Rajasthan Adventure Part 1 Video

Rajasthan Adventure Part 1 from Squeezy on Vimeo.

The first 7 days of my trip to Rajasthan in January 2009. We did the GAP Adventures tour: Rajasthan Adventure.



This video covers: Old Delhi, Jodhpur, Ranakpur and Udaipur.

Once More With Feeling

Today I said goodbye to our new friends and hopped in a cab. During the 45 minute long trip I realized that I didn't feel sad to be leaving India. We saw some brilliant stuff, were visited by the evil bug Delhi Belly more times than was reasonable and made new friends. I just haven't been moved or touched by this country in a good way.

The photos will be stunning - even with my hideous über zit... I tried to avoid being in photos with good reason. My video should be an improvement on previous efforts. But I feel as though India didn't really like us.

So when will we return to India? Not anytime soon. We've been twice now to very different areas and I can't in all honesty say that I loved it. There are too many other cool and exciting places to go.

The flight. Oh Cathay Pacific may you rise up and conquer all inferior airlines so that they too may offer the wonderous economy service that you do. The plane we had was a new one with new seats that were very comfortable. Very, very, very comfy. The food was ok, neuter offensive nor sublime; except the cheesecake that wasn't. Poor Mike the not cheese cake was covered in passionfruit - not his thing really.

So now it's after midnight, local time, in Hong Kong and I'm watching a landscape of shiny twinkling buildings go by from the bus. It brilliant to be somewhere new and exciting again.

Day 2 Complete Bastard 19 Jan

Delhi or Mumbai. Everything that I didn't like about Mumbai one year ago- I find that I don't like the same things in Delhi. Over crowded everything, dirty, polluted, over zealously persistent touts, sad street little urchins and beggars.
I'm looking forward to the overnight train ride tonight.

Fortunately I've already been through the massive culture shock so I'm quite blasé and accepting. I'm enjoying myself much more this time.

Today we went to Gurudwara Sisganj ( a Sikh temple) then Jama Masjid (a murgal Muslim Mosque ). Both were interesting and beautiful in their own ways.

Sadly our tour guide then wanted us to go to the same place for lunch that we'd been to dinner last night.

tbc... the story explaining the title will be added shortly

Day 1 New Delhi

We were lucky to land this morning, a thick fog was covering Delhi airport. The pilot said the visibility was only 75 meters and that the taxiing into the terminal would be slow. He wasn't joking, it felt like we spent an hour or so creeping on the runway but was really only 30 minutes. I say we are lucky for 2 reasons. 1 when we alighted from the plane and the cabin door was open, we both looked out through the pilots windscreen and couldn't see much. So thanks to the pilot for a bumpy but safe landing. 2. The local news this morning is reporting that many planes were diverted or delayed. We must have just snuck in! The telling thing about the fog at 2am this morning was that even our taxi driver slowed down and drove with his hazards on. From this I take the fog was really bad.

We met a few people from our tour group over breakfast, which was nice. We get to meet everyone else tonight. Fingers crossed it's a good group.

Flying Airports 17 Jan

Hilariously I managed to buy 2 brand new Samsung batteries for my camcorder for 15,000 won. They are normally 30,000 won and that's a price that I'm happy to pay! Mike & I had spent much of the previous day searching Seoul for these very batteries and couldn't find anyone who stocked them- let alone had a good price!

Hong Kong airport feels very expensive but really it's just more expensive than Incheon -like everywhere else. We really are so spoiled in Korea when it comes to price jacking up. It doesn't seem to happen often and when it does it's a laughable increase.

The food is delicious! We share a Ginger beef noodle soup, some wonderful wontons and some soy rice-noodle with goose. We pretty well burned through 100,000 won in the 4 and a half hours. Easy come, easy go.

I seem to have lost my new eye mask already - darn it. Obviously this is Mike's doing... I just don't know how yet.

I'm soooo ready for Sydney

It's hot here. It's been hot for a while and.. I don't like it!

I'm prepared to make an exception for Thailand, which will have summer but, to compensate, there will be stunning beaches, showers (from the sky variety), wonderful thai food and glorious thai massages. Oh the massages..... Just rub my feet and smack me around with some mystery herb balls.

I'm really excited about the flight, thai airways YEAH! And the hotel sounds cool - the windows are in the shape of a L. Nearby there is a bar, where there are no chairs only beds. Sounds weird but cool. I hope Mike can get in, they might look at his hair and say "you've got to be kidding". I hope not though. I'm going to get the pink back in my hair before we travel - not that it lasts a long time but I like it.

After thailand and some very serious relaxing, we'll be in Sydney, for a day then on to Tassy! We realised that if we were going to do any touristy stuff in Australia then we should get out of Sydney. And at the beginning when Mike's family are away. I'm really looking forward to seeing my family and hugging them all. A few times each.

Tassy. The Gangwon-do of Australia. If that gives you any ideas of what Gangwon-do is like, you're probably right. Except that women are famed for their beauty.

Tassy will be great, Mike's found us a cafe in Hobart to visit. He got talking to the owner when he was watching the World Barista Championship. So we'll be paying a visit to Tasmania's Champion Barista. I'm really hoping that they'll be open for breakfast. The plan is Hobart for 2 days then we'll be heading up to Launceston to visit our friends there. Launceston was lovely last time we visited and we're hoping to chill out while exploring the area a bit further.

So I really should get back to packing & setting up my ipod. Enough procrastination!!

Speaking of procrastination.... here are the photos from the English Camp that Mike & I taught at on Sunday and Monday.

3 Days in Mumbai

We flew in to Mumbai's Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport on one of Thai Airway's pov pack planes. We were surprised to find ourselves in an airport (in fairness: under renovation) that closely resembled a large bomb shelter. We walked through, regaining the use of our limbs and hoping like hell we didn't get hit up for a bribe or as it is more quaintly referred to a Baksheesh. I located the baggage carousel and we were introduced to the Indian queuing system; a system where the least pushy is last. Then we walked outside, Mike to find an ATM and I to guard the bags. To say the heaving mass of people was a shock would be about right - I mean who brings their entire family to pick up one person at the airport at 1 in the morning? Fortunately Mike finds an ATM that is plugged in (the one in arrivals wasn't) and secures us a fixed price taxi.

We thought we'd gotten away without having to pay baksheesh. Or so we thought, it was just short of 500Rupees for the taxi to our hotel and the guy who got our taxi changed (so that we wouldn't have to wait) wanted a tip. First he said 100Rps then he saw Mike open his wallet (holding all the rupees that we had) and suddenly he wants 500Rps! Mike gave him 250Rps as we weren't about to tip more than the fare! While all this was going on, I was staggered by the yellow & black cabs (non-air conditioned) that were parked across from us and went on for as far as I could see. It was a sea of parked cabs!

Mumbai drivers are something else! It wasn't just that they are constantly on the horn, it was that I thought we would crash so many times. Playing chicken It seems that India drivers operate on a "if you don't crash it doesn't matter how much you miss by" mentality. I noticed that many taxis don't have side-view mirrors - no points for guessing how they got removed. Finally we arrived at the Hotel Manama. We had booked a deluxe room but ended up with a tiny room with a renovated bathroom. I was feeling ripped off and ready to do battle with the front desk but Mike checked out the other rooms that were available and he said we had the best of what was left. I mean Mike could almost touch the wall while laying on his bed. It was all too much but knowing that tomorrow was a new day gave me hope and helped me sleep.

We ventured upstairs to the Manama restaurant for breakfast. If last nights less than helpful service was a downer then the food and help from the solo waiter was a bit upper. Mike discovered his first favourite dish of the trip Aloo Chaat, it was full of potatoes, coriander and cumin - other spices too I'm sure. It was so delicious I completely forgot to take a photo of it - oops!

We walked out of the hotel with a spring in our step and a plan. A walking tour plan! We were armed with LP's Best of Mumbai and had found the walking tour called "Footsteps of the Raj"; seeing as we were staying next to the end point of this walking tour, we decided to do it in reverse! We saw some cool stuff and took plenty of photos! The photos miss out on one important thing: The Maiden Oval. There is an amazing number of boys & men playing cricket, some in whites, others wearing tees and shorts. There are batting nets - all in use and more games than I can count. This seems to go on all day long. Cricket rules Mumbai.

The end of our tour was the Gateway of India. It was massive! It stood looming over the harbour, surrounded by a multitude of people and barren cement. A few different people, all Indians, approached us to have their photo taken with us. It was very weird. It's not like we were the first tourists here, we'd seen plenty of tourists on our tour - some doing the tour in the correct order. I started to wonder if someone was going to pick our pockets or something. Fortunately that didn't happen. What did happen that as we were admiring the hazy view, there's a lot of pollution, a priest of some kind came up to us to give us a blessing, he put string on our wrists and a red dot on our foreheads. He then expected that we "re-imburse his time because he'd travelled so far to bless us" as was explained by a man who'd previously been trying to sell us a boat tour. Mike took care of it and we decided to vacate the area. I couldn't help feeling like we'd just been marked as easy marks.

So as we're walking along in the meagre shade, an Indian man walking towards us says something to Mike which neither of us understand. He seems to be saying Mike has something on him, so Mike stops but then he pulls out two long metal sticks and looks like he's about to put them in Mike's ear. So I yell at him No, No, No! and pull Mike away from him. He shouts something else after us but no way in hell am I going to let some weirdo put something in Mike's ear. Shortly afterwards I work out the trick, the man would have poked around in Mike's ear and then produced an ugly bug from up his sleeve. This would have led to insisting on Mike needing some special cleansing or something, probably at a price. Honestly this freaked us both out and we got away as fast as possible.

We venture back to CST to arrange train tickets to Goa and found we couldn't go through the ticket office if we wanted 1AC tickets (1AC means a sleeper compartment for 2 people only with AC). Fortunately we had some assistance in finding someone to book internet tickets - turns our they were emergency tickets! It cost extra - I think we had to pay a bribe to get the tickets and not be wait listed. So in trying to get to the coffee shop we'd spied earlier, we are caught by 2 small street urchin girls. They tried to attach themselves to us with cries of "ice cream". I clicked faster than Mike as to what was going on and freed myself much faster than Mike did.

We find ourselves a little café called café Coffee Day and we hide from the madness outside. In a surprising turn of events we get chatting to a couple of Korean University Students. It's really nice to swap stories and to agree that Mumbai is in your face. Walking around we find we can't even look at a stall without being harassed to buy whatever we looked near. The chillout does us good but we're not enjoying Mumbai, it's not a fun city but one overflowing with people & cars. We're glad that we'll be moving on soon - Goa can't be worse can it?

After the chillout, we grab our tickets and decide to walk to a mall. We've seen plenty of street stalls today but no actual malls. We end up at Chowpatty beach - near the mall we were heading for but we couldn't find it. It's late enough for dinner by now, so we try a vegetarian joint of Mike's choosing. While we're waiting the standard 30 mins for our food, Mike confesses that right now all he wants to do is hop on a plane and leave. I try to encourage him (quite the role reversal!). After all we have a plan for our second day in Mumbai and then the next day we're out of there!

Elephanta Island. That's our plan - we'll take a deluxe ferry out (apparently it just means larger seats) and hopefully have a better day. We get down to the Gateway of India by taxi and then we manage to find the grumpiest ticket seller to purchase our deluxe tickets from. Our "Luxury" boat took 50 mins to get out to the Island, we saw a few oil refineries and mega ships on the way. At the bottom entrance we are hit with our 5Rps entry tax. It's almost 12pm so we stop for lunch, after giggling over the mini-train on the pier. It's a non-veg thali with a view of a cow & a goat & the people streaming past. It's not brilliant but it's not bad either. Refreshed we start walking up the stairs and are amazed that you can pay to have 4 men carry you up! It's not just that the chair doesn't look comfortable, it doesn't, but surely it's not that hard to walk up. The stairs are lined with stalls, monkeys and trees. It's a lot cooler than Mumbai city and the stairs while long don't go on forever. We reach the top and have to pay an entry charge - this is somewhat more annoying as we don't even get to keep the ticket. While queuing, to pay, we watch the monkeys attack a girl holding a bottle of juice - she squeals and the monkey gets the juice. No one is hurt but these monkeys sure aren't scared.

We start in the main chamber, a cave temple. It's enormous and what remains of the wall sculptures are beautiful. When the Portuguese landed on Elephanta Island they systematically chopped off arms, heads, legs from the statues and wall carvings. It's such a shame as the detail in these carvings is incredible. We even come face to face with the Brahmi - the 3 headed dude and he's very very big! We spend the next 2.5 hours wandering through the smaller caves, taking photos and enjoying ourselves. The crowds aren't too bad as it's a Friday. We head back down the stairs, having decided that trekking to the top of the island just to see some old cannons is not for us. The Island isn't that much cooler! On the way down, Mike finds me a pretty pair of purple earrings and I find a pink bracelet. This price is very cheap and we barely haggle over the price. It's not until that afternoon that I notice that my pink bracelet has had the pink added and now it's transferring to my wrist.

The next day, Mike is feeling poorly, so we hide out in our room until it's time to hop on the train to Goa. I'll tell you all about the train ride in the next post :)

All the photos from this trip are online here.

Here's a map showing the main places that we visited over the 3 weeks.

View Larger Map

Quick Hotel Manama Review
If you are thinking about staying at Hotel Manama - don't bother paying for the deluxe room because deluxe is the one thing it won't be, the rooms are noisy (traffic & pigeons), the bathrooms are NOT spacious, there was no safe in our room - it wouldn't have fit! Also we saw no computers or internet access high speed or otherwise within the hotel.
We requested a double room and were given a twin, which I can accept, but then we were only given 1 towel and no soap - this was rectified quickly but shouldn't have required my complaint.
The rates, if you walk in, are cheaper than their Internet advertised rates and I saw people get given discounts purely for complaining about the first rate given.

Honestly they are convenient to CST and that is all.
The other plus to this hotel is the restaurant, it's delicious, cheap and the solo waiter is kind and helpful - he patiently explained many of the terms on the menu to me over the 3 days.

Having said all this; if I go back to Mumbai, I'll stay in Chowpatti next to the beach - I'll also be prepared to spend more money because Mumbai accommodation is disproportionately expensive.

Vietnam Travel Tips

Here are a few of my tips on travel in Vietnam.

Hanoi

Need cash? Head to the ANZ bank & ATM on the edge of the lake in the centre of Hanoi.

For tours in and around Hanoi go to Handspan Travel. To find Handspan go to 80 Ma May Street or email them at info@handspan.com Why do I recommend them? Well, Mike and I bought 2 tours with Handspan, the first a sea kayaking trip to Halong Bay and the second an overnight trip to the mountain tribes in Sapa. The first trip was great! We swam in the buoyant waters, kayaked together and ate some great Vietnamese food (the variety was tastily impressive!). Unfortunately Mike developed a migraine on the way back to Hanoi and he was not in shape to go anywhere. So even though it was less than an hour until the tour left (by the time we made the decision), we were given a 75% refund and they assisted us with making our plans for the next day - by which time Mike managed to recover :) So we were thrilled that they helped us out when we would expect to receive no refund in Australia.
Also of note is the Handspan cafe - very tasty, if memory serves!
If I were to go back to Halong Bay, I'd recommend a 1 or 2 day trip because while it's lovely, you see all there is to see in 1 day. Though there is something to be said for knocking back a few beers on a junk at sunset.

Hanoi is a lovely city, the cafés are delicious and so cheap, you can't go wrong just walking around.

There are many interesting and worthwhile museums to visit but don't miss out on seeing Ho Chi Minh's preserved corpse in the Mausoleum. It's a strange experience - you have to surrender your camera seperately to your bag, then it's into the super cold air to gaze upon the old man himself. I really thought it looked like he was about to wake up and say "Chau!". I'm not sure how you can check ahead of time but I do know that Uncle Ho makes a regular trip to Russia for re-preserving.



Between Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City

There are many beautiful cities to explore and while the train is an option -it's very slow. The buses are very regular and cheap. If you've got less time than money then a couple of flights are a good way to cover a bit of ground.

Another option is hiring an Easy Rider - they are easiest to find in cool Dalat. They aren't the cheapest way to get around but these guys speak good english and will take you wherever you want to go for as long as you want to go. Mike and I did a 3 day easy rider trip and it was a real highlight of our trip to Vietnam. They took us to fantastic places for food and rarely did we pay anything over $US10 for the four of us - including the beers! These guys pack ponchos so no need to worry about the weather! Worried about the size of your backpack? Don't be - the normal thing is to strap in on the bike and make a back rest for you.

Ho Chi Minh City

Whereas Hanoi is beautiful, boulvardy, leafy and tranquil (so long as you foget the traffic), Ho Chi Minh City is not! This is the big city - here you get the polution, worse traffic than Hanoi, beggars and a faster pace of life. The markets in HCMC are impressive and well worth the wander and think twice about that "reproduction" watch!

Vietnam

Most importantly when catching a taxi in from the airport to anywhere centre always say that you have a reservation at a hotel (even if you don't) and have an address you want to be taken to. We have been caught out even though we know better and there are some strange parts of Hanoi, that are very inconvenient to be dumped in. Previously we'd stayed in the French quarter and it's a really good choice.

Don't forget your bug spray - the mozzies or sandflies are particularly nasty and hungry! Don't forget your sunscreen!! There is little choice in the supermarkets as to what you can buy if you forget it.

The chemist's are pretty helpful and will sell drugs to you over the counter - it's best if you know what you need.

Other than that relax and enjoy yourself - I promise it won't be hard to do!

Fun & Catastrophe

Last week was a terrible week. It was so bad that by Tuesday I was desperately wishing it over and done with! The only thing that kept me going was the eagerly anticipated Ladies Weekend.

So what happened on the Ladies Weekend? Girls stuff!! haha

As I'd decided to be a bit cheap, I had to get up at 5.30 to catch my train to Seoul. The trip went by sadly without my gameboy... *sob* but thankfully with both my ipods. (Ok, yes I'm a geek) Then I made my way to Noksapyeong, a subway station that was hiding very conveniently next to Itaewon (the haven in Seoul for foreigners), caught a taxi to the Hyatt Hotel and waited for my friends to meet me. It was really very hot and muggy in Seoul, so I was grateful that the Hyatt had some lovely shadey trees in their entrance.

Kat & Meaghan met me and we strolled back to Cris' palace. That's right palace, it was so big that her couch would not even fit in my apartment, it was so big her fridge had two doors!!, it was so big that she had a Jacuzzi in her ensuite!!! I was extremely jealous but I hate to think how much it cost. We kicked back and chatted for a while until I realised just how much quality shopping time we were wasting kicking back in the apartment. So Kat, Meaghan, Suzy & I made our way to Myeongdong shopping centre of Seoul, where we spent a few hours pushing through the crowds and buying silly and sensible things.

When we'd had enough shopping and realised that there was not enough time for the jimjilbang (hot spa), we headed back for a Kat nap (she did) and to prepare for the nights' entertainment. Suzy insisted on taking photos of all of us, so here is how we looked.

Kat, Meaghan, Squeezy & Suzy (left to right)

We had a fun night out. We ate at the Aussie Shop - which was delicious!! Meaghan took photos of the US soldiers, much to their amusement. Kat forgot about the "I can't believe it's not Coach" shop in Itaewon due to the rain, the time and the rum & cokes she'd been knocking back! We partied at the Wolfhound then changed to the cool Bungalow. Bungalow had an outdoor Jacuzzi (which Kat, Meags & Suzy still wanted to hop in despite the rain - but I wasn't prepared to strip to my knickers just to so I could drink cocktails in a jacuzzi in the rain!) and rooms with sand floors. I'm definitely going back to the Bungalow! Then it was time to shake our groove thang so we changed bars until we found a song we liked. We danced for a while, having lost our other/new friends but we still had Wade's Canuck hat!

That was pretty well it. The next day we put Suzy on the bus to Incheon Airport and it was a sad moment, particularly for Kat (as they are cousins).

So we split up and started heading home, each of us going in such different directions.

I neglected to mention that I had had a phone call from Mike during a waffle stop (you need serious sustenance for girls only shopping!). Sadly it was bad news. While I was shopping and indulging in some girls time, Mike was on Samcheok beach swimming and doing beachy things. Here comes the sad bit, Mike lost his wedding ring on that beach and even with a bunch of friends helping him to look for the ring it just wasn't to be found. Then the beach was bulldozed - sealing this rings fate. Mike called me to tell me about the loss and I felt my stomach drop to my knees. Then I thought it's just a piece of jewellery, it's not the basis of our relationship and it's completely replaceable. Mike sounded so distressed that I just wanted to comfort him, a bit tricky to do when we were so far apart.

So I hatched a cunning plan! After splitting up from the girls, I raced over to Nam San Tower, round and round, a 350m steep climb and up an elevator, down some stairs and I was at the gift shop. The very gift shop from which Mike had bought a couple ring for me. I picked out a ring for Mike - hoping that I was making a good guess at his finger size, and had it stamped with the very appropriate " Susie heart Mike". I had a nice chat to the lady at the gift shop, I think it helped that I was wearing my couple ring and had obviously been there before. She was a bit stunned that I'd come all the way to Nam San Tower just for the couple ring. But the thing was, I didn't know where else I could go and I couldn't afford to take much time on this because I had my train to catch. By noon on Sunday all I could think of was getting home to Mike.

Our couple rings

With my mission accomplished all that remained was to obtain some reading material (damn my forgetting my gameboy!!), some lunch for on the train and to get myself to Cheongyangni station. I picked up Matilda by Roald Dahl and a magazine at Bandi & Luni which had the benefit of being 1 minutes walk from the subway station that I needed. So with a super speedy subway ride to Cheongyangni subway station, I had some time to kill. I checked my ticket and I had the 2.25 to catch. This gave me about 45 minutes to while away, so I wandered around Lotte, testing lipglosses and buying some munchies, before walking up to the train station (above ground).

If only I hadn't missed my train!! Yep, that's not a typo. I had confused my seat number 2 25 with the departure time of 2pm!!! So instead of waiting 2 hours for the next train, I waited less than an hour for a train to get me 2 hours closer to Taebaek and then changed for a bus. This with no credit on my phone too :( The train man in the terminal helped me to change my ticket and I was given a refund of the difference in price! Seeing as it was my mistake I would normally expect to buy a new ticket at full price, so it was nice to have some help sorting it out. I needed to take a moment because I knew I was about to start crying, unfortunately I couldn't use the ladies toilets to have a private sob because they were packed with people and were squatties. So I grabbed a random chair and tried to compose myself. The curious looks from the Ajumas weren't helping. I had to let Mike know, so I emailed him and after a while I located the pay phones and told him what had happened. Yesterday I had wanted to comfort him and here the tables were turned and I needed a little comfort. So he told me not to stress out, my reply was to sob back at him, he said give me a call and I said I had no credit. Disaster!

I hate buses. And bus drivers!!!!

It was supposed to be an express bus but the driver kept detouring into these teeny tiny villages to drop people off. Then when I was finally in the town just before Taebaek - he changes buses and has a 10 minute break!!!! ARG!!!
So I got home at 9pm - 7 bloody hours of waiting and travelling and all my fault.

It all felt like such a catastrophe! Mike losing his wedding ring and me missing my train.
But I must've had some luck because when Mike tried on his new couple ring it fit even better than his wedding ring had! But it was a lot of fun, hanging out with the girls - I'm glad I went. Next time I'm not going to miss my stupid train!!

Maggie & Steve's visit

In the hopes of not forgetting the last ten days adventures, I'm going to document our itinerary & food. I'm too tired for anecdotes...

27th May: Busan After lunch, picked Maggie & Steve up from Busan airport (took them 10 minutes to get their bags and go!!).
Meandered around Haeundae Beach, saw the beginnings of the Christian beach convention - mind boggling how many people were there.
Dinner: Galbi (pork) in downtown - meandered around downtown.
Hotel: love motel in Haeundae

28th May: Busan > Uljin > Gyeongju
Breakfast: Bagels at Dunkin' Donuts, then a walk along the now deserted Haeundae Beach. Hopped in the car and drove the coastal road, stopped for a seaside coffee then on to Uljin, took a few photos of the massive ship yards and stopped for;
Lunch: Kim Bap Cheon Guk - had mandu, bibimbap and udong. Back in the car, drove on to Gyeongju. Stopped at Bulguksa, heaps of school children around, Maggie & Steve were kicked out of a temple building for not wearing socks, enjoyed the rock garden.
Hotel: Tourist hotel in Gyeongju downtown Steve & I checked out the rooms - it was ok, nothing special. I was about to haggle the room rate (seeing as we wanted 2 rooms) but I realised the concierge had a plastic arm and I lost the hart to haggle.
Dinner: Beers at the downstairs brewery (very noisy), Samgyeobsal cooked on a rock :) We chose the restaurant because we found 3 together that looked good but the lady at the musical instrument shop said we should go to her sister's place. We were the only ones there but the food was very good.

29th May: Gyeongju > Daegu > Taebaek
Breakfast: McDonalds - oh the shame of it.
We drove round and round in circles trying to find anything open and maccas was one of the few places. Explored historical Gyeongju - a fort, an ice room, an observatory and a lake (I will fill in the correct names). Primary school children were everywhere - Mike got a shock when one of the girls was from Melbourne and had a great accent! I got a bit tired of having the same conversation over and over. Hi! Where are you from? What's your name? It was quite hot all day! Jumped in the car, escaped Gyeongju for the express way to Daegu.
Lunch: Express way rest stop, everyone had mandu except me - I had mystery kim bap & tentacles.
We stopped in Daegu only to buy a couple of things; we ended up buying a couple more than intended :) We finished the drive to Taebaek and started looking for somewhere appropriate for Maggie & Steve to stay. Sadly most of the accommodation options were not very good. Finally we tried the Ewha motel and it was the best of the bunch. Mike and I got to go home to our apartment - yeah! Dinner: New York Grill and Bar - Mike & Steve had massive steaks, while Maggie had the ample chicken steak and I had humungo ribs. We ran into Mike's co-teacher Mrs Yun, her children were very determined to ignore us, it was very amusing watching them march past our table a couple of times.

30th May: Taebaek & Samcheok
Breakfast: cereal oh sweet ordinary cereal!
Mike & I headed to work, while Maggie and Steve caught the bus to Samcheok. In Samcheok Maggie & Steve checked out the brown wedding cake museum, the fish markets and had a raw fish banquet lunch - for 4 people! After work we introduced Maggie & Steve to a couple of our kiddie neighbours then we went out to dinner. Dinner:

31st May: Taebaek & Gohan
Breakfast: cereal. Mike & I at work and Maggie & Steve took off with our car to Gohan to spy on the golf course: High 1. As usual they landed on their feet and were treated like royalty at both the golf course and ski resort.
Dinner: Taebaek Style Dakgalbi - chickeny noodly goodness.
We were joined by Rachael, James, Dean and Sunny, all elementary teachers in Taebaek. Also Lotu another EPIK Teacher and her son Kobe. It was a fun night with lots of Soju!

1st June: Taebaek
Breakfast: cereal.
My Principal decided to take Maggie & Steve to lunch, so Mike's and my schedules were adjusted so we could go out to a hidden restaurant in Taebaek.
Lunch: Many traditional dishes.
The meal was superb and we finished off with five flavour tea. Mike was given the afternoon off, so we headed to his school to make sure and ended up having tea with Mike's Principal. A few of Mike's students got to meet Steve and Maggie - most gave themselves whip lash trying to check out who was in Mike's office! Most of the afternoon was gone so we took some time to plan what to do for the next few days.
Dinner:

2nd June: Taebaek > Donghae > Gangneung > Samcheok > Taebaek
Breakfast: proper cookup :)
We drove to Donghae to check out the Gangwon Comphrensive Museum, which was quite an experience. We were all a bit mystified as to why the collection existed and just why so many artefacts/reproductions thereof were under this very large roof. Having said that I enjoyed the outdoor cave and the robot dinosaurs (with sound effects). By the time we were ready for a coffee break, we were all ready to move on and so we drove to Gangneung downtown for lunch.
Lunch: Terrarosa in Gangneung.
It was really nice to have some tasty Italian food and coffees. A brief walk around downtown and a touch of window shopping later, we jumped back in the car and headed to the Reunification Park. The North Korean submarine still had that burny burny smell and the land-locked South Korean warship still had plenty of buttons to push and nobs to twiddle! I might have regressed into my childhood a bit but I had fun! When we'd had our fill of nauticalness, we continued along the coastal road. This turned out to be a great idea as we found a massive sun dial and this.

We checked out the sun dial and Maggie was taken by the strange fur fashion of one ladies dog - it had pigtails on it's ears! Next we decided on checking out the bizarre site of the ships on land. When we read the sign asking for an entrance fee just to look around these motel ships, we said "Bugger that!" and hit the road again. Time was getting away from us, so we stopped at Samcheok for dinner.
Dinner: Pizza! with some very ordinary wine - what did we expect when they said there was no white, only red and then confused us about the cola situation!
For a bit of fun we checked out the Homeplus at Samcheok after dinner.
We were late getting into Taebaek and so we all went straight home to bed.

3rd June: Taebaek > Seoul
Breakfast: cereal.
We all packed up our bags and jumped on an 11am train to Seoul. It was a much quieter day due to the train trip taking almost 5 hours (it was inexplicable longer than our normal train).
Lunch: kim bap and triangles as appropriated before boarding the train.
We hit the jackpot on our arrival to downtown (Jongno 3-ga area), the very first love motel we tried gave us a fair price and agreed that we could keep the rooms for 3 days! And most importantly, Maggie & Steve felt they would be comfortable at the Samseong motel. To celebrate we all enjoyed a coffee at the marvellous café themselves and come cake :) I had the dangerous dark chocolate and it was at that! Good thing it was a tiny little square - or I'd never have finished it. Freshly refuelled, Mike led us on a walk to and through Myeongdong. On the way we organised tickets to Nanta - thanks to the lovely woman at the Information desk at the Cheonggyecheon.
Dinner:


4th June: Seoul
Breakfast: bakery delights at café themselves
Lunch: pepper rice - Mike was happy!
Dinner: Brazillian meat on swords cooked to perfection - churrasc.. (sp?)
Nanta

5th June: Seoul
tourist bus
Breakfast: bakery delights at café themselves
Lunch: gorgeous little in café Itawon - super surprising this was!!
Dinner: Todai - buffet of delicious fish things; from okonomiaki to tempura to personally sliced sashimi to sushi rolls to blazingly hot stir-frys to mountains of crab legs and cooked to order crepes.
We all enjoyed a bit or a lot of the wine which was too sweet for me but ok all the same. Ha demanded we all eat our way through 5 plates, I only just got there - you can see what Mike did with the offered crab leg!
Seeing as we all needed to stroll and some way to repay Ha for his generosity, we walked on into the Intercontinental and had an Irish whisky or a glass of champagne. There must have been a wedding there because we had a rainbow like procession of hanbok attired women with suited men. Sadly Korean men prefer to wear a suit to a formal occasion.


6th June: Seoul
Goodbye at the bus stop.

This is almost finished but I'm going to publish it and finish it on Monday! So check back soon,
love
Squeezy

Airports, Airplanes and Layovers

Our first flight is with China Airlines from Incheon to Taipei and only takes 3 hours. The flight is packed but the service is excellent. Shame about the lunch - we ate the different options and both were terribly bland.

My first thoughts, once inside, Taipei airport are "oh crap", it was a dump! A horribly dated sevice-less dump!! But what can we do? We have 7 hours to kill and the last city tour left almost 30 minutes ago.

So we go do the transit thing; turns out it's just a security check and up an escalator and suddenly we're in departures. This dump of an airport isn't looking any better.

Determined, as we are, to get through the 7 hours with our sanity inact and to find the transit hotel, we begin walking. After 20 minutes we have found the end of the terminal and seen the tantilising view of what appears to be a much newer part of the airport. We gaze longingly through the windows, both of us transfixed by the promise of time killing diversions in a building where salmon floor tiles would be scorned...

So we keep walking, we hit more dead ends but we keep going.

After over an hour of teasing glances and depressing facilities, we happen upon a ramp with grey (!!) carpet. Mike is close to a run to see what is around the corner and up the ramp... it's salvation!! We have found the new building! Yeah!!

We pass the remainder of our time using free massage chairs (oooh yeah), free internet (and if we'd been dishonest free laptops too!), walking and then we succumb to the transit hotel. Due to the price, we just hire a room for 3 hours; we wanted the sauna but it costs just as much as the room again! The transit hotel room was $39 (US) for 3 hours and for that we had our own bathroom, TV, queen bed and floor to ceiling view of cars driving around the airport.
A bath and a Van-Damme movie and it was time to go.

On the way to our gate, we found the blind massage place and as they kindly suggested we have the 30 min upper body, we went for it. It was one of the most painful and hard massages I've ever had! Good though.

The flight to Bangkok has better food but sadly the service was abismal! (China Airlines) Considering the flight was almost empty - that's pretty bad! I watched "The Last Kiss" which while it was very good, I found it disturbing (probably because it didn't have a saccharine ending).

At last we're in Bangkok and the new airport, Suvarnabhumi, is massive ugly. Not massively ugly. Clearly the designer either has a thing for glass and steel beams or he has an interesting stock portfolio. Sadly most likely the second. Mike's been reading about the problems at this new airport and seems determined to blame anything going wrong on the airport. Granted cracks in the runway are a terrible problem. Narrow walkways are an annoyance - no wonder this airport can only handle 5,000 more people a year that good old Don Muang. We get through immigration, clear customs and find the downstairs public taxi rank quite quickly.

Mike feels its just not the same to arrive at this new airport - even the taxi ride is different. It's 2am so long as I'm in a relatively comfortable taxi, I really don't care. It feels cooler than on other visits and I am hoping that it's the night. I guess we'll see tomorrow. At least the worst travel day is over.