The Heart of Seoul

Final weekend in Seoul exploring the big city and enjoying the sights. ( I somehow managed to book 3 of us into another 'love' motel!!  Funny)  We checked out the tower, amazing sight of the city lights at night, ate dinner at 11pm.. visited the DMZ zone between North and south Korea, wandered a market, bargains, 11 pairs of socks for $10!! Managed the subway and the taxis to get around, even free wifi underground. Wow, what an enormous city. We strolled around a lovely park near the river on Sunday evening, listening to the musicians at various spots, including a fantastic saxophone player. Korea was not on our original itinerary but thanks Luke for being there, it is a refreshingly impressive country.

Hanging out in Hamyang, South Korea

Annyeong haseyo from South Korea

We have had a great couple of weeks with Luke in Hamyang, a smallish city, around 50000 and very compact with everything within walking distance, a lot of apartment living in the town centre. There must be at least 50 eating places within 100 metres of Luke's place. We have had sushi or kimbap as it is known here for breakfast, lunch and dinner, bibambap a lot as well which is a cheap rice, vege, egg dish, great anytime. We are also well known at the "Paris baguette" shop. Luke finishes work at 9pm and we go out for dinner then. We ordered some kebabs the other night (from the picture menu,  one lot was great, chicken with vege, the other was just chicken skin!!!

 Luke's principal and family took us to the Haeinsa Unesco World Heritage temple last weekend which was really interesting and worth the trip. It is in a national park.  We had a huge Korean banquet lunch then went to a movie set village and then on to his parents restaurant where we had another enormous banquet!! There were 12 dishes just for the starter,an incredible array and variety of food. Trevor and I visited Jirisan national park which is really close to Hamyang and did a couple of good walks. One took our legs 3 days to recover, it was really steep and hard. Quite an experience organising buses and departure times etc with a Korean dictionary. But we did get to the right places.We also ventured to Jinju and visited the Jinju Fortress which was impressive. The parks here are fantastic and have heaps of exercise equipment in them. People do lots of walking and all seem to use the equipment as well, they are fun. Korea is an incredibly green hilly country, lots of small cities quite close to each other. Lots of rice fields.  Bus transport is great with local buses going all the time. We don't feel like we are in an overpopulated country at all. It is about the size of  a squashed South Island with 48 million people... Although we may feel different after a weekend in Seoul. Not that many cars on the roads compared to NZ.  The weather has been fantastic apart from 2 days as typhoon samba rolled by. We did manage to cook some pancakes and pasta as it rained and blew around us. But hard to believe they get four months of snow here and down to minus 15 at times. The students go to public school all day then a lot  go to academies after that, like English classes or maths classes. Luke has some students twice a day five days a week!! They take education very seriously.

So off to Seoul in the morning for the weekend then fly to Bangkok on Monday evening.Not many sleeps until we are home... I will do a wrap after the weekend

Hanging about in Hamyang

I want one of these in Taupo

Trevor stretching

Hamyang in the distance

Morning walk through the rice fields

the two kebabs on the left are just chicken skin!

Lots of squirrels

Jirisan park

A good luck prayer maze

Shine, Luke's principal and baby boy

Jinju and apartment living

Another banquet

Train at film set

Kicking back in South Korea

Arrived in Seoul at 6am on a flight from Bangkok. I didn't sleep a wink. Managed to sort out a transport card and took the metro/subway into the city (instead of the expensive shuttle buses & taxis) where we managed to fall asleep between stops! Took about an hour to the city centre. Then to another suburb where we had booked a hotel, not in a touristy area.  The suburb came alive in the evening, it was interesting to wander around, bright lights, heaps of little eating places, we finally agreed on one and enjoyed a nice chicken meal. Next morning we caught the metro to the bus station and arrived in Hamyang about 2.30, a 4 hr trip, south east of Seoul. This is where Luke is working. Great buses, wide recliners seats, only 3 across. Masses of apartment buildings to be seen going out of Seoul, about 11 million people live there. But seems a very well organized, clean and very civilized city compared to the rest of Asia. And obviously way more expensive, more like Nz prices. Found our way to Lukes school. We chatted with one of his pupils. She told us in not bad English " I really like Luke, he is very kind and has a lot of patience."  It's been great to catch up with him. A lovely little town. Nice big park which we have walked to 3x all ready. We went out for Korean dinner with Luke's principal and his wife (both very lovely and very cute baby) on Saturday night. Food was great. bbq pork, lots of side dishes of spicy vegetables and dips and salads. Then a big beef dish with rice. We enjoyed the rice wine & tried the rice vodka. Luke & Trevor didn't find sitting on the floor for over 2 hours that comfortable. We went to a nice tea house for dessert and tea afterwards. Sunday it rained so we played indoor golf. Quite amazing, 18 holes using real golf clubs in a small room... Hamyang is not at all a tourist spot, very little English spoken. But Luke is doing well, it is easier to eat out and he has managed to order us good meals. His apartment is made for one person only... But we will manage for a week or two. He works 1.30 till 9pm as it is a private school and the students come after their own school has finished. Jirisan national park is nearby so we will take a bus there tomorrow and have a look around. Weather is great, slightly cooler in the morning & evening, hot during the day, around 26 but not as hot as we have had.

Angkor Wat

The photos speak for themselves here, this is a massive amazing place, we got a three day pass which we used over the week. We hired bikes and cruised around taking our time and exploring all the different temples. These were built around 800 years ago, very impressive especially when you see the Cambodia of today. The carvings (bas relief they are called) are incredible. Every wall seems to be covered in scenes of everyday life, as it was then or battles or war. Very intricate and all different. I loved them. Ta Prohm with all the enormous old trees growing through everything was our favourite. On our spare days we visited the floating village, the lanmine museum, biked to the lake and got caught out in monsoon rain more than once. The owners son of our hotel turned 4 the day before we left so they had a birthday party for him at the hotel and invited all the hotel guests as well. (9 of us) so we had a fun last night, there was lots of food and plenty of angkor beer flowing. Balloons and streamers and sparklers, quite an interesting experience. Good bye Cambodia, we will especially remember the all day tuk tuk drivers, the manicure and pedicure I got in the middle of the market, the (most funny) massage organised for us by our hotel and of course the all day everyday scams... We left yesterday at 7.30 am and arrived in Bangkok about 6.30 pm. It only cost $11 each. Bus  Transport  has been really cheap in all the countries. Well time to go see some of Bangkok! Trevor still hates big cities so he is doing admirably, we are really just here as we are flying to Seoul tomorrow night. But maybe a spot of shopping today...