Regardless of the plethora of shows, blogs, twitterfeeds and accessible books related to travel, South Korea is often overlooked by those venturing towards east Asia. In a forum that I frequent, when discussing the pitfalls facing South Korea in its efforts to modernize its marketable image towards the "west", there were often references to two areas: What M*A*S*H has done to the pop culture portrayal of the country and the 24 news cycle being dominated by ongoing developments in North Korea. M*A*S*H left an impression amongst a lot of North Americans that South Korea is a perpetual agrarian war zone with a landscape dominated by rice paddies and starvation. Turning on the news doesn't do much to help the perception either with constant talk about the tenuous relationship between North and South.