May.

• Soju on the pavilion. Not illegal to drink in public here. Score.

• Seoul City is mobbed. They love their neon lights and blinky signs. Epileptic’s nightmare.

• There’s a big yellow thing in the sky. I’m from the Tundra and therefore can’t be certain of its motives.

• Kimchi is orgasmic.

• The best part of Korean culture must be the jjimjilbang. The worse is selling bunnies in plastic bags on the street, and skinning fish alive.

• Haejangguk will cure any hangover.

• Only in Korea would you find a group of teenage boys sitting in the local park practicing their origami.

• I am not mae-guk. I am yon-guk. Now quit staring.

Suwon

When Paldalmun reared up in front of my taxi a week after landing on the Spring-kissed shores of leafy South Korea, I finally got that existential knuckle-sandwich I'd been needing for a very long time.

I got out. Stared. Pulled the perfect startled-bunny tourist face.

"Oh."

This was, of course, a fairly substantial understatement.

What I meant to say was "Holy shit... I'm in Asia!!"