Kyongju to Seoul

It was time to say goodbye to Mr. Kwan and head for Seoul. The first class seats in the train were quite comfortable and we had a pleasant 4-½ hour journey. We got a taxi to take us to our hotel- not knowing that the street leading to the hotel was closed due to construction. Our wonderful taxi driver stopped his car, took one of our bags on his head and walked us to our hotel several blocks away. The hotel rivaled Mr. Kwan’s for “character”. No one spoke English and our room was complete with exposed florescent light, a TV almost falling off the wall and no sheets. A true flop house- but in a great location- and once again, a bargain at $25/night.
We took a trial run to the USO- using the amazing subway system. The subway system has 7 lines and criss-crosses the city with utter efficiency. It took us quite a while to find the USO. Either we had a problem with communication- or no one in this country knows where anything is! Maybe a bit of both. After confirming our tour for Thursday, we spent the next few hours at the Korean War Museum. It was spectacular- 3 floors of wonderful exhibits spanning their entire history of warfare (which is substantial). Most of the museum was oriented around the Korean War. The only distressing part of the museum was the lack of English subtitles on the video clips and the minimal coverage given to the sacrifices of the American troops in the Korean War.
Exhausted, we grabbed a taxi to It’aewon. Located close to the largest UN military base in Korea, it was a typical GI rip-off area- lots of bars and shopping. Even with the military base close by, we still saw very few Caucasian faces. Craving anything non-Korean, we headed to the Moghul restaurant for some very bad and expensive Indian food.