Press Dinner, History and Fuel Cell Cars.

In the days leading up to the G20, a series of Press Tours have been organised to introduce journalists to high tech, eco-friendly or historical Seoul. We chose historical. If it hadn't been for the tour, we might not have found such interesting places, visiting palaces with our own tour guide and the old district of Bukchon where old traditional houses are subsidised by the city to conserve its history. People actually live here, but the ones we met seem to have made restoration and art their livelihoods. Since the effort to preserve these houses began, prices have skyrocketed. Our guide estimated the price of a three-room, one-storey house at over one million dollars!


I may have found a bit of interesting trivia as to why coffee is so popular in Korea. It may not be the reason, but it is a cool explanation.

In the 19th Century King Kujong was living at the Russian delegations quarters, seeking refuge from the Japanese colonialists after they assassinated his wife. There, he was introduced to coffee and when he finally came back to power he brought the new drink into the lives of all Koreans. Today, cafés are absolutely all over the place in an Asia where tea is the most popular drink on the table.

There are some 10,000 journalists accredited to the G20 and Seoul is really pulling out the red carpet to impress them. What impressed me was the new 4x4 fuel cell vehicles used to pick up some journalists. I didn't get to ride in one, but one colleague who did said she didn't even realise the car was anything different until reading the writing on the side of the vehicle. The vehicles are silent and emit only water. When the driver turns the motor off, it makes a sound like a space craft's air-tight seal releasing. Sounds very cool! As I was watching the car come to a stop, I caught a glimpse of an electric moped speeding by, just the noise of its tires on the asphalt. Maybe a futuristic moment with clean, eco-friendly vehicles everywhere!