Importing ideas from Korea

There are a few things in Korea that I found brilliant, and I'd like to import those back to the States:

Restaurants: first of all, many restaurants have a button at the table. If you need a waiter, you press the button. Simple, and so functional! Another cool thing is that you usually pay your bill at the exit. So when done with your meal, you don't have to ask for a bill - wait for the waiter to bring the bill - put your card down - wait for the waiter to notice and charge it - and bring it back. You just get up, walk to the exit, and pay. Simple and fast! And finally, there is no tip or tax, so you know exactly how much you owe, which makes splitting a bill when dining out with a large group significantly less painful.

Restrooms: there are restrooms in every subway stop, and they are usually very clean. Also, I get a kick out of a "sound" button, that makes sounds of flushing toilet. NIce and discreet.

Driving service: if you get wasted,you can call a service which for a reasonable fee (similar to a cost of taxi) will dispatch a driver to drive your car and your drunk self home. This would be awesome in LA!

Food for Thought

I have successfully navigated through my first week in Seoul. Despite the fact that there are very few foreigners in Korea and that many people don't speak English, the week was relatively unstressful, thanks in big part to my employer who ensured that we were well taken of during the day. At night, however, we - the 10 MBA interns from US schools - were left to our own devices to feed ourselves. The logistics of satisfying desires and constraints of our somewhat opinionated group deserves its own post, but here I'll focus on my initial impressions of eating in Korea.

First, Korea is a meat lovers' haven. There are a ton of barbeque places serving delicious marinated beef. Most restaurants have a built-in grill at the table, so you can cook your own meat. So far we've tried:
*Kalbi: thin, marinated strips of beef cooked over coals. We went to a place that did not seem very expensive (BiBimBap cost $6 for example), and Kalbi was $13/strip, and I think the boys ate 2 strips each. Delicious!
*Bulgogi: also marinated beef. This one was cooked in a pan with seasoning that had soy sauce and sesame oil, and the restaurant staff added scallions and mushrooms, and then cellophane noodles at the end of the meal. It was also delicious.
*Samgyeopsal (pork belly): this one was not my favorite as it was very fatty. The strips of port belly are grilled on a pan, with a bowl underneath to collect fat. It tastes a lot like bacon. You can wrap the meat in lettuce, and add kimchee for an improvised sandwich.

A culinary highlight of the week for me was Samgyetang, a Chicken Ginseng soup. A classmate from Seoul kindly took us to a famous restaurant where we were seated on the floor, and were presented with a soup that had a whole baby chicken. The chicken is stuffed with rice, ginseng, chestnuts, and other things I could not identify that nevertheless tasted delicious. And the price was very reasonable at only $13/per person.

Vegetarians can always opt for BiBimBap - a healthy combination of rice, egg, veggies, and pepper sauce (which is more sweet than spicy). I actually had a raw meat BiBimBap this week as well, which I thoroughly enjoyed.

Arriving in Seoul - rent-a-phone adventures

I arrived in Seoul Thursday night on a direct flight from Los Angeles. First of all, Asiana airline was great! I wish US airlines would take a lesson from Asian airlines. Another intern arrived from the States on United, and he did not have a personal entertainment system. A twelve hour flight without entertainment system - that's really unpleasant. It's also the little things that really set Asiana apart, like giving passengers slippers, or coming through with water/orange juice on a regular basis. And the food was great too, with Western and Korean options available. I opted for Korean, enjoying a beef Bibimbap for the first meal and spicy octopus for the second.

Once in Seoul airport, it was fairly straight forward to go through security/passport control. Fortunately, the intern coordinator provided detailed information on how to catch a "Limo Bus" to Seoul proper. The buses, that cost 15000 won (about $15 USD), run every 15-20 minutes. The ride was smooth, and an hour later I got off at Gangnam station, home of many large companies such as Samsung, and therefore also my home for the next 2 months.

Next morning, I had a huge Westernized breakfast at the hotel. There are only three choices, so I am fairly sure I will get sick of the food by the end of week 1. I also wish they had a Korean option - we are in Seoul after all!

After breakfast, two other interns and I set on a mission to rent mobile phones. Rental rates at the hotel seemed ridiculously high ($5 USD/day), so we wandered around Gangnam station for awhile. Despite a large number of phone stores, not a single one of them rented phones. We Googled it, and found one rental outlet in Seoul. However, we were not sure where it was, so with a lot of grumbling, we headed back to the airport. Airport has a choice of several rental providers, so rent a mobile phone as soon as you arrive in Seoul airport! We opted for S Roaming, getting a pretty old-school phone. The listed rate was 2700 won/day, but because we rented three, we got a discount to 1540 won/day (about $1.50). You can also get this discount if you pre-order online three days before arrival. Local texts cost 100 won, and local calls are 90 won/10 seconds (about 50 cents/minute). However, texting on the phone is a PAIN (think texting on Razr, but without T9). So I am considering whether paying a 5x premium for iPhone texting (50 cents/text) might be worth it.