Korea was fabulous! So glad I left the airport!! It was a shock to fly from Sakhalin, where it was still drab, grey and even snowing when I left, to Seoul, where everything was bright, fresh and colourful. People were dressed in light Spring clothes and there were lots of flowers out. In the space of a three hour flight, I'd changed culture, language, season, time zone and it felt like I'd travelled into the future as well. Seoul was modern, big, bustling and vibrant, with lots of little shops and clean, tree lined streets. The technology seemed very advanced (although what do I know?) and the people were really friendly and helpful. If I stood somewhere with a map, trying to figure out where I was, or which subway line to take, invariably someone came up and asked if they could assist. Bless! Coming from Russia where people stay poker faced on the street, it was a bit unnerving to find passers by smiling at you. I thought I must have something in my teeth.

There were some beautiful temples and old palaces, although pretty much all of these seemed to have been rebuilt. It takes away some of the magic, but I was impressed they'd made the effort, and there were even people dressed up in costumes. I went to Kyongbokkung at the same time as apparently every single school student in Seoul, but they were all really sweet and the ornamental lakes and buildings were gorgeous. I liked seeing the Korean architecture in the mist with the mountains as a backdrop.

Like the Japanese, the Koreans seemed to be taken with dinky little bits of plastic tat wrapped in cellophane or with cutesy logos. I can't really see NYPD adopting this as their mascot, really. I was surprised to see Tony Blair hanging around as well. They liked their 'Engrish' as well, with random words, often bizarrely spelled on clothes and posters. I saw a pair of pants on sale in one of the underground shopping areas that said "THINK" in big letters across the front - an advert for abstinence if ever I saw one.

It rained heavily for the first day I was there, but soon cleared up. I arrived in Korea chronically unprepared, not knowing anything of the language and without a guidebook. It took me a good while to figure out the exchange rate and how many tens of thousands of Won I wanted from the ATM (maths was never my strong point). I took a bus from the airport into Seoul and got off at City Hall, since it sounded quite central. There was an open air concert in the rain across from the bus stop, so I wandered over and listened for a while, watching kids playing in the fountains.

I'd seen a YMCA marked on a map in the airport, so I got in a taxi and asked to go there. The driver didn't speak any English and it became obvious fairly immediately that I knew no Korean, but that didn't stop him trying to talk to me. It's weird how people often keep going in the hopes that maybe you'll have a sudden revelation and be able to speak fluently. I thought it was reasonably clear that if I couldn't even say 'hello,' I really wasn't going to be the best conversationalist in Korean. The YMCA was not only skanky, but expensive. The guy at the front desk gave me directions to another hostel, so I plodded through the torrential rain with my suitcase for 20 minutes until I found it in an alleyway behind a petrol station. There were no dorms and the room I was allocated was probably the least salubrious I've ever stayed in, with blacklit corridors, a red lightbulb, condoms on the bedside table and a large mirror opposite the bed. It was late and I was tired and not about to go out in the rain to wander around I city I didn't know, so I locked my door very tightly and tried not to touch anything, then went to sleep. I found a great hostel in daylight, but I'll be wary of going anywhere without some kind of guidebook or recommendation. Incidentally, the room also had what is quite possibly The Smallest Bathtub in the World.