Mercer's Seoul w/0 pictures

June 22 Seoul Our guide says there generally are only two or three days a year where the air is clear and you have good visibility. Today is one of them. Crystal clear, bluebird sky and 30 miles visibility. There are mountains everywhere! This country is beautiful. Yesterday when we rode from the airport to our downtown hotel it was 500 overcast and maybe a mile. This is big time smog and we have seen it in every city since Cairo. Certainly we do our share of polluting in the US but I haven’t seen smog like we have seen on this second leg of our trip since Los Angeles in the 1960’s. The future of mega pollution is in third world developing nations. Clean air is just not on their agenda. Even in Dubai you wonder why they build such tall buildings. Much of the time you cannot see higher than halfway, due to smog and dust. So again, cheer up America! Turn off the TV and feel proud of our great country. Don’t read Newsweek and go see for yourself. Despite our problems we remain the most generous and environmentally conscious nation on earth! At least that I have visited. I don’t want to wax politically and none of us will really know if invading Iraq was right or wrong for many years, but ask the South Koreans if they are happy the good old USA pitched in. Forty minutes North of Seoul we visited a very nice viewing center where just 3,500 meters away is a country where people are literally starving to death because of a brutal authoritarian wacko that the world politic believes we can negotiate with. I just don’t think you can negotiate with a man that has no conscience. He is playing all of us. I will quit now on this subject before I get too spun up. Jim and I visited the War Museum. While it is mostly about the Korean War it traces Korean history back to the bronze age. The museum is a tribute to brave men and women who have fought for their country and mostly lost. They came very, very close to losing to the North if it had not been for the monumental efforts and sacrifices of American and Allied forces. Seoul is a very industrial city, very modern and clean except for the air. I think 13,000,000 is the population. Many live in high rise apartment buildings. These building mostly of simple concrete construction are embellished with bright colors and brief ornamentation showing that these are a very proud hard working group of people. They are fun loving and cheerful. I understand from my retired flight attendant sister-in-law, Cindy Dye that this is the epicenter for good deals. We did not have a chance to shop but Bob and I rushed through the 10 story mall attached to our hotel and I did not see any good deals at Cartier, Tiffany and all the rest high end shops. We did see hundreds of beautifully dress Korean shoppers laden with their treasures. I really like these people. There nature is to be polite and considerate. We learned that the first classes that young children take in school is what they call “Ethical Education”. These are courses all about how to treat your elders, family and friends with respect. It works. I look forward to coming back someday. On a clear day you can see forever and it is stunning. Off to Sapporo and then the sprint home! Mercer