William Chong

I’ve got a couple of minutes in my hotel room so thought I’d write to say I’m safe and well. 12 hour flight = read through half of Oliver Sach’s “Musicophilia” (it’s a fantastic book!)

Also thanks to body clock woke up at 5 am Korea time (9 am NZT) so got my training run in this morning, hurrah!

Here’s some preliminary observations about Seoul, Korea:

• There’s a surprising amount of signage in Chinese around here: Koreans refer to it as hanja. Perhaps its close proximity to China makes the use of Chinese beneficial for business and tourist travellers from there.
• Being in a foreign country tip #1: Don’t show off your 3-and-a-half-phrase Korean vocabulary until AFTER the person you’re talking to knows you’re a foreigner. I tried being clever by greeting the chauffeur driver with a well-pronounced “annyeong haseyo” (thanks Farm Cove Intermediate Korean classes)… but had to sheepishly shrug my shoulders and revert to English once he started asking me to fill out my hotel check-in form in rapidfire Korean! O why o why Towel of Babel….

OK off to a meeting. Will talk soon. Missing you all already!

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