Getting there is half the fun

I arrived in Seoul on Sunday after a 15 hour flight, direct. It wasn't so terrible, although sitting in row 64 of 65, right by the bathrooms, wasn't ideal. The highlight came about an hour into takeoff, when they brought lunch around. We were given a choice of Korean food (min ed beef with rice, kim-chee, vegetables and a "hot pepper paste" that came in a miniature toothpaste tube) or Salisbury steak. Figuring "when in Rome," I opted for Korean food. All the Koreans sitting around me took the Salisbury steak. Inauspicious.

After getting through immigration and renting a cell phone, I found a taxi to get to my apartment. Addresses in Seoul are kind of funny. Nobody uses street names or numbers. Instead, the city is divided into more than 500 neighborhoods, called dong. I live in Yoksam-dong, for example. Your address is the building number within the dong (say, 637 Yoksam-dong, where my apartment is). Here's the trick: Rather than number the buildings according to their location--building 1 next to building 2 next to building 3 etc.--buildings are numbered according to when they were built. So building 1 can be next to building 1042. Finding your destination is sort of like getting into a cab and saying, "please take me to the 217th building ever built in Chelsea." The way I got to my apartment was to have the cabbie call the

landlord, who gave him directions. Apparently, this happens all the time.

Yoksam-dong is a financial center, and looks a little like Midtown Manhattan. There are some major avenues (drivers show no mercy--you take your life into your hands if you jaywalk) with tall glass skyscrapers, and then off of the main thoroughfares are hilly, winding streets with lots of bars and restuarants. Coffee is a new phenomenon here (although there are two Starbucks

around the corner, one of which is the biggest Starbucks I've ever been in), and is primarily served at bars with whisky and beer. The food is excellent, although I'm wary of a popular Korean street snack, silkworm larvae fried to a crisp. And I'm looking forward to checking out the nearby Brooklyn Hip-Hop club.