View from My Window

Well, I made it to my hotel. And I got about 5 hours of sleep before waking up and desparately waiting for my room service breakfast. The last time I was here, I discovered that ordering breakfast that way got me my most reliably edible meal of the day -- especially after I started ignoring the standard choices and writing "Coca-Cola" under the beverage section.

I am giving myself a leisurely morning. The conference registration doesn't start until 3 pm (It's currently 9:30 AM Sunday here, despite what the timestamp may say.) Since the conference hasn't started yet, I'm having to pay (gasp) for the Internet access. Actually, 1/2 an hour is free. (I wonder how many free half hours I could get?) But since I'm being leisurely, I paid the 5000 won for a full hour.

How much is 5000 won, you might ask? Around $5. The exchange rate is rougly 1000:1. This led to a certain amount of confusion last night when I was taking the taxi to the hotel. I asked the fare, and the taxi manager (or whoever he was) said, "three hundred". I'm thinking...that can't be in won (30 cents for an hour in a taxi), and it better not be in dollars. Eventually, after I repeated "three hundred?" enough times in a sufficiently incredulous voice, he realized his mistake and said "thirty thousand." That sounded about right.

I don't remember having a nice view from my window last time (it's not among the pictures I linked to here) -- maybe I was just too discombobulated to notice. Even though I'm in the less expensive "mountainview" room, I did enjoy the following views...