Day 1: Off to Korea

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Housing

Mortgages and rental payments are growing concepts here. A nice two-bedroom apartment runs about $1.5 million, and buyers pay in full. If you're renting, you give several hundred thousand dollars to the landlord, and the landlord gets to invest it as long as you live in the apartment. When you leave, you get the money back. But rising prices, and the number of young still living with parents, is causing the government to push the concept of mortgages into the culture.

The food

Yes, there seems to be a Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts on every corner. But I'm finding that it's easier to eat healthy. This morning, I had rice porridge mixed with green tea leaves and fresh fruit. I washed it down with red ginseng tea. Quite by accident, I've found it's great medicine for jet lag. And when you're moving to a time zone that's 15 hours ahead of Kansas City, you need all of the help that you can get.

Editor's Note: For the next two weeks, Star editor Randy Smith will be traveling with a dozen U.S. journalists in both North and South Korea. The trip, set up through the Gatekeeper Editor's program with the International Reporting Project, provides journalists with a glimpse of countries often in the news but not well covered. Look for regular updates at KansasCity.com. Send questions or comments to him at rsmith@kcstar.com.

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