There are certain things you don’t say when going through security, unless you want to be at the receiving end of a penetrating latex glove. One of these is “careful that bag might explode”. The reason for this comment from Fran was that she had rammed her carry-on luggage to bursting to avoid an excess charge on our cabin hold, not that she was an international terrorist having doubts. She was lucky, in that the officer in question had a sense of humour. There was 5 minutes of humiliation as she told all the other security team about this idiotic tourist. Fran did try to explain herself but she got a short response, “you need to stop talking now”.

The destination for this flight was South Korea, a place that Stuart has travelled to over 20 times in his time with Samsung and for whose people he has a great affinity. In 1953 Korea had the same GDP as Somalia but today is the tenth biggest economy in the world. This is a result primarily of having the hardest working and best educated workforce on the planet. Unfortunately, it is also still technically at war with its northern neighbor. This was never going to be much of a sight-seeing trip and was intended as more of a long stop-over on the way back home.  However, we did get to take a trip to the border area, one of the most militarized places on the planet. We were taken there by an ex-colleague of Stuart’s who was kind enough to take the day off work to accompany us. It is very bizarre but the whole area has turned into one big tourist attraction, even going so far as to have a glass-bottomed gondola that takes tourists right up to the de-militarised zone (DMZ). Despite the theme park nature of it all, we still had to show passports and register on entry and also had our cameras removed from us and placed in lockers for some areas. Fran overcame her claustrophobia to enter the 3^rd infiltration tunnel, one of four tunnels dug by the North under the border with the aim of carrying out a surprise invasion. Despite these tunnels being estimated to transport as many as 30,000 soldier an hour, they are not large and North Koreans are quite short, so seeing Stuart crouching and frequently bashing his hard hat on the ceiling was quite comical to watch.

Having worked for Samsung for over 20 years, Stuart has many friends in Korea and so all our evenings were taken up meeting people for dinner. These were great fun and we were really looked after, never having to once pay for anything, which really helped the now dwindling travel budget. Fran found Koreans to be amongst the kindness and friendliest people she has come across and they also very quickly warmed to her. Not least because on three separate occasions she was told she spoke the “best ever” English. One gentleman even approached us on the tube to point this out, stating she sounded so “noble”. Originating  as she does from the Midlands, Stuart found this most perplexing.

It is a shame we didn’t spend more time in Korea and venture outside of the cities to areas not frequently visited but it was time to once more travel home and a welcome meet up with family and friends.