Stealing the Seoul of South Korea! Part 4

Alright. I'm back in Wuhan now.  Thailand with Cathy was a blast!  But just like my Japan trip last year, I've neglected my blog during my adventures.  Looks like I'll have update while the new school term begins.  Cathy is working right now and I don't go back until the 20th, so I have some time to write on this thing.  Okay, enough explanation of what's going on in Wuhan.

...Day 4, Seoul, South Korea...

Seoul Station. Sue, Kwangseok and I took public transit to the De-Militarized Zone.  We missed our train and had to sit around for an hour. Totally my bad...

The public transit route to the DMZ  had multiple passport and ticket checks.

Until Korean unification, this is the last stop going north.

A nice reminder to keep to the prescribed tourist areas of the DMZ, unless of course you want your legs to evaporate into red mist.

Kwangseok and I pose at the "camera line" that overlooks North Korea.  You cannot take photographs past the line or your camera gets taken away.

North Korea tried to dig an extensive tunneling system towards Seoul so they could easily invade it.  South Korea, upon uncovering this devious plot, turned the tunnels into a tourist attraction. Sue and I don the hardhats required to enter the tunnels.

A unification statue

Some sort of Kim Chi

We had lunch at a local restaurant in a small town.

Steamed egg

Sue bought some DMZ chocolates for Cathy.

The massive Seoul World Cup Stadium. 

Part of the stadium was converted into a supermarket.  Sue and her Kwangseok suggest to me various Korean foods and drinks to buy.

A wide variety of  makgeolli

The hill that we climbed near the stadium.  

The hill overlooked Seoul and the Han River. The view became very beautiful right at nightfall. 

A very prestigious Korean university that has some pretty good student nightlife surrounding it.  We stopped here to have dinner.

...but before that we got our appetites going. Kwangseok led the batting game while Sue and I tied for second.  It was really fun. A punching strength machine was outside as well. Apparently, some people like practicing their kicks on it.  My left hay-maker got second place.

To prevent your your jacket from getting a stinky and oily stench,  some restaurants provide a big plastic bag to put your jacket in to save it from offending people after your meal. Ingenious!

Luke warm noodle appie.

Animal's innards. I think Kwangseok and Sue were surprised that I liked this stuff.

Fried savory egg pancake?  I don't remember what it's called.

Soju. We had lots of it.

The restaurant had delicious food, but we left and walked around in search for a different taste.

BBQ pork and more soju.

Stealing the Seoul of South Korea! Part II

Day 2

Okay. I'm too busy exploring this city. It's huge, and really really cool.  In my mind, Seoul is quickly catching up to Tokyo for Paul's official coolest city in Asia.  I guess it helps that I have friends here, but day 2 was mostly me going solo.

Gyeongbokgung.  Nice park area surrounding the palace.  Japanese tourists approached me to take pictures  for them under the assumption I'm Korean.

I lucked out and saw a changing of the guard.

Insadong.  Koreans approached me to take a picture for them under the assumption that I'm Japanese.

You and your loved one can write stuff all over the place.

Toto's Nostalgia Museum. This place was really awesome.

Bruce Lee could take out Astroboy.  No problem.

Had sansachun and a BBQ dinner with Sue

Some sort of cold noodle.  It was delicious

After, we went Craftworks Taphouse in Itaewon, which is a bit of a walk away from the  major expat strip.  It was totally worth it.  They only serve tasty Korean microbrew.  Had myself a local hefeweissbier. Sue had a dark ale.

A sampler board.

London, Paris, maybe TOKYO! (Tokyo...definitely)

My favorite city in all of Asia was Hong Kong.  Don't get me wrong.  I like other Asian cities.  Shanghai is youthful.  Beijing is full of exploration.  Manila is an adventure.  But now it is very clear to me.  Tokyo is the definitely the place. Actually, I think it even beats Paris on my list of cool cities.

I arrived just before sundown.  As I got to my hostel, I was greeted by a bunch of backpacking hippies. My hostel room reeked so much like man-sweat, I immediately began to miss the Joyce's place in Sendai.  Maybe it was because I was so used to being around such people over the 3 weeks of my backpacking trip, I began to not want to see them anymore.  Spent a bit of time looking for other accommodations around Asakusa, but stumbled across some interesting attractions along the way. I got to see some nicer accommodations for about the same price, and a major temple.  I also came across an internet cafe which rented adult mags and vids, sold new underwear and had small, cramped booths with both a computer and aTV with a DVD player...aiaaahh perverts!).  It was also packed with people, which made it all the more weird. I just wanted to check my email.  I washed my hands so many times after touching the keyboard, you'd think I was a germophobe.  Well, I guess in those few minutes, I guess I would count as one.

Dinner was small and inexpensive.  Many places were closing down as I continued across the Asakusa region.  It also started to drizzle snow, so I stepped into a "shot bar," where there was all you can drink for dirt cheap.  An interesting experience happened. 

I saw a bunch of these kinds of places around, but it didn't really click into my head that these places were for heavyweight whiskey connoisseurs.  As I sat down at a bar stool, I realized that this place had a capacity for max 8 people.  There was another guy there just drinking in silence.  I decided to follow suit, although once the bartender found out I was a gaijin, him and I had a long conversation about Vancouver, what I do in China, the various budo I have studied, different kinds of drinks and how much I missed my girl.

I swear the place had about 100 or more types of whiskeys, sakes, and various other kinds of hard liquor.  I mostly tried my favorite: single malt scotch whiskys.  The one that stood out above all was the Islay single malt Lagavulin.  It actually tasted like burning.

I also tried various sakes, which I didn't particularly enjoy.  Most of them reminded me of baijiu back in Wuhan.  I could stand it, so I delved into some American whiskeys that I would probably never try ever again. Okay fine, I'd drink Maker's Mark again because it was delicious.

The cool night air kept me focused and awake.  As I walked back to my stinky hostel, where it still took me quite a while to fall asleep despite all the drinks I had, I ran into Ultraman near the BanDai commercial building. Strange way to end my first night in Tokyo, but whatever.  More fun was to come!!

Takayama

I had some great outdoor adventures in the little town of Takayama - a small hamlet that looked over the Japanese Alps. It took a good to chunk of time just to get there, but it was well worth it.

I just scored. Found a free serve-yourself sake tasting cabinet.

The air in Takayama was cold and crisp.  The ground was covered in snow, and I sort of got there late in the day.  That didn't stop me from trekking up one of the nearby hills on foot.

I have to admit I do some pretty dumb ass things in nature when I'm alone.  At the trail head just before this picture of me in the snow, I saw warning signs not to continue on the path because it was slippery and snowed in. They were in Japanese and I can't read Japanese, but it was pretty obvious.  I continued on after seeing hundreds of footprints in the snow going past the sign.

Hiking around Takayama was refreshing.  Before this, most of my walking had been urban walks (from Guangzhou up to this point in my journeys, save Miyajima).  Ran into a guy with a group of dogs, but aside from that, the walk was just me, snow, and clean air.

After coming down the hill, I stopped at the local library to check my email.  I was very impressed by the library and wanted to take pictures inside of it to show my mom (who is a teacher librarian), but the librarian told me not to take pics. 

I asked where I could get some good food, and the staff told me to get some Hida gyu, which had meat quality standards similar to that in Kobe.  So I stopped at one place on the major road that ran through town to get a Hida beef noodle bowl.

I was craving a Guinness.  After a somewhat unsuccessful search for an Irish pub (I found one and the lights were on, but it was closed), I went back to my hotel and soaked myself in their external rooftop onsen. It was a clean and beautiful onsen and no one was around.  The snow came down slowly like powered sugar. I had the onsen all to myself for an hour and a half.  The only bad part was that I forgot my towel in my room.  I walked back soaking wet, but felt like a million bucks!

Hida Gyu dinner

This one's for my mom.  Buen Camino!

More Beijing Pictures

"Men at Work"

The Flag at the Imperial Throne Room

Silly Forbidden City Antics

"You're not a real man if you haven't climbed the Great Wall" - Mao Zedong

Anthony basking in his Great Wall manliness

Cindy and Myself becoming manlier!

THIS IS CHINA!!!!

Great Wall After Shot

Roller Coaster Slide!!!  Definitely the best way down the Wall.

Kerosene...I mean baijiu.

Beijing Breakfast Crepe

Head-bopping calligrapher

Jenga!!!

Final evening in a chill hutong bar - cards, Jenga, Leffe Blond, and Paulaner Oktoberfest