Jerry Back to Korea from 15th to 18th in 2020

Last January my sister moved to a new apartment and I felt like joining her housewarming party. Because of the widespread concern over Corona virus, there were fewer people at the party. Most of the close friends of mine cancelled coming to the party because most of them are married and have kids. I felt sorry, but a bit relieved to know that they are wise and mature enough to be responsible parents.

From Fukuoka to Incheon it took a bit more than expected. I guess it was because of the bad weather. Arriving at the airport, I headed straight to Seoul, which I usually do. I was born in Seoul and it feels like Seoul is my eternal hometown even though either I or anyone in my family doesn’t have a house there anymore.

A cool thing I want to mention is an app called Ctrip. It is so convenient to use. I booked my flight ticket and a highspeed train ticket from Incheon International Airport to Seoul Station. There are many apps for booking flight tickets, hotels and so on that I have tried, but Ctrip is the easiest one ever that I have used. I heard ‘Ctrip’ is a Chinese brand. Innovative!

I just roamed around Kyobo Bookstore in Guanghwamun(광화문) and took a bus in Gangnam(강남). Waiting for the bus to Jije Station(지제역) in Pyeongtaek(평택), I just looked around and found Korean ladies were so beautiful and one of the reasons for their beauty might be flourishing plastic surgery clinics. Frankly speaking, I didn’t feel good when my Japanese coworkers asked me if almost every woman in Korea get plastic surgeries. But looking at the commercials on the street and so many signs of plastic surgery clinics, I thought I couldn’t either deny or agree with my Japanese coworkers’ arguments.

Cathy(my sis)’s apartment was so cool. Hyunah(Cathy’s daughter) introduced me IT things adopted in the apartment and I felt overwhelmed. I had lived quite old apartments when I had lived in Korea, so the IoT things in apartments were just fancy future things that are show in enterprises’ exhibitions in Seoul. But at the same time, I had heard a lot of economic news that major electronic companies such as Samsung and LG were investing huge capital on IoT technologies for houses and apartments. The speed of technological innovation is overwhelming and whenever I visit Korea, I find something I haven’t seen before but has been quite generalized.

The favorite thing visiting back to Korea is that Wi-Fi is much faster and general than Fukuoka. For second and third day in Korea, in the morning, I just did Internet. I watched Youtube videos I wanted in Fukuoka. Lying on the couch, I just kept doing the Internet. Even when I rented a Wi-Fi in Incheon International Airport, I was surprised with the rate. It was just 3,300 won a day . In US dollars, it is $3.

The main purpose for visiting Korea is joining Cathy’s housewarming party. But there were many subsidiary purposes, too. Eating Korean foods was one of them. Surely I did enough. I ate Sundaegukpap(순대국밥), Galbi(갈비), and so on. I drank good Makguli(막걸리) with mom’s Kimchi.

I bought Koean books that I needed. I bought a good book of a collection of great speeches by Chinese personalities. What else? I guess I did enough. One things that I learned is that I should visit Korea at least every quarter. When it comes to technological things such as IT, AI, IoT, and their related business models and adoption, I could see lots of clues of the coming revolution, just walking, running and driving around. I felt I need to be updated on a frequent and regular basis.

A thing I really want to do now is not inviting friend in Korea and all over world.  The thing I really want to do for now is taking my friends and coworkers to Korea, and how dynamic Korea is!

You can watch my 2nd vlog. Click!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZLc0Rv4SVI