Where are Tinus and Barrie?

Another bus-written blog post. We are on our way to Busan, and have visited Gwangju and Suncheon the last week. Among many other random observations, I’ll focus on food and the aging population.

A snack-loving and healthy appetite kind of people

I don’t think I’ve been in a country where the general population is so focussed on food. I see people snack all the time, from savoury to sweet. And when they settle in for a whole meal, the Koreans seem to possess an extra stomach. I thought I was an endless food bog, but I have to admit defeat. From young girls to old geezers, they can chow down.

Pictured above is the whopping load piled on by a slender grandpa at an All You Can Eat buffet. The reason he is not pictured, is because he got up to get some more food in a separate bowl.

In general, we are LOVING the AYCE buffets. There’s loads of veggies and other delightful dishes to choose from.

The picture about is not a buffet, but a wonderful presentation of various fermented veggies at a market. So crunchy and delish!

The one thing I’m missing here are the bread and bread-adjacent foods I am used to at home. Sure, there’s tons of bakeries that have things they claim are ‘sourdough bread’ and restaurants that have ‘pizza’. But the bread looked too suspect to buy and the highly rated pizza restaurant had a bottom seemingly made out of ready-to-bake croissant dough (Danerolles for the Dutchies), but it was still partly raw. Still, it was nice to eat something different, so it wasn’t all bad.

The worst experience however was the toast with omelet I ordered. I bit into it and it turned out the be FRENCH TOAST (wentelteeftjes). Or something resembling French toast, if you can call sad, soggy, soft, super-sweet bread that. No thanks!

Transportation and what it says about the demise of the Korean population

A lot has been said about the impending doom of Korea, due to the vast amount of old people and the super low birth rate. A problem of many countries, but Korea is ‘winning’ in this regard. Even the usually silver-lining-tinged videos of Kurzgesagt have basically predicted a demographic and societal collapse.

In most buses, about half of the seats are reserved for the elderly (yellow seats in the pic above) and pregnant women (pink seats). You do see a lot of old people on the bus, but if only the two seats reserved with pregnant women were realistic…

There are over 50 million people in South Korea, but with a birth rate of about 0.72 children born per woman, the population could drop to 28 million at the end of the century.

These poor kids have no idea of the future yet, and luckily enjoyed their moments saying hello to these chill alpacas.

The reasons for the low birth rate are complex, so if you’re interested watch the video I linked.

Sometimes it feels like bus drivers are trying to speed up the population decline, because they drive very fast, and many passengers —including myself— have a death grip on the arm rest or any other part of the bus that can hold you steady and prevent you from flying through the windshield as the driver continuously tests the absolute limits of the gas and break pedals in quick succession.

It’s always Christmas and the other usual randomness

We have seen a lot of Christmas decorations still lingering in stores and restaurants.

Ok, so maybe the last one is a cherry blossom season tree, but you’re not fooling me! You love Christmas, Korea. And if you keep the decorations around long enough, you’ll be right on time come December. People here are like:

In Suncheon, we had an unexpectedly great time on our first day. We visited a film set, and thought it would be like a small street with some houses used in one K-drama, but no. It was a giant ground filled with buildings from different eras.

There was also plenty of room for interaction, such as dressing up and karaoke (?!).

(The video doesn’t show a preview, but should work if you press the Play button).

We see chairs on the streets all the time. At first I thought they were discarded, but I think they’re there for shop owners to chill? I am unsure…

That’s enough for now, here are some more random pictures.

You can use this ATM in private.

A beautiful view during our walk in Mudeungsan National Park:

And some more natural beauty around the Suncheonman Bay Wetland Reserve (which was a bit one-note tbh):

Call Steve Jobs, I guess?

An interactive display of the puzzling children’s game featured in the first blog post I wrote:

The Netherlands featured in the Suncheon National Garden. So beloved the gentleman below went for a seductive tulip selfie. He really took his time (and about 100 pictures):

And I’ll leave you with this terrifying piece of bridge art:

Can’t wait to see what else South Korea brings! Keep you posted.