Jan Bono’s Blog

Three days into our adventure, Miriam’s son Don took us for a day of “downtown sightseeing.” We started out early, which landed us smack-dab at the peak of rush hour commuter traffic on the subway. Two transfers and almost a full hour on my feet, but I couldn’t have...

Korean Gimbap (pronounced Kim-Bop), is a seaweed/rice roll similar to the Japanese sushi. However, Gimbap is not limited to fish, and may contain a wide variety of vegetables. Ordering is a little tricky, especially if the menu contains no pictures, and no words of...

If memory serves me correctly, in Korea "gu" means district and "dong" means neighborhood. There are about 25 "districts" in Seoul. My hosts, Don and Chris, live in Nowon-gu. It is one of the most northern areas of the city. (Gangnam-gu, the inspiration for the...

I awoke for the first time in Seoul hours ahead of everyone else. But it wasn't jet-lag that had me up so early—I'm always up by 5 or 6 a.m. Jumping the International Dateline actually helped me avoid any real time change havoc on my inner clock. I went to bed at my...

This is going to be tricky! I have no less than 57 single-spaced pages of “daily notes” written during my 30-day ASIAN ADVENTURE, and a whopping 1489 photos. For the past few days, I’ve been trying to figure out how to go about compressing, categorizing, or...

“They say” there’s no such thing as a geographical cure. “They say” that everywhere you go, there you are. “They say,” only time can heal. And of course, “they” are always right. Back in January, when my friend Miriam asked if I’d like to go with her to visit her son...