...although my game is just gonna begin once I procure my DS FROM DUTY FREE. YEAH! I am up for it times ten thousand. Jealous? You're jealous.
This will probably be our last post. *Cries* Don't be too sad. Keep in mind that I will upload the last of our photos once I get back home, so if they mildly amused you in the last two months remember that I shall do that and that our blog and its colourful attachments shall be burnt into the web of tubes forever.
Sweet! You know what's also sweet? I have clicky nails on the keyboard. I know that you don't care, but I have broken my habit of biting them on this trip. This last month I have made incredible progress. Now, give me a little something that goes like this: click click clickity click.
I am going to start this hopefully-not-too-epic-post with a quick thingamajig of what we've gotten up to since last postie. Err, another palace! Whoop! Changdeokgung is a mysterious place. Only open to the public via guided tourists, it's a very old palace that was refurnished and re-done in the 1920's, which means it has a strange mix of Asian and European architectural features. To me, it's fascinating. The palace also has an incredible secret garden where, I am not joking, right in the middle inner-city Seoul there is a private forest with an incredible series of square lakes, pavillions over the water, and a garden library. I am so incredibly envious.
Also: being around that many white people, in the English tour, after such a long time was intimidating and weird. I am going to severely miss being able to talk in a language that people can barely understand. Either that or I will loudly say something extremely awkward back in Sydney. Also: one of the last princes of the line forsook (a word?) what would have been a comfortable normal life and instead came and lived in the palace in relative seclusion (apart from the frustration of being in the public eye) during the 1960s and 70s. How very Korean of him; I have learnt that self-restrainment and repression for family duties is a trait that is embedded into the Korean psyche. How very learned I am on the Eastern ways.
After that, we completed a walk we had been meaning to do for a while. It was around the back of the very first palace we visited and at the back of Insadon. The area was filled to the brim with tiny art galleries, some of which we explored with delight, others we stayed in only for a second to relive the frozeness of our beings. Sweet little shops, quirky and filled with rad stuff, we came upon one that was called Mia Monger. Yes, as in, say, Fish Monger. I should have taken a photo, but my brain became addled with how much cool stuff was in it. It was pretty much just stuff that I have lying around my room too, which felt strange because it was like they went into my room, recorded what was in it, and made a shop based on it. It was pretty much just a vintage shop, selling curios and collectables from all eras past and awesome. When we enquired to the reason of it's name, the girl behind the counter just shrugged and said that it was a girl's name, and that there was no real reason. How bizarre. Anyway, we walked on further, consuming delicious Korean foodstuffs, and stumbled upon an OWL MUSEUM. It was teh most rad! It was absolutely packed with all things owl from all over the world; it was dark, musty, and complete perfection. And in honour I have decided to start an obsession; collecting owls. Because, come on, owls are way too awesome to be denied. Also: I feel that in entering my twentieth year I need to prepare myself for the madness old age brings. I will be: the crazy owl-collecting lady. Brace yerselves. Rishi, keep your 978 cats away from my dusty shelves and their soon-to-be precious goods.
The next day, we hit Lotte World. With our faces. At high velocity. It was one of the coolest days we have spent in Korea, despite the fact that it's one of the least Korean places ever, and more just...America. Except for the hotteok stall. We spent the day, from 9:30am - 10:30pm, screaming, queuing, and eating absolute junk food, in every particular order on repeat. It was amazing. Despite Mintie's fear of absolutely everything that spins and shakes and sends you up in the air at high and unpredictable speeds, there were only a few rides for which I was alone. So it was with bouncing sugary happiness that I spent the day dragging him on fun, and wearing cat ears that I bought. They are so cool. We pretty much managed to go on every ride at least once, the queues not as bad as I was expecting and yet sometimes grateful for the rest that the more sizable one's allowed us. Also: the more popular rides have a system which allows you to take a ticket, go and explore or eat, and come back at the designated time. Very very wise idea, I don't know whether other theme parks have employed this system, but it's a really good one!!! Do it other theme parks!
The next day we spent packing our bags carefully, to take them the almost two-hour trip to the other end of Seoul, moving out of the couple's house we so gratefully had a room in, and over to Mintie's uncle's house close by to the airport for our departure on Monday evening. And then we hit an interesting and utterly huge museum. It's the national museum in Seoul, and the level of Korean pride that you get from that emanates from that place is, at times, over-whelming. I was dead-tired from carting our heavy luggage the few hours before, but despite that we still managed to make it through most of the artefacts and time periods with sustained interest.
And then skiing! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! With the kids that we looked after at the study room! It was so fun, we have spent the last three days speeding down slopes and, for others, learning how to ski for the first time. Having only been once myself, it was a refresher lesson for me with Mintie and his group the first day, and then the second and third days hooning down the mountain slopes that were covered in the beautiful snow. I didn't know whether I was ready or not to go straight out there, and 10 seconds into the 'test' my new ski instructor gave me on the second day some n00bian idiot slammed into me, causing me to completely fall down tangled and cursing. Shaken up, this new group went straight onto the medium-level 4km course, which was intimidating and...heart-beatingly scary. However soon after I cursed at the bastards who whizzed past me, I soon became one and consequently flew past struggling beginners and annoyingly unpredictable fools. It felt way too good. The third day was strange. I met up with Mintie, went down the easy course with him slowly and cautiously, monstered the medium-level course with the extra free-time given to me, and then went right up the extraordinarily high mountain on a gondola, playing Korean games in which you get violently hit and looking out at the silent skiers and peaceful surroundings far below us. I then proceeded to have an awesome snow fight at the top with the kids, follow some down a small slope they were sliding on, and subsequently did something terrible to my tail bone. Goddamn it. Completely Excruciating. That is all. In absolute agony, we got on the freakho bus and I sat in watery eyes for two hours until we got to some godforsaken city (which actually has a really cool history to it, but I shall not go into here) where the kids were taken to a free movie. And I was treated in the emergency room of a department store. I know, what? It was really weird, but the woman rubbed gel on my broken butt, and shone a goddamn infra-red light on it. It felt okay. Anyway, I cried twice more as we sat on the coach that bump and shook me and had uncomfortable seats for another six hours in the dead of the night travelling back to Imo's. It was a tragic hell, but I survived. And luckily I don't think it's broken. It might not even be fractured, but only the next couple days will tell. This morning it felt a lot better, so hopefully the betterness each morning will only be exponential. Cross fingers. Especially for the plane.
We're back in Seoul. Preparing ourselves, buying the last of our gifts. Hopefully we will just spend all of tomorrow in a bathhouse or something. I need some recooperation before we head back to where all of you reside. I need a holiday to recover from the beast that has been this one. It's not been docile, that's for sure. I was going to do some sort of re-cap on thoughts etc. about what's happened, what I have learnt, and how's it's changed so many thoughts and actions I now take. However, that's kind of cheesy. I still might post some "post-thoughts" (oh wait, get it?! ...post...yeah) on this blag when I get back and have room in my brain. Right now, though, that's just not possible. Memory is full.
I can't even remember what I ate for dinner tonight. Oh wait, yes I do. Delicious Samgyetang. Oh god, that was amazing. Oh shite! There's a Wiki on it! Wikipedia 사랑 (sarang).
<3
Saturday, 19 January 2008
BLARGHEDY BLOG
This one is coming to an end now folks. It's the end of an Era.
My body is kind of aching, but that's ok. We packed as much in to the last week as we could, so we can basically laze around and do diddly for the last few days. Today, I bought some stuff that I wanted, I finished up buying gifts for all you lovely boys and girls, and I had some of that awesome awesome delicious chicken broth/soup/whole chicken + ginseng + love & effort known as Samgyetang.
But if we whiz back to about a week ago, I had just gotten back from Pohang and I was ready for some Seoul flavoured fun! We finally got around to visiting Changdeokgung, a huge Korean palace which is maybe the most interesting because it doesn't follow alot of the rules of traditional Korean Feng Shui or Pungsoo, but was still extensively used as a main palace.
I've been on a real "Shit, I nearly forgot that I'm Korean" kick lately. This kind of stuff might sound boring and dry as hell for most people, but I've really enjoyed learning about all this history that I should probably know, and probably would have known if my parents weren't weirdos who went to NZ so I could learn to speak English fluently.
The palace is distinctive both because it's architecture was designed to meld with the natural surroundings around it, rather than imposing the more strict forms that are normally used for Palaces, and also because it was rebuilt later and has a weird european feel to some of the rooms. There's also a "secret" garden out the back, which is less a secret garden and more of a forest. It has a huge square lake with an awesome island in the middle, as well as gorgeous pavillions and a royal library with an area for intellectuals to study and debate at the top. If the palace was offered to me as a residence, I would take it. Because it rocks.
After that, we walked down past another palace to an area known as Samcheong-dong. A weirdly snooty area full of strange little shops with high prices and Art Galleries, as well as a few cafes that seemed interesting. We ate a huge, cheap, delicious Korean meal at a restaurant and weren't even really impressed. Korea is amazingly impressive at doing one type of cuisine: Korean. It's really really hard to get wow-ed after travelling the country for so long.
Then again, we were wowed moments later by the OWL ANTIQUE MUSEUM. So damned awesome. This crazy lady, who made us a hot chocolate and some tea incidentally, had been collecting owls and owl-esque paraphernalia since she was a little girl, and now she charges people to enter the Museum that's loosely organised to show the sheer density of Owls that she owns. Utterly crazy. There was stuff from all around the world there, and they were all awesome looking owls. Owls are fearsome, cute and grumpy creatures. I got a shirt.
After that, we bought gifts and such at Insadong and enjoyed just being there. Despite the fact that we've only been to some of these areas a few times, they've grown on me to the point that I feel sad to leave each one for the last time. Don't get me wrong, I would much rather live in Sydney, but I find Seoul to be a really rad city without having anything really rad in it. It's just so crazily active and alive. Sydney can feel a bit sleep-walking sometimes.
The next day was Lotte World, One of the three amusement parks in Korea and I think it's the oldest. It was closed for the last year because of some accidents and deaths that happened there, but we didn't die when we spent the entire day there so HOORAY for that. After my near-death experience being flung about on the claw, when I spotted a similar ride at Lotte World I couldn't bring myself to consider going on it. Luckily, because we got there so early, We had time to go on pretty much every ride but about 5, which was every ride I wanted to go on. Seriously, who wants to be dropped from a huge height? That seems like a DUMB THING TO WANT. Then again, maybe not.
I really freaking enjoyed the rollercoaster I went on, as well as the other rides in things that are carriages that aren't rollercoastery enough to count as such. I sat and was attacked by vaguely egyptian things, as well as things that Koreans must imagine are Sinbad-esque and I had a ball. Who knew? We ate terrible food and stayed there all day so we could watch the laser light show and have an awesome time for a whole day. We were so goddamn tired when we got home. Mia from all the fun she had, and me from all the fun and also all the fear. So much fear.
Despite being tired out of our little little brains, we needed to move all our luggage so we took about four hours doing that. We had to pack it all together, with all the increased baggage that comes with Aunts that give you unnecesary gifts meaning well and then get it all the way to the train station. Lucky that we didn't have to change lines to get to my uncles place where it's all being kept. It was enough of a bitch as it was.
I really wanted to go to the Korean National Museum I had heard so much about, and I was suprised to still be suprised at how unnecessarily big it was. It's just so... huge. and... there. Unbelievable. We zoomed through it, partly due to tiredness, partly due to boredom and partly due to time constraints. We were still wowed by a couple of pieces, some with intricate faultless gold and silver inlay. There was also a statue of buddha that made us stop and just look at it with wonder for a while. Gorgeous thing.
Then: The skiiing. Oh man. I am the most uncoordinated guy in the history of the earth, and I attempted to aim my sliding body down a mountain with out hurting anyone. We went with the study room kids that we love, and they shot down the mountain with ease. I am old, apparently. Also, completely uncoordinated. It probably didn't help that all the ski-instructors were hitting on Mia, but it was all in good fun. I think. I eventually figured out how to make an "A" and how to not die as I went down the slope and even managed to enjoy myself. Good times. The trip back from the Ski-field (Did I mention it was a six hour drive?) Was hellish. We got back to home at about 3 am, had one shot of Soju to celebrate and to sleep it was.
Now it wasn't hellish because we got back late. It was because Mia broke her ass. Seriously. Read her post. I'm sure she'll tell you all about it.
Still, it was sad today to leave the person that took us in wholeheartedly and was a mother to us for half the trip or more. She promised to come visit me in Australia, and I promised to head back to Korea some day. She's a complete saint and someone that I won't forget. I think that's a sign of a good trip. Meeting awesome people.
So this is the last blog post. I want to wrap things up neatly, but I have no idea how. We've done so much on this trip, and I feel like I've changed alot too. Korea seems to have that affect on me. I've learnt tonnes, seen a huge amount of people, done amazing things and done boring hard things. I've realised both how much I know about Korea and also how little I know. I've been treated well by some, and badly by others and I've talked politics, economics and culture with pretty much everyone I've come across with varying responses. I've thought about history, and I've thought about relationships, romantic or otherwise. I saw a way of life that is so familiar and yet so foreign, one that could have easily been my own.
And a whole bunch of other things. There's no way I can wrap this up. None at all. I'm going to have a million stories to tell you all, partly because so much has happened and partly because I'm a tireless windbag. It's going to be great to see you all. I look forward to sharing my Duty-free liquor and listening to all the fun amazing things that happened while I was gone.
love.
My body is kind of aching, but that's ok. We packed as much in to the last week as we could, so we can basically laze around and do diddly for the last few days. Today, I bought some stuff that I wanted, I finished up buying gifts for all you lovely boys and girls, and I had some of that awesome awesome delicious chicken broth/soup/whole chicken + ginseng + love & effort known as Samgyetang.
But if we whiz back to about a week ago, I had just gotten back from Pohang and I was ready for some Seoul flavoured fun! We finally got around to visiting Changdeokgung, a huge Korean palace which is maybe the most interesting because it doesn't follow alot of the rules of traditional Korean Feng Shui or Pungsoo, but was still extensively used as a main palace.
I've been on a real "Shit, I nearly forgot that I'm Korean" kick lately. This kind of stuff might sound boring and dry as hell for most people, but I've really enjoyed learning about all this history that I should probably know, and probably would have known if my parents weren't weirdos who went to NZ so I could learn to speak English fluently.
The palace is distinctive both because it's architecture was designed to meld with the natural surroundings around it, rather than imposing the more strict forms that are normally used for Palaces, and also because it was rebuilt later and has a weird european feel to some of the rooms. There's also a "secret" garden out the back, which is less a secret garden and more of a forest. It has a huge square lake with an awesome island in the middle, as well as gorgeous pavillions and a royal library with an area for intellectuals to study and debate at the top. If the palace was offered to me as a residence, I would take it. Because it rocks.
After that, we walked down past another palace to an area known as Samcheong-dong. A weirdly snooty area full of strange little shops with high prices and Art Galleries, as well as a few cafes that seemed interesting. We ate a huge, cheap, delicious Korean meal at a restaurant and weren't even really impressed. Korea is amazingly impressive at doing one type of cuisine: Korean. It's really really hard to get wow-ed after travelling the country for so long.
Then again, we were wowed moments later by the OWL ANTIQUE MUSEUM. So damned awesome. This crazy lady, who made us a hot chocolate and some tea incidentally, had been collecting owls and owl-esque paraphernalia since she was a little girl, and now she charges people to enter the Museum that's loosely organised to show the sheer density of Owls that she owns. Utterly crazy. There was stuff from all around the world there, and they were all awesome looking owls. Owls are fearsome, cute and grumpy creatures. I got a shirt.
After that, we bought gifts and such at Insadong and enjoyed just being there. Despite the fact that we've only been to some of these areas a few times, they've grown on me to the point that I feel sad to leave each one for the last time. Don't get me wrong, I would much rather live in Sydney, but I find Seoul to be a really rad city without having anything really rad in it. It's just so crazily active and alive. Sydney can feel a bit sleep-walking sometimes.
The next day was Lotte World, One of the three amusement parks in Korea and I think it's the oldest. It was closed for the last year because of some accidents and deaths that happened there, but we didn't die when we spent the entire day there so HOORAY for that. After my near-death experience being flung about on the claw, when I spotted a similar ride at Lotte World I couldn't bring myself to consider going on it. Luckily, because we got there so early, We had time to go on pretty much every ride but about 5, which was every ride I wanted to go on. Seriously, who wants to be dropped from a huge height? That seems like a DUMB THING TO WANT. Then again, maybe not.
I really freaking enjoyed the rollercoaster I went on, as well as the other rides in things that are carriages that aren't rollercoastery enough to count as such. I sat and was attacked by vaguely egyptian things, as well as things that Koreans must imagine are Sinbad-esque and I had a ball. Who knew? We ate terrible food and stayed there all day so we could watch the laser light show and have an awesome time for a whole day. We were so goddamn tired when we got home. Mia from all the fun she had, and me from all the fun and also all the fear. So much fear.
Despite being tired out of our little little brains, we needed to move all our luggage so we took about four hours doing that. We had to pack it all together, with all the increased baggage that comes with Aunts that give you unnecesary gifts meaning well and then get it all the way to the train station. Lucky that we didn't have to change lines to get to my uncles place where it's all being kept. It was enough of a bitch as it was.
I really wanted to go to the Korean National Museum I had heard so much about, and I was suprised to still be suprised at how unnecessarily big it was. It's just so... huge. and... there. Unbelievable. We zoomed through it, partly due to tiredness, partly due to boredom and partly due to time constraints. We were still wowed by a couple of pieces, some with intricate faultless gold and silver inlay. There was also a statue of buddha that made us stop and just look at it with wonder for a while. Gorgeous thing.
Then: The skiiing. Oh man. I am the most uncoordinated guy in the history of the earth, and I attempted to aim my sliding body down a mountain with out hurting anyone. We went with the study room kids that we love, and they shot down the mountain with ease. I am old, apparently. Also, completely uncoordinated. It probably didn't help that all the ski-instructors were hitting on Mia, but it was all in good fun. I think. I eventually figured out how to make an "A" and how to not die as I went down the slope and even managed to enjoy myself. Good times. The trip back from the Ski-field (Did I mention it was a six hour drive?) Was hellish. We got back to home at about 3 am, had one shot of Soju to celebrate and to sleep it was.
Now it wasn't hellish because we got back late. It was because Mia broke her ass. Seriously. Read her post. I'm sure she'll tell you all about it.
Still, it was sad today to leave the person that took us in wholeheartedly and was a mother to us for half the trip or more. She promised to come visit me in Australia, and I promised to head back to Korea some day. She's a complete saint and someone that I won't forget. I think that's a sign of a good trip. Meeting awesome people.
So this is the last blog post. I want to wrap things up neatly, but I have no idea how. We've done so much on this trip, and I feel like I've changed alot too. Korea seems to have that affect on me. I've learnt tonnes, seen a huge amount of people, done amazing things and done boring hard things. I've realised both how much I know about Korea and also how little I know. I've been treated well by some, and badly by others and I've talked politics, economics and culture with pretty much everyone I've come across with varying responses. I've thought about history, and I've thought about relationships, romantic or otherwise. I saw a way of life that is so familiar and yet so foreign, one that could have easily been my own.
And a whole bunch of other things. There's no way I can wrap this up. None at all. I'm going to have a million stories to tell you all, partly because so much has happened and partly because I'm a tireless windbag. It's going to be great to see you all. I look forward to sharing my Duty-free liquor and listening to all the fun amazing things that happened while I was gone.
love.
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