Korea and Kyoto

[cos]

On Tuesday I'm going to Korea for two weeks, with a 2.5-day trip to Kyoto in there. Visiting estheruth who lives in the far south of Korea, and my cousin Hadas is joining me from Israel for Kyoto and about half the Korea time. May get to see japlady in Seoul as well. Korea will include Seoul, Mokpo, Jeju, and probably some other place (Gwangju maybe?). Got any tips about Kyoto or Korea, or favorite things in either place, or people you know who I might want to meet? Or people I know and don't realize are there?

Comments

[kirin]

Jealous - I've never been to Korea, and Kyoto is gorgeous.

Kyoto has basically an endless amount of temples and gardens that are all really pretty, so you may need to pace yourself. If you want to break it up with some city touristing, Osaka's not far by train.

[cos]

Osaka is where we're flying in to and back out from, so we'll have to figure out how to use that train anyway. What might confuse us, when neither of us know Japanese? I sometimes get tripped up by things like, do you pay on the train or in advance, do you need to do something to request a particular stop, are stops easy to identify, etc.

We got a place to stay all three nights in Kyoto, but the day we arrive we land in Osaka at 18:35, so if it has nightlife, and the train to Kyoto runs late, we could eat or do something in Osaka then.

[kirin]

Hmm, it's been a while... I know in Tokyo we paid for a week-long pass that covered all the trains we'd need, but I don't quite remember for sure what we did in the Kyoto/Osaka area.

In the cities and heavily touristed areas (i.e. most places in and around Kyoto), most important signs, station names, etc will be duplicated in the Latin alphabet. If you go a bit out of the way being able to sound out the syllabary alphabet(s) can be helpful, but you probably won't be any places it's necessary.

[jwg.livejournal.com]

I remember when I bought a ticket from Tokyo to Takayama I asked the agent if I'd have trouble recognizing the station. He said, look at your watch - the trains are always on time. But the signs were in Romanji also. I did have trouble once on the subway which is zoned and I was in an outlying are and the maps didn't have Romanji but I figured it out.

[catbird.livejournal.com]

I remember the trains being easy to use as a foreigner in the late 90's. People are also extremely wiling to help you find places in my experience. Don't expect good english exactly but a word or two here or there and lots of gestures will solve most of your questions.