Korea, the country with the skinniest women on the planet!

So apparently, South Korea is the world's skinniest country (mostly talking about women here)! Now, I'm not sure if I'm supposed to be proud of this fact or not, but heck - it's an interesting factoid nonetheless.

I've been to Korea many times, and every time I go, I'm amazed by the beauty of Korean women. Granted, it's a misleading stereotype. Not all Korean women are gorgeous, obviously. But, in my opinion, in South Korea, there definitely is a heavy emphasis on physical beauty; hence the plethora of plastic surgery clinics in Seoul (and the amazingly low prices).

Just one look at Korean pop culture, and the first thing you'll notice is either the absolutely gorgeous women (if you're a guy) or the pretty boys.

Maybe I should drink soju more often...

But there's a lot more to Korean culture than Girls' Generation or Super Junior (what is up with these names, anyway?) - Korean history runs deep and dirty. Although it is divided today, the Korean peninsula was unified for over two thousand years, and even had its own Three Kingdoms: Goguryo, Silla, and Baekjae. In fact, one of the first South Korean MMORPG's (massively multiplayer online role-playing game), Kingdom of the Winds, was based on events from the Three Kingdoms period. The Three Kingdoms of Korea inspire many of the historical dramas one can see on television today.

Korea's real breakthrough was when, in the 15th century, King Sejong the Great developed a writing system for all to read and understand. He believed that written scripture should be accessible to all, and therefore created a phonetic alphabet from scratch. Thus, 한글 (Hangul) was created.

Hangul is definitely one of the easier Asian writing systems to understand. Because it is all phonetic, you can learn the entire alphabet in a day or two. This is a great website to get you started. Once you've learned the alphabet, there's literally nothing you cannot read! Although the meaning might be a little fuzzy if you haven't formally studied Korean, but at least you can walk around Seoul and have some inkling of where you are.

Well, that's all for today. See you guys next time.

-Choi