Traveling Abroad: Korea and Japan
It’s been a while since I’ve made a non bike based adventure post. But I suppose it’s also been a while since we’ve done a big trip without our bikes. Bike adventures have become so synced with our lives that even when we first started telling people about our upcoming trip to South Korea and Japan, the first thing they would ask is “with bikes?”.
But alas, the answer this time was no. Neither of us had been to either country before and we wanted to do a lot of the stereotypical city attractions and we find that trying to enjoy unfamiliar cities with loaded bikes is more stressful than it’s worth. So this time we would focus on the normal attractions. (Don’t worry though, we did plan at least one bike activity while abroad).
The impetus behind this trip was to celebrate our 10 year anniversary! Woo – go A Team! Time sure does fly when you’re having fun with your favorite person.
Choosing a Destination
Japan came as a natural choice as it’s been in the zeitgeist recently. Lots of our friends (and some family) have been recently, and everyone who’s been always wants to go back. Japan IS also supposed to be excellent for bike touring so they are on our very long biking bucket list, so it’d be nice to check out the country before trying to sort through logistics of a bike trip.
Unlike most people, Andrew and I seem to really enjoy the less conventional attractions. In 2018 we flew through the Seoul/Incheon airport on our way to Thailand and ever since we’ve always wanted to go back. Yes, the airport impressed us so much that we wanted to check out the entire country. South Korea is also fitting for us, because we almost always have at least one K-drama active in our tv show rotation. (Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha is our favorite and what got us hooked if you want to join the K-Drama bandwagon).
One day while chatting with a friend they mentioned there was a ferry between Japan and Korea. That sealed the deal: why not go to both!?
Where We're Going
Rather than have a really really long post (I know I get wordy sometimes), my plan is to do a different post for each city*: Seoul, Busan, Hiroshima/Miyajima, Shiminami Kaido, Kyoto, Tokyo.
When planning out where to go, one of our stipulations was a minimum of two nights in every hotel. We’re getting too old for all that moving around – HA! With that in mind, and a limit on how long we could be away, we planned 2-3 nights at every hotel.
From Portland travel time was about 15 hours total with a 2hr layover in Seattle and a direct flight from there. We got to time travel coming home. And we sprung a little extra for front of the section seats – being able to straighten your legs is an absolute game changer! Maybe one day I’ll get to experience lay flat seats – they sound magical.
Culture Content
I figured I may as well share some of the things we learned / noticed while we were there. But obviously we only visited a few cities and they are big cities that we had nowhere near enough time to fully explore – so results may vary. There are lots of advice videos and blogs out there so I’m only going over what I feel like is note worthy or interesting.
Language
While planning for this trip, Andrew and I were under the impression that a lot of people in Japan speak English, but very few in Korea do. Because of that we were under the impression that Korea would be much harder to navigate without knowing the language. As it turns out, in the areas of Korea we went at least, 95% of the time there were universal symbols or English. (They usually had a sign in Korean, Japanese and English!) So sure a lot of the Koreans didn’t speak much English, but they knew enough that we had no trouble communicating whatsoever. Thinking it would be the harder country I had spent a few months trying to learn basic phrases and how to read the Hangul alphabet (which is a really cool alphabet by the way! – We even bought a book about the creation of it, look it up!) Maybe it was easier simply because I knew a lot more of the basics though?
In Japan, it seemed like the further you were from Tokyo the harder it was to get by with just English. This made our entry into the country on the west side in Shimonoseki real fun since we were expecting Japan to be easier than Korea and that was not the case at all. Along with learning “sumimasen” = “excuse me / sorry”, my biggest advice would be to learn the characters for the lower numbers! It was so hard when we were trying to find busses / platforms and google maps would tell us to take “1” but the sign would read “いち”.
We were able to use translation apps in a pinch, google translate was our go to in Japan. In Korea we would switch between google translate and Papago which worked pretty similarly. You could take a picture, type in a phrase or record audio etc, we just preferred to try and figure things out or guessing without constantly relying on the app if we could, technology has come a long way though!.
General Transportation
Both countries have amazing public transportation. Both countries you also purchase a card that you then load money on to so you can use it freely on busses, subways, trains etc. In Korea it’s called a T-money card. In Japan, the IC card (we got an ICOCA card because we entered Japan on the west, but most people coming into Tokyo would be getting a SUICA card – but they’re essentially the same as far as I can tell.) Both countries transportation cards could only be filled with cash which could be done at a station, ticket machine, or many convenience stores. Once you have money loaded on the card you simply scan it at the turnstile before entering so you didn’t have to think about how much a trip would cost. If you were ever short, there were fare adjustment machines when you got off, and if you had extra at the end of your trip you could spend them like a debit card at vending machines and convenience stores.
Inner city trips were generally close to 1 USD (around 1500 won or 700 yen, maybe a little more if you were on the subway/bus for a while or a little less for short transfers.)
Bullet Trains
The bullet trains are more expensive, and generally what people use to get between cities quickly. (There are cheaper trains between most cities if budget is important, they just take a little bit longer). Seoul to Busan cost $87 USD for both of us on a sub 3 hour train, and it cost us $100 to $150 for both of us on the two 2-1/2 hour rides through Japan.
In Korea the bullet train is called the KTX. And per internet recommendations we purchased our ticket a month or so ahead of time. The KTX functions like any other long distance train I’ve been on. You buy your seat, store your luggage near the door etc. They didn’t check tickets at all, aside from a conductor making sure there aren’t people sitting in unsold seats. I will note that we did have trouble accessing our digital ticket while in the station. Luckily I had printed it out ahead of time so we could sit in the correct seats which is essentially the way you indicate you had paid, although I’m assuming they could have helped us at the info station had we not had a printout. We waited for our train at the station, which again felt like any other major train station we’ve been to, a sort of giant lobby space with some chairs, lockers, and shops and restaurants. About 15 min prior to boarding the platform number itself was put up on a large digital board so we could go out to the correct location and board our train as soon as it arrived.
In Japan, the bullet trains are called the Shinkansen. Here it seems pretty normal to buy your ticket more last minute, although it was generally advised to me to buy it the day before at the station if you had a strong preference on time or seat. We later realized you can even buy “unreserved seats” which I believe allow you to ride any train time, but no guaranteed seats. Honestly the Shinkansen experience (from buying tickets to going to the platform to boarding the train) felt more like riding a subway or light rail but with seats on board oriented like a regular train. We did have a freak out on our first ride from the Kokura Station with the clock ticking and us trying to figure out which platform and WHERE on the platform we were supposed to go since we had bought tickets for “the next train to Hiroshima” and that gave us 15 minutes to figure out a new transportation system (with little English on the signs or tickets) but we made it.
The Shinkansen also don’t have luggage storage near the door, instead there is an overhead shelf that is quite large but if you have a full size suitcase like we did, lifting it over someone else’s head is less than ideal, and would definitely overhang the shelf a little (we did see some people stowing their large bags up there but a carry on suitcase would be a better fit). Every car had special “oversized luggage” seats at the back with space for luggage, after our first kerfuffle, we made sure to book those special seats every time. Maybe that’s why so many people talk about those luggage forwarding services?
Navigation
In Japan Google maps was our go to navigation. Google maps worked well for walking or public transportation, but it didn’t have a bike option. One thing I found exceedingly frustrating, was that google maps would give us the names of trains, streets, etc in English only, but those things would be written in Japanese characters and so it was really hard to match up the directions with real life. As we got closer to Tokyo, English letters were used more often so it became easier. Another annoyance we ran into, Google would occasionally cut off the name of train/bus lines if they were too long or if there were multiple options, for example we had one direction tell us to take “Hiroshim….” but cut off the actual number we were supposed to look for which doesn’t help when all the busses were “Hiroshima” busses.
In Korea, google maps navigation doesn’t work. Instead, in Korea we used an app called Naver Maps. Naver was great, it did all the things you want your navigation app to do. The only bugs we found with it was that because we were searching for things by their English/transliterated name, Naver sometimes had a different spelling for that thing, and so you sometimes had to try a couple different times, or what I often did was type it in in google, it would have the name written in Korean characters (Hangul) and then I could copy that and search for it in Naver, and then save the location for later use. Searching for general places also didn’t work very well in English, if we searched “tteokbokki” trying to find a tteokbokki restaurant for example it would only find establishments with “tteokbokki” in the name. I imagine those things work better if you use hangul in the app – Naver seems to be what everyone there uses.
Money
We found that we could use credit cards most of the places we went in South Korea. Yes some of the shop keepers would suggest cash before begrudgingly allowing the card. And some of the places charged us extra for the credit card verses cash, but we figured it was a wash anyway with ATM fees.
In Japan, a lot more places seemed to be cash only, and very explicit about it. I don’t know if we were spending more (less worried about dragging souvenirs around as we reached the end of the trip) but we definitely used more ATMs in Japan than we did in Korea.
As far as finding ATMs, in Korea they were generally easy to find at train stations especially near the ticket machines, or near banks. In Japan we would reliably find them at convenience stores, which you could also usually find inside of stations.
**I do want to note that in Korea when looking for an ATM, you want to find one that says “global atm”. And then, make sure to click the “foreign card” button BEFORE anything else – if you click the “English” button first it will assume you are using a Korean card and that you just want the screen to be in English so your foreign card won’t work. Only some minor panicking on our end before figuring that one out.
On that note, Korea seems to be more touchy with foreign cards on internet transactions. Their online transactions require “3D secure” which only some credit card staff seem to know about. Basically this 3D Secure would block the card from even attempting to charge if you didn’t have it, so when you call the credit card company, they wouldn’t see anything declined and wouldn’t know how to help us. We had to call our CC company for our KTX (bullet train) tickets, our ferry tickets, and for one of our hotels which we had booked directly instead of through a third party. We didn’t book anything of comparable nature in Japan, so it may be the same there, it just only affected us in Korea.
We didn’t have any issues using our mastercard credit card in either country where cards were accepted.
Restrooms
Restrooms between the two countries were pretty similar. They were free and abundant, and often came with a fancy bidet with lots of options like seat warmers and privacy music. Restrooms were as easy to find there as they are in America – actually I would say easier to find. In addition to finding them at most tourist attractions and popular neighborhoods you could easily find one in most if not all subway stations (Wouldn’t that be nice if our major Portland MAX stations had restrooms!? but I digress).
Before going to Japan there is a lot of advice to carry around a small wash cloth to dry your hands. While it’s true none of the public restrooms seemed to have paper towels, every one I used in a restaurant came with a paper towel. So again pretty similar to what I experience in America and I don’t carry around a towel here, so whatever. I think a lot of people just don’t regularly use public restrooms outside of their routines here, because as a tour guide, I am regularly using our public restrooms that also don’t come with paper towels or very good blow dryers and I’ve never felt inclined to carry a towel. But the wash cloths are sold all over there and are cute – so that’s fun.
I’d say about 50% of the public restrooms I used had the option of a floor/squat toilet. They would usually be notated on the stall with the picture of a western toilet, or what I thought looked like a slipper for the floor toilet. Although the very first public restroom we used in Seoul was in a weird corner of the Gyeongbokgung Palace, and it only had floor toilets. A nice “welcome to Asia” reminder – ha. Every other restroom we used had western toilets available.
Something else I thought was notable, was that most restrooms, especially the larger ones, seemed to come with a short sink and a floor urinal (even in the women’s rooms) meant for little boys when accompanied by their mothers. Definitely a country that thinks of children and parents needs. A lot of the stalls even had fold down seats for smaller children to be strapped into.
Restaurants
As is always the case when you travel, we had so much good food!
Something we learned way too late, is that in Japan it’s normal for one person to order for everyone. We confused a lot of servers especially when trying to communicate in broken English/Japanese that we wanted the same thing. “I only want 1 beer, not 2, but he wants a beer.” This may be the norm in Korea too, but it never came us as a hiccup while we were there at least.
In Korea, there was usually a little drawer on the table with all the utensils. The servers always pointed it out to us, but I could see being confused if they hadn’t.
A lot of the restaurants we went to in Korea had those digital machines at the table for ordering. However, you would typically still pay at the front when you were done. In Japan we generally had to get the waiters attention “sumimasen” (“excuse me”) to order and again to get the check when done.
Something interesting we learned about chopsticks while in Korea, is that they use metal chopsticks because that’s what the wealthy used originally to detect poison and later just to show off, and wanting to be like the wealthy the regular folk copied. Metal chopsticks are also easier to clean and last longer, so it’s a win for modern society. I did miss the metal chopsticks while we were in Japan.
Although in Korea they also drink some of their alcohol out of metal bowls to be more like the farmers – so maybe they just like metal.
So In Korea you get metal chopsticks, but in Japan wood, I didn’t learn the history on that one. (To go chopsticks were always wood though no matter the country).
Clothes
In Seoul especially, everyone seemed to dress in neutrals. We did see a lot of school uniforms so that didn’t help, but I swear the only people in color were tourists and older women – “aunties”. It became a bit of a inside joke for us while riding the subway. Busan was still pretty neutral, but there was more color. Japan definitely didn’t hold themselves to any sort of color code. We did see a few interesting harajuku/cosplay-esque outfits in Tokyo, but nothing crazier than what we come across in Portland.
Trash
Everyone always talks about how clean Japan is and their lack of trash cans, so I’m not going to harp on that. But something I found really interesting was how they sort their trash. Korea by the way was also very clean and like Japan didn’t have many public trash cans outside of subway stations.
One thing I thought interesting was that in Japan, you’re supposed to take the plastic label and lid of the bottle off and put those in the “burnable” trash before recycling the bottle. (Granted the closer we got to Tokyo the less people seemed to care about that). Generally there was the “burnable/combustable” bin for generic trash, and then a recycling option for plastic and cans.
In Korea, they often also had a “food waste” bin. Food waste is NOT the same as compost. In America (at least where I’ve come across it) our compost is anything that will biodegrade, we often think of it as “food waste” because that’s generally what it is. But our compost also includes leaves, napkins and other biodegradable items. In Korea, “Food waste” is just that, the FOOD that you didn’t eat. No bones, no paper, only food. They feed their “food waste” to the animals.
Apparently they get huge fine, in Korea at least, for messing up and have special expensive bags for each type of trash, so something to consider if you’re between a hotel where you don’t have to worry about it or an Airbnb where you might. We were told one reason they don’t have trash cans everywhere is because too many people were throwing their home trash into the public bins to avoid paying for the special bags, so they took many of them away. We didn’t have to worry about sorting too much, most places seemed to do it for you, one convenience store in Busan even took the trash cans away completely and told us to leave the trash on the counter so we wouldn’t mess it up.
Bikeability
The cities in Korea, or at least the areas we were in, didn’t seem very bikeable. I think we saw maybe 20 bikes the entire time we were in Korea, most of which were parked. When we did see bikes riding it seemed like they were generally expected to be on sidewalks with people. I did see one bike lane in Busan though. Supposedly they have some very nice bike trails between cities, so I may have to investigate those.
In Japan however, we saw more than 20 bikes in our first few hours. There were bikes everywhere. We saw a lot more bike lanes around, but the bike paths and pedestrian paths seemed to cross a lot, I was never entirely sure which way they were going to pass us on and wasn’t always sure how to stay out of their way.
We did rent bikes while in Japan to ride part of the Shiminami Kaido, a famous cycling route there. For that they told us to generally ride in the road. We could ride on the sidewalk, but we were supposed to give pedestrians right of way. Where we were riding there weren’t many pedestrians, so it felt more like a bike path anyways.
We didn’t have to deal with this but we also heard that Japan is a real stickler for where you are allowed to park your bike. There were lots of signs indicating “no bike parking” in locations I would have happily locked my bike back in America. Albeit Portland has a lot more bike stables around the city so I generally don’t have to lock to weird things here anyway.
Stamp Collecting!
In most attractions and even stations had fun stamps. I’m sure there is a more proper way to collect stamps, but I had a lot of fun carrying around a little notebook and adding a souvenir stamp to it every time I saw one. We should adopt the stamp rally system everywhere! (We definitely found more stamps in Japan, but they were about in Korea as well).
Note, there was also a ceremonial stamp system associated with the shrines you could check out. There was a small fee associated with it, but there would be monks or shrine attendants to put an official stamp in your book and calligraphy over it. I don’t know much about the ceremonial version other than that you CANNOT mix stamp books with the free souvenir ones. They are very different!
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