US and Korea: preliminary differences

Work: I heard a statistic that Koreans have 35% more working hours than the US (which already works too hard in my opinion), making Korea the hardest working developed country in the world. Also, if a "holiday" in Korean happens to fall on Saturday or Sunday, they say "too bad" instead of taking Friday or the following Monday off.

Food: Half the time I don't know what I'm eating, but I feel that it is much easier to eat healthy here that the US, especially when it comes to dining out. The only meal I make for myself is breakfast. I eat at school for lunch, and I eat at restaurants for dinner and lunch on weekends, and any other time I feel like eating. I feel like I have more energy here, which I attribute to my healthier diet (although it is probably also partially due to excitement). White rice is part of everything, and there are a lot of vegetables.

Food here is awesome. Restaurants here are awesome. I went to sit-down diner/restaurant last night and had a big bowl of ramen noodles, with some green onions and what I think was egg, and a side of kimchee and some kind of pickled root of something. The total bill was 2000 won, or about $1.75, and you don't leave tips here either. Eating out is actually more economically practical than cooking!

Side dishes vary from place to place, but they always include kimchee, which is spicy, pickled cabbage. Side dishes are always free, and delivered to you without asking. If you need something, it is not impolite to yell at the waiter until you get his or her attention.

The bread is bad. It's hard to find good bread. Somewhere down the way, Koreans must have gotten the idea of bread mixed up with pastry. Almost all bread is coated with sugar. It's gross, but they never use bread in anything anyway.

City: Neon lights are everywhere. There is not a lot of space, so they build upwards. Driving must be a nightmare: parking spots are tiny, so everyone has to fold in their side mirrors when they park. Jaywalking is rare, because the cars will probably just run you over. Even when I am in a crosswalk, the cars will come right up next to me, putting the brakes on at the last possible moment.

At first glance, it seems that the US has a more efficient trash removal system. I was eating a banana on the way to work, and had to carry the peel with me for a ten minute walk because there are almost no public trash cans. I was confused where to put the trash from my apartment, until a lady who works at my building directed me to the local trash heap. It's just a pile of trash that sits in the middle of the sidewalk. It seems like it would be so easy to have a dumpster there, but instead everyone just piles up garbage until someone eventually takes it away.

Besides the trash piles, the city is fairly clean. No more or less dirty than Boston. Unlike the US, there are plenty of public restrooms (although they are not necessarily clean).

Incheon's public parks are plentiful. The parks usually have work-out machines for the adults and jungle-gyms for the kids. The bigger parks have public badminton courts, soccer fields, and all sorts of good stuff. Incheon is bike friendly with pink bike paths, made out of asphalt and recycled tires, that go pretty much all over the city.