While making notes in my hotel room the point of my pencil snaps. When I return from taking a coffee break, the broken stub - which I have mentioned to no-one - has been sharpened! Whoever heard of a hotel that provides a discreet pencil-sharpening service?

I'm in Seoul. Much excellent service comes my way as I travel around the world, but this hotel is one of the best. The driver who collects me from Incheon airport offers me a printed menu of CDs to hear as we cruise into the city. A laptop with broadband is provided in my hotel room. A complimentary bowl of fresh fruit arrives unexpectedly. An elegant vase is loaned for my flowers. South Korea is a very civilised place. I wonder, maybe if I left some clarinet reeds lying around, perhaps someone would creep into my room and scrape them for me?

My first task is to set up a full schedule of visits, meetings and workshops as part of the student recruitment I'm doing for Birmingham Conservatoire (BC). Later I will be joined by Professor George Caird, Principal of the Conservatoire.

We will make these visits together. George is travelling out to Korea to join me after I have completed the planning and organising. Later, I learn that at Schiphol airport in Amsterdam, before his eleven-hour flight to Korea, George had scouted into the farthest corners of the place to locate a deserted lounge, where he'd done an hour's oboe practice. George is a man of dedication and energy.

But my own dedication is undermined when, as soon as the Seoul schedule has been organised, I succumb to a viral inflammation of the inner ear. The dizziness this causes horrible, respite being gained by closing one eye. Movement is best done by crawling around the room. Amazingly, my wife can give me a diagnosis over the phone from England. Having a spouse in hospital medicine has its advantages. I learn that I have a form of vestibulitis. Wendy advises that I spend 24 hours lying still in a darkened room. I have plenty of time to reflect that being ill would be infinitely more bearable at home.

Recovering in time for the Korean public holiday a couple of days later, I take a little convalescing time to explore the capital, Seoul, a city of 10.3 million. North Korea is only fifty kilometres, or 30 miles, away from here, ruled by the infamous dictator Kim Jong Il. Here in South Korea, citizens have to put up with neighbourly annoyances that include a nuclear threat and the dumping of forged American dollars, which are mass-produced in the North.

The holiday is to celebrate the opening of a 3.7 mile stretch of the Cheonggye stream, which runs through the heart of Seoul. Until now the water had a concrete cover, with an elevated highway above that. Now the stream is open to the skies, has 21 bridges, and is a delightful place where carp swim and citizens stroll. Today the whole population seems to have come out to celebrate. Streets are closed, the folk promenade around the city centre, and there is much street music to be heard. I hear Japanese drummers, a Dixieland band, and a brass band in which all the players wear headsets but have no conductor. Presumably they hear some sort of click-track on the headsets.

Seoul Plaza, the concrete circle where half a million Koreans shouted for democracy in the 1980s, is now covered with grass. An excellent symphony orchestra plays for an open-air stage show, which is being televised. The entertainment seems to involve thousands of people. The fun goes on for hours, and attracts an enormous crowd of spectators.

And so to work, undertaking a busy schedule of visits, both in Seoul and Daegu, the latter a city of two and a half million people located in the South East of the Korean Peninsula. George and I meet agents, teachers, students, musicians, British Council staff, see the Chinese cultural attaché, and meet the managers of several of the best university music departments. We even go to a prospering jazz college. Of course, we find time to hear good live music - violinist Chee-Yun Kim (also and confusingly spelt 'Kim Jiyeon') giving an impeccable violin recital, accompanied by Wendy Chen, in the Seoul Arts Centre concert hall. The youthfulness of the audience - predominantly under thirty - is a surprise.

One destination is the music department of Ewha Womans University. 'Womans' is spelt that way, for complex reasons that made sense when they were explained, but which I've now forgotten. We work with a group of some 25 woodwind players. George encourages several oboists to play for him. In return, he plays for them - one movement of the Britten Metamorphoses. Afterwards, we organise a group of five students to play as an ensemble, for which I conduct. One of the players is Julie Oh, a final-year bassoon player, preparing for her graduate recital, and hoping to do a PhD abroad. Meanwhile, Julie is about to depart for Europe. In January she is to play the Mozart Bassoon Concerto with the National Orchestra of Bulgaria.

All too soon it is time for us, too, to depart. Back in England, I attempt an email correspondence with Julie Oh, to keep up with her Bulgarian performances. As my Korean is non-existent, and Julie's English is of 'get by' standard, this is a challenge. But she's already mastered a strong line in quasi-obscene English.

"The man, who played piano with that orchestra," she writes, "said he hates fuckig poor country. And said that he is happy that he is not a Bulgarian." Julie is the well-educated daughter of a neuro surgeon. She is applying to come to study in the UK. Clearly, a little guidance is needed concerning the way she presents herself in polite company, judging by her fuckig correspondence. In order that we understand each other I have the idea of using a machine translator, available on the web. Translated from Korean by the PC, Julie's first sentence of potted biography reads: "Me five week unit nine estuary bedspreads. English name Julie Oh."

Brilliant as it is, computer translation software needs development work. What estuary bedsteads are, and what connection they have with bassoon playing, I have no idea.