Trip to Korea and Japan: Day 1 - Lost in Transferation

(If you want to follow my 27 day trip from the start go here to Day 0)
Well, my first day of this trip could have started better, or rather, ended better. I got to experience that "classic" feeling at my end destination in Ulsan, when everyone have gotten their luggage from the airplane except you, standing there waiting. Thankfully enough I had some help and came (somewhat) prepared. First I got told what had happened - I should have transfered my stuff from Inchean to Gimpo airport in Seoul myself. The thing is, quite ironically, that I specifically asked the agent there when I got my tickets if this was so, and she was quite sure "You just have to check in at Gimpo airport for a seat ticket, the luggage will be transfered all the way'...I won't make that mistake again. Anyway, the trip by way of Doha, Qatar and Seoul went as smooth as a 22.5 hour trip can be. Both Seoul and Doha airport had free wifi, but not Arlanda, makes me a bit ashamed. Also, nowadays, overnight flights have both usb sockets for your smartphones and often internet sockets too.

They sold these packages in Gimpo Airport in Seoul that looked like moss with some leaves for quite a lot of money (this one roughly 1800 SEK/200 USD)

My header for this day also alludes to the fact that I on my trips to Korea and Japan (this will be my second time around to both countries), the absolute majority of people know or can speak almost no english. It is possible their "passive" understanding is somewhat better, but communicating with the everyday man or woman on the street is a pain to be honest, so come prepared however you may. Korean letters/signs is actually quite easy to learn as they have a phonetic language like in the western countries, so with just a day or two preparation you can be able to translate signs and such to latin letters and then if you have checked beforehand where to go it may help a little.

Anyway, as I said earlier, I came prepared by having snapshots on my Samsung S4 of Ulsan and the bus route to and from the airport, and my hotel reservation receipt, which helped me a lot with both the taxi driver and the hotel. The taxi ride cost about 10000 won (58 SEK/9 USD) which I suppose is OK.

Regarding the hotel, I may be unfair but the name "Venus hotel', the surroundings, and the decor inside actually seems to imply that this may be one of those "romantic" love hotels you  hear are not that uncommon in asia. A funny thing in regards to this, is that the Korean pronounciation of the hotel name sounds like "Hotel Penis" (yes, I am not kidding you)...

The pink house in the background is Venus hotel

Entrance through a garage... ^_^

And the suroundings. Looks more flashy in the evening with all the red lights and greek statues on the facades... But a least there is lots of people around so it feels safe.

(Day 2 can be found here.)

Trip to Korea and Japan - Day 0: The big picture

(Click for all trips here.)
I am currently, in parallell with working as an upper secondary school teacher in mathematics and geography (and computer science, but that was some years ago I actually had any of those courses), doing the first half of a PhD at Uppsala University. To sum it up shortly, the theisi is formally done in Geography, but what I am doing is using my background in math and programming to analyze infrared photographs taken of rock surfaces and rock art on these surfaces to see if the sun and heat in general has any effect on them.
As part of that I have been doing measurements in Sweden and in South Africa (and some in Namibia). That could have been enough, but I got a scholarship from SSAG (who in their time has sponsored the first expedition to pass the Northeast passage and the tragic Andrée Balloon Expedition) to extend my data from sites in Ulsan, Korea and Hokkaido, Japan, which is very exiting for me personally.

Roughly my itinerary looks like this:
Thursday 18th - Friday 19th: Travel from Arlanda (Sweden) via Doha (Qatar) and Seoul (Korea) to Ulsan (Korea).
Saturday 20th - Wednesday 24th: Measurements in Ulsan. The measurements themselves will probably be only for a day, but the weather is an important factor that with its randomness creates the need for margins.
Thursday 25th: Travel to Sapporo (Japan) via Seoul.
Friday 26th - Sunday 4th/Monday 5th: Measurements in Fugoppe and Temiya caves at sites outside Sapporo. As above, conditions creates the need for spare days, and also in this case, to allow extra time to handle access to the, in this case, protected caves. This is at the moment looking good as I have gotten some genereous assistance from people in Japan already.
Monday 5th - Monday 12th: Time in Tokyo before returning home. Initial sorting and pre-analysis of data.
Thuesday 13th: Flight from Tokyo via Moscow (Russia) to Arlanda.

All in all 27 days abroad. I will miss my children sorely, but I know they will be reading my blog, and also getting to go to Spain for 10 days, so hopefully we will all manage. It will be a memorable trip anyways, and hopefully I will be able to honor the chance I got from SSAG well. I will be writing about my trip each day (if I can) and I will try to tell of some of the things I encounter, be they trivial or not.

Day 1 is here.