Capsule Tour

Location: Hong Kong I got back to my hostel after a day of sightseeing. Turning the corner to my room, I heard a boom box playing eurotrash EDM at maximum volume, and I saw two naked Italian men in their 20s. They had checked into the room next to mine while I was out. They weren't completely naked. They were wearing Speedo-cut underwear, designer belts, and designer sunglasses. (Belts... but no pants.) They were having an enthusiastic conversation about which belt buckle went with which pair of sunglasses. One of them asked me to weigh in. "Which one is a-bett-ah, dis one or dis one?" I picked a pair of sunglasses at random, wished them luck, and retired to my room.

Location: New Territories, Hong Kong Lonely Planet recommended visiting a museum in the New Territories. I think it was the Hong Kong Heritage Museum. This was before smartphones, and the only information Lonely Planet provided about how to get there was which bus to take and which stop to get off at. I assumed that would be enough. Otherwise, it seems like they would have written more. The bus ride was half an hour long. It started out in downtown Kowloon, which is as built-up as Manhattan. As we entered the New Territories, the landscape transitioned to huge apartment buildings made of concrete. They had become stained with age. Each building had hundreds of old air conditioners and clothes lines hanging off its sides. Towards the end of the route, I started to see large undeveloped fields of grass and weeds. I felt like I was very far from what I thought of as "Hong Kong." The recommended stop turned out to be a small bus depot in the middle of nowhere. It was on a road th

Location: Hong Kong I used Hostelworld to find a place to stay in Hong Kong. I found it suspicious that a dozen hostels had basically the same address, and none of them had existed for more than a few months. I guessed that the hostels were being rebranded every few months to eliminate bad reviews on sites like Hostelworld. But for $8 a night, I was willing to overlook a lot. I found out later that the hostels were in "Chungking Mansions," which is a group of huge run-down buildings in downtown Kowloon that are famous for drugs, crime, scams, illegal immigration, murders, and being fire traps. The hostel I booked occupied part of one floor. It wasn't so bad. The paint was fresh, the bed was comfortable, the sheets were clean, and it seemed safe enough. There was always a guy at the front desk, monitoring various CCTV feeds. There were problems. I had picked the lower bunk of a bunk bed. The mattress above me was suspended by wooden slats, and half the slats were broken. I

Location: Seoul, Korea The last day I was in Korea, I went sightseeing. I got back to my hostel in the evening, and arrived at what appeared to be an Okinawan cultural heritage festival. A group of maybe 20 people had just arrived from Okinawa and they were singing, dancing, and wearing traditional garb in the hostel's common area. I asked what was going on. They were very excited to talk with me, specifically because I'm an American. I learned that they were an activist group, protesting the presence of the US military in Okinawa. Their ultimate goal was to travel to the US to protest. I felt bad for them that they had only managed to travel a few hundred miles, and it was in the wrong direction. As an American, I had been taught in school that the US had installed military bases all over the world, that the bases existed to protect foreign countries, and that the people in those foreign countries were grateful for said protection. It was jarring to run into a group of people

Location: Joint Security Area, Korea I went on a tour of the DMZ in Korea. Part of the tour was to walk through a tunnel that had been dug by North Koreans in the 70s in order to sneak into South Korea. The tunnel was only about 5'6 tall and I'm over 6' tall. I had to hunch over to fit. Hunching and walking becomes very uncomfortable very quickly. We had to wear hard hats, which reduced clearance even more. I guess North Koreans were not tall people in the 70s. (I doubt they are now, either.) When the tunnel was discovered, the North Koreans claimed that they were mining for coal and had gotten lost, and that they were definitely not trying to invade South Korea. As proof that the tunnel was for coal mining, they had smeared some streaks of soot on the walls. The evidence was so flimsy that it was laugh-out-loud funny. Our tour guide told us that most South Koreans hope for reunification with North Korea and believe it can happen because of how East Germany was able to reun

When I was in Korea, learning English was very popular. You could stand almost anywhere in Seoul, look around, and spot a private English school. Korea's economy was growing exponentially, per-capita income was increasing, and Koreans wanted to travel internationally. There were 70% more outbound tourism departures from Korea in 2007 than in 2003. So... English. Location: Seoul, Korea I flew into Incheon and took a train to Seoul. I had to take the subway to my hostel. I walked into the subway station and saw a huge map of the subway system printed on a wall. I stopped in front of it and started to plan my route. About 30 feet down the corridor, there was a group of teenage schoolgirls, in schoolgirl uniforms. They saw me and giggled. After some discussion, they literally pushed one of the girls towards me. She asked me if I needed any help. Her English was very good. I politely declined. She ran back to her friends. They were all still giggling. Location: Seoul, Korea I went to th