) has left, it's time to bounce on the bed, examine the minibar, watch CNN (I understand this is obligatory on biz trips), weigh myself (less than usual, how did that happen?!), check out the times for the fitness studio and swimming pool (6am to 10pm every day).... the usual stuff. I make full use of the "turning down the bed" service etc. and don't feel guilty at all that I'm being waited on hand and foot....... |
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