20/11/12 – 21/11/12 – South Korea. *Insert Seoul-based pun here*

20/11/12

Firstly, it’s amazing how quickly this stuff gets away from you. Every day that I’ve been on this trip so far has been packed full of adventures, and when I think back on what I’ve done, I’ve done so very much, and it seems like even a mere 24 hours ago feels like an entire week ago. But yet, every night when I get in to bed, I think to myself “I’m too tired to blog. I’ll do it tomorrow.” BAM! Three days’ worth of blogs have piled up on me. I’m aiming to get to sleep before midnight, so some parts might be regrettably a bit hazy.

Our first day in Seoul started quite late. We were exhausted from our travels from Hong Kong to Seoul the previous day, so we had a good sleep in in the morning. When we did finally awake, I threw together a rough plan of what we wanted to see and do that day. We started off by heading to Techno Mart, in the Gangbyeon district. I was interested in seeing Seoul’s technological side for which it is so famous, but our primary reason for going here was the food court – cheap eats, and traditional Korean food for our late breakfast/early lunch. While the foodcourt certainly was aimed at locals, they had plastic food examples of all of the meals served. This was fantastic for us foreigners, as we were able to merely take a photo of the meal we wanted, show the shop keep, and then they would make it for us. A brilliant, foolproof system. Emma had… actually, I’m not entirely sure what Emma had. Or rather, I’m not sure what it’s called. It was fried chicken with rice, served with like most traditional Korean food, about three or four different sides. Most were pickled vegetables of some sort, generally different forms of Kimchi. I had bimibap, which is hot rice in a bowl served with lots of different chopped vegetables and a raw egg on top. Doesn’t sound very tasty, but the heat of the rice cooks the egg, and you end up with a really delicious meal.

Anyways, after our yummy start to the day, we had a look around the Techno Mart. Given the name “Techno-Mart”, I thought that it would have some form of inherent technology. But, the level we walked through was all clothes and other apparel. I gave up pretty quickly, and we headed on to the rest of our activities for the day. Only later did I discover that all of the “techno” parts of Techno Mart were in the higher levels of the building. Oh well, I wasn’t going to buy much anyway.

Our next destination was Namdaemun market. “Market” isn’t really an apt word to describe the scale of this market. “City full of people selling shit” is more appropriate. The streets were covered in stalls, selling mainly apparel goods, but there was also a good range of street food, and other more quirky wares on sale. Then, inside the buildings around the streets are more bloody markets. The whole thing takes up a few city blocks, and when this is combined with the maze-like structure of streets, it is easy to be overwhelmed by all of the things on show. Emma did come out of there with some nice hats, whereas I came out of there with some delicious street food.

A small word on my favourite street food of South Korea – “Hoddeok”. Hoddeoks are amazing. They’re amazing cakes stuffed with amazing amazingness. In all seriousness though, they are essentially small cakes made of a doughnut-like batter, shallow fried in oil or margarine, with melted brown sugar and sunflower seeds in the middle of them. They’re occasionally dusted in cinnamon sugar as well. They. Are. Amazing. Really bad for you, but they warm you up so much inside on a cold Seoul day. If/when you go to Seoul, buy them by the truckload. At only $1AUD each, they’re a bargain. That is, until your health insurance doesn’t cover “extreme obesity due to Hoddeok obsession”.

This market really showed off just how trendy of a place Seoul is – everything looks really smart, but at the same time, the prices were quite reasonable. I don’t know why we can’t have that in Australia, instead of either really cheap, awful-looking clothes, or super expensive, nice-looking clothes.

We took a breather from the madness of the market, and had a bite to eat from one of the countless 7-Elevens nearby. I had some weird drink called “Sunny 10 Blast”. I’m always one to try random drinks that I’ve never seen before. It makes things interesting, and only about 15% of the time are they truly, indescribably disgusting (see Thailand, black jelly drink of death for more info).

After our break, we headed for the Namsangol Hanok traditional folk village. While this is still right in the middle of Seoul, they’ve managed to import an entire traditional village into a park, and preserve it for cultural posterity. We decided to rock up there to have a peek around. However, being a Tuesday, it was closed. What. Something I’ve discovered about travelling around Asia: don’t expect things to be open on Tuesdays. It’s happened to me several times, and I have no idea why it is the case, but don’t travel on Tuesdays. If you want to see any national landmarks? Monday is fine. So is Wednesday through Friday. But Tuesday? DENIED.

Anyways, everything wasn’t completely lost, as we were more of the opinion to “take it or leave it” in regards to the village. There was a nice park attached to the village though, which, amazingly enough, wasn’t closed. I’m sure if they could close it on a Tuesday, they would though.

I was very pleased when looking around the park, as I was worried when booking the trip that we would arrive too late to see any of the autumn leaves. Thankfully, this was not the case. While it wasn’t a bouquet of reds, oranges and yellows in every direction you looked, there were still many, many trees showing their autumn leaves. And they were damn pretty. So much so, I think I have a good few hundred photos of leaves on my camera. Don’t worry, they won’t all end up on Facebook. Only the top 50 or so.

By now, it was about 4pm, and with the sun slowly going down, the temperature dropped right off. Emma and I, feeling the fatigue that the cold brings, decided to head back to the hotel for an afternoon nap.

When we awoke, we were spending the evening meeting up with one of Emma’s friends from her days at TAFE. Yunna, a South Korean woman, was kind enough to meet up with us and had agreed to show us around her favourite parts of this amazing city. Upon meeting her at Anguk station, I was witness to a truly happy reunion. Emma and Yunna hadn’t seen each other in about five years, but in the space of about five seconds, they were chatting away like no time had passed at all.

Yunna took us to a local restaurant, that specialised in bean curd-based dishes. Much like our brunch earlier in the day, when we ordered the food, there were too many dishes to actually list them all. I know that there was some tofu served with kimchi, and a delicious beef broth-stew that was both sweet and savoury at the same time. Korean food strikes a delicate balance between these elements quite frequently – with a good kick of hot chilli added for good effect, too.

Yunna, Emma and I chatted away about our current lives. I discovered that Yunna used to be a flight attendant for KLM, and now she works for a software company that designs the booking engines for loads of airlines. Naturally, being the plane geek that I am, we had a fair bit to discuss. I really enjoyed the meal, and especially the company.

The other fantastic thing about eating with a local is that you go to local restaurants and try local food. You also don’t pay the “tourist tax”, as they don’t usually cater to the tourist market and as such don’t charge the (rightfully) higher fees. In total, our meal cost us less than $40AUD, and this was enough food for three adults. Staggeringly cheap, and so full of flavour.

After dinner, we went for a stroll through the local alleyways. According to Yunna, this area used to be a home to local artists and artisans. But, it was recently discovered by the “trendy” crowd of Seoul, and as such has been rapidly gentrified. Now only the really prominent artists live here, and it is more known for its boutique coffee shops and trendy clothing labels.

She led us up a winding road, which ended in a hill that while not a massive hill – especially compared to the rocky mountains in the distance – had a very pretty view over this area of Seoul. On top of it, was a traditional-looking tea house, where we sat down (on the floor) to drink some local teas. Mine was made with mulberry leaves, whereas Yunna’s, while I’m not sure what it was made of, tasted very close to gingerbread. A very impressive blend indeed..

We then strolled around downtown Seoul, and ended up near Gwanghamun station and city hall. We parted ways with Yunna, and took the long subway ride home.

When we got in, we had a quick skim over Seoul’s TV channels. Sadly, I couldn’t find a channel devoted only to StarCraft battles. Maybe it’s only on cable? They do however, have a channel which appears to be purely ads of 15/30 seconds in duration. It took me a good 10 minutes to actually realise that there was no program coming up. Which, to be quite honest, didn’t really bother me, as I find the ads in Asian companies more entertaining than the shows themselves.

21/11/12

Another late start today. Exhaustion is starting to take effect a bit. I hate to say it, but I need a holiday on this holiday! But that is what Japan is for – there are several places there where we have lots of days for “breathing room”. It’s all hurry hurry hurry at the start of the holiday, but things will slow down soon. I hope…

Much like yesterday, we started today by heading to another local food court. These really are a great way to eat. Cheap and authentic food, with no pretentious atmosphere. What more could you want? Today, it was Emma’s turn to get the bibimbap, whereas I had some form of beef dish cooked on a stone hotplate. Very tasty food. The ordering method was interesting though, with a centralised cashier for all of the individual stalls, and you just take a ticket to the individual shop to pick up your order. This is interesting when the entire menu is in Korean, but the “take a photo and show it to a staff member” method worked a charm again. Emma also got her first lot of compliments for the day, with the lovely lady who made our food loudly proclaiming that Emma was “Beautiful! Beautiful!”. This always makes me feel chuffed.

Actually, we’ve both been getting  a lot of stares on our travels so far. Especially in Korea, where the Caucasian population is probably outnumbered about ten thousand to one. I probably only saw one other Caucasian person each day in Korea, except for at the airport. They’re generally nice stares though, so we don’t mind.

After our delicious breakfast/lunch/meal, we headed for Gamsuro-gil street, a street in the Gangnam area of town. Yes, “Gangnam” as in “Gangnam Style”. Much like in the music video, the area was a mishmash of bizarre clothing stores, designer labels, and indie coffee shops. It was definitely one of the more affluent areas of Seoul, albeit aimed at a younger generation. Emma found some nice sunglasses in one of the side streets, which made her very, very happy.

We then headed to Changdeokgung, an area of Seoul in which the royal families used to live. We arrived there at about 3pm, and thought we’d just have a quick gander around the place. Yunna had mentioned the previous day about a “Secret Garden” that you could see, which was meant to be very nice. When I went to buy our tickets for admission to the Secret Garden, I discovered that apparently it is a guided tour, and that you had to partake in the tour, as general admittance was not allowed. I was initially a bit worried by this, thinking that I had screwed up another activity again. However, we managed to rock up just before the last English tour of the day started. That was totally intentional, I swear.

The tour itself was well worth the meagre price of admission. Inside the garden was a winding trail through an autumn-leaved forest, full of several old Korean castle-buildings designed to house both the royal family and their servants. Apparently it is especially beautiful during the autumn season, and I couldn’t have agreed more with that sentiment. Really amazing stuff. I’ll let the photos do the explaining on this one, whenever I get the chance to upload them.

After a lovely afternoon walk through this forest, I wanted to have one last try of seeing the techno-side to Seoul. We headed for the Yongsan electronics superstore. It didn’t disappoint. After getting out at the station, we were confronted by a seemingly endless hall of super shiny cameras and their equipment. I actually walked into here with my Nikon Camera hanging around my neck. Bad idea. About ten different people started yelling at me “Where you from? We sell Nikon Camera! Nikon!” I couldn’t really blame them for trying, but I wasn’t interested in buying anything – number one because I don’t know the first thing about camera lenses and equipment and number two because it was all so expensive.

A few levels further up into this superstore, and Emma and I Found this adorable pet shop with a super cute rabbit in it. We need to move to Asia so we can have a rabbit as a pet!

The next level up was a bookstore and computer accessories store. I actually quite liked this level. Emma went off and looked at her stationery, whereas I headed to a computer parts store, and I bought a few handy cables and accessories I’ve needed for a while, all for a fraction of the cost that it would cost on either ebay, or from a bricks and mortar store in Australia.

Without realising the time, we were now running late for our second meetup with Yunna. We dashed out of the store, and ran back to Yongsan station. This is the first time that Seoul’s subway system became confusing. Yongsan station is a big station, serving most of the lines of Seoul. Most of the other subway stations we had been to served only one or two different lines. This one served about seven. All of the other stations had platforms designated by line number, as there are lines one through nine in the Seoul metro system. This station was divided up by platform number. Thankfully I resisted the urge to just jump on a train and hope for the best, as some of them were express trains, and Seoul’s metro network is very daunting for the unfamiliar traveller.

A few quick observations on Seoul’s metro system while I remember. They like their music. They have musical motifs when the trains are approaching the stations. One sounds like a jovial and upbeat version of the theme from “Rocky”, trumpets and all. Another sounds like a jewellery box mixed with a door chime. When you’re on board the trains, they also play a musical motif before arriving at a station where you can transfer to another line. It’s a handy reminder, but it took me ages to figure out why on earth they were playing this weird traditional-sounding music at seemingly random intervals throughout the journey. It’s all very interesting. Finally, I have to take my hat off to Seoul’s metro on their accessibility for people who don’t speak Korean. Every announcement onboard is spoken in Korean, English, Japanese and Cantonese. They’re really trying their hardest to make it as accessible as possible.

We then caught up with Yunna for the second night. We met up with her at Gwanghamun station, where we jumped into a cab and headed for another area of the city. I’d be lying if I said I knew where it was, but it sure was nice. We went to a traditional restaurant where we sat on the floor to have dinner. Emma and Yunna had rice with nuts wrapped in lotus leaves, whereas I had a spicy pork soup, and the usual side dishes of kimchi, squid, fish, spinach and other assorted things. Once again another very tasty meal at a local restaurant.

We then went for a look through myeong-dong, where I had my third or fourth hotteok for the trip. Delicious. Hazardous to my health, but delicious. We had a look inside a fantastically quirky store, filled with loads of odds and ends that made you go “oh wow, that’s awesome” at everything. I bought a few cool things for the office back in Brisbane, and some small cat-shaped post it notes. Emma, among other things, got a mirror for her wallet that looks like a credit card from the back. Very handy.

We then strolled down a main street, and we took photos in front of Lotte department store. It was lit up with its unseasonal Christmas lights. I don’t know, but it just feels weird to see all of these decorations in Asia. I mean, they have every right to celebrate Christmas, but it just feels unusual when compared to the explosion of festive-ness that is somewhere such as New York at Christmas time.

The night was getting late, so we then went for some nice ice cream and coffee, at the red mango bar. After chatting with Yunna for a while, it was nearing midnight, so we had to leave to take the long subway ride home. Saying goodbye to Yunna was tough – she was such a sweetheart, and the most amazing guide to this amazing city. I can’t wait to come back to Seoul and catch up with her again, or even better, it’d be great for her to come back to Australia soon to see us!

Tomorrow/Whenever I next have internet access: Tokyo! Snow Monkeys! Railway rides through canyons and stuff!

19/11/12 – Hong Kong to Seoul, and Harry to the Rescue Again!

Today was a day that I had a few plans for in Hong Kong, but unfortunately they were not to be. Our flight to Seoul left at 2pm in the afternoon, which meant we needed to be at the airport by 12pm. Our day was meant to start bright and early, but due to sleeping in, it started slightly less bright and slightly less early. A quick breakfast was in order, during which I barely had time to scoff down a bowl of cereal before we headed out for the morning’s activities.

I really wanted to visit Hong Kong Park, because I was yet to see any form of grass in the whole of Hong Kong. But, due to our delayed start to the day, we were definitely against the clock. A brisk walk through the bustling streets of Sheung Wan, and we were soon on the subway to Admiralty. In the guide, it said that the park was a quick walk from exit A of Admiralty station. Perhaps something had changed since the guide was written, because between the station and where the park apparently was, was a series of impenetrable high traffic roads that certainly didn’t make it easy to even see where the park is. Also, Hong Kong seems to have these fantastic little guide posts at every corner that point you in the direction of all of the local tourist sights. Not here though. I tried in vain to find one to lead us the right way. After walking around frustratedly for a good 20 minutes, I regrettably decided cut our losses and gave up on getting to the park, and instead just head back to the room. Clearly this was just poor planning on my behalf. Perhaps another time. If I come back to Hong Kong, I’ll spend only a day or two here and I’ll go have high tea at the Peninsula Hotel, and then have a leisurely stroll through Hong Kong Park. Who knows when that will be, but it is officially on my “to do” list.

After getting back to the room, we packed up and checked out. At reception, I left a jar of Vegemite and some Tim Tams for Harry – presents I forgot to give him a few nights earlier. Harry said he’d swing by after work and pick them up. Why am I mentioning this? You’ll see why later.

We then took our bags through the tangled maze that is Sheung Wan, and made it to the MTR. A quick ride to Central later, and we were presented with the dilemma of whether or not we should take advantage of Hong Kong’s in-town check in service for flights. The upside is that you can check in in the city, and they take your luggage to the airport on the train, and you don’t see it again until you collect it from the arrivals hall at your destination. The downside is is that it means more people handling your luggage and therefore more chances for it to get lost. We decided to scope it out, to see how many people were using the service, and by extension, how reliable and safe it was. There were loads of people checking in for various airlines, and none at the time for Cathay Pacific, the airline we’d be on today. We took it as a sign, and decided to take advantage of this service. It did feel weird checking in for a flight at a train station, though.

The train ride to the airport was fascinating – the 25 minute journey from Central to the Airport was full of high rises, urban development, and then tiny fishing villages, all right next to a high speed train line. It made me want to get off and explore, but obviously we had places to be.

At the airport, I wanted to check out the observation deck, whereas Emma wanted to check out lipstick. Our time was limited, only about 70 minutes or so before we departed, so we decided to split up. I soon discovered that our agreed upon time of 30 minutes to ourselves wouldn’t nearly be enough. The observation deck was literally at the opposite end of the other terminal to where I was. A brisk walk was definitely in order. I managed to get over there in about 12 minutes, so I calculated that I had all of six minutes to spend at the observation deck. This was a little bit of a letdown, but during those six minutes, I managed to see two jumbo jets take off, and a handful of smaller aircraft. This is Hong Kong, after all – a very, very busy airport.

When I met back up with Emma, we cleared immigration, security and then immigration again (???), and then we were soon airside. We needed a quick bite to eat before our flight, so we headed to a “popeye’s chicken”. The appeal of this place was unknown – I don’t really know why we ate there, but the chicken was tasty and fairly good value for money. What’s more, they accepted the Octopus Card, which allowed us to use up most of the remaining credit on our cards.

We then navigated our way through the baffling maze that is Chek Lap Kok airport. We headed down several escalators, into a subterranean train system, that took us to a gate area where our plane was parked. We made it with just enough time for Emma to buy some fancy lipstick, and then we were boarding.

Cathay Pacific Flight CX418 HKG – ICN

Airbus A330-300, B-HLT

Captain Mike Sinclair

Intended Pushback: 1405

Actual Pushback: 1406

Intended Arrival: 1830

Actual Arrival: 1827

Seat: 32K

This flight was the definition of non-eventful. The aircraft pushed back more or less exactly on time, the flight landed on time. The food was average, the service was average. The views, due to the haze over Hong Kong, and the clouds over the East China Sea, were average. I did get a good look at Hong Kong Island as we climbed out, and the clouds parted for a little while as we headed over Taiwan, which made for some interesting, yet brief scenery. Due to us sitting at the front of the economy, the flight was pleasantly quiet, too.

There wasn’t anything fundamentally *wrong* with the flight, aside from Emma’s lacklustre gluten free meal, but there wasn’t anything outstanding about it, either. The aircraft was old, with really poor seatback screens which became unwatchable when the tiniest amount of light shone on them, and the crew seemed to be just going through the motions. Perhaps it was because it was a regional route, and not one of their premiere routes, but it certainly didn’t make me want to book my next holiday with Cathay Pacific. Maybe I would if I could guarantee that I’d be on a newer plane, but they’ve had the same type of aircraft delivered with many different layouts, so Cathay Pacific is known for their chronic product inconsistencies.

We were soon coming in to land, with Seoul’s spread out cityscape sparkling in the evening light. After a smooth touchdown, we were soon de-boarding the aircraft. Because we were only three rows back from the very front of economy, we were off the plane very quickly.

Seoul airport is very easy to get around, with another underground rail system used to transfer passengers from the satellite terminal to the main one. We then had to queue for a quite a while to get through immigration, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as LAX, or other US airports. We were soon ground-side, and I went about sorting out a T-Money card for both Emma and I. They’re essentially the Octopus Card of Hong Kong, the Go Card of Brisbane, or the MyKi card of Melbourne. I then organised renting a phone for our short stay in Seoul. For only $8 AUD a day for an iPhone 4, it was pretty good value. What’s more, it came with unlimited data usage – essentially what I’ll be using it for. $32 for a phone that can display where we are in a very large and confusing city? Worth every penny, if you ask me.

We then bought a bus ticket to the City Air Terminal, and we were soon speeding down one of Seoul’s many expressways. The journey was meant to take about 70 minutes, but I swear it took less than an hour. Seoul has a lot of highways. Lots and lots. Also, coming from the narrow, winding streets of Hong Kong, it was quite a change of pace to see such a large, widespread city layout. Clearly space isn’t an issue here.

After getting off the bus, the first thing to hit me about Seoul was the heat. Or, the extreme lack thereof. It was freezing cold. This was a very nice change of pace from the stinking heat of Australia, and the unpleasant humidity of Hong Kong. We grabbed our bags, and braved the cold of the outside as we walked from the bus terminal to the subway station.

The subway stations in Seoul seem to have alright English signage. Not nearly as good as Hong Kong or Tokyo, but still enough to get by on. A short hop on the subway later, and we were at our local district, the now infamous Gangnam area. Another freezing cold walk through the streets awaited us when we got above ground, but it wasn’t long before we were safe and sound in our hotel.

The room is… in a word… interesting. It has a tiny, tiny window, about the size of an A4 sheet of paper, hidden away behind a part of the wall that swings away like a cupboard door. It also has a massive TV, and a fairly big bathroom, yet very little in the way of actual floor space. There’s also some weird ornate decorations on the roof, which are driving Emma, the interior design student, absolutely batshit crazy. Still, the two guys in the lobby are quite caring and are doing a good job taking care of us, even with their limited English knowledge.

As I unpacked my bag, I noticed that I was missing something – my camera! Thankfully not my DSLR, but I had definitely left my little pocket camera behind in Hong Kong. However, as I sat down to write this blog, I received a message from the amazing Harry Chik. When he went to pick up his Tim Tams and Vegemite from the hotel, he had been notified that I’d forgotten my camera. He said that he would pick it up and mail it back to Australia for me. Absolute bloody legend!

Anyways, that’s all for today. Thanks again Harry, if you’re reading this.

Tomorrow: Seoul! Invisible Horse Riding! Markets! Stuff!

18/11/12 – Honkers.

Today was a much less fast-paced day compared to the previous. We started off having a leisurely breakfast and chatting to an older couple from Perth. They are in Hong Kong for the next few weeks – a much longer stay than our mere three nights.

After breakfast, we headed out to start our day. Originally, I had fairly grand plans as to what I wanted to do today, including having high tea at the Peninsula Hotel. However, we realised that Emma was gluten intolerant, and wouldn’t be able to eat any of the tasty treats they provide. I actually called up the hotel to see if they had gluten free options available. They do! But, you need to advise them two days in advance. Crap. In two days we’d be in Seoul. Oh well, take that one off the list then. Perhaps another time.

I had a few things that I really wanted to do. One of which, geekily enough, was to check out a few model aircraft stores that I’d heard about in Hong Kong. There was one in Central, and one on the mainland in an area called Prince Edward. Seeing as the Central one was much, much closer, we decided to start there. We headed to the Man Yee arcade, a very swish shopping centre. The first time I looked through the directory, I couldn’t see the listing for the store, and was pretty sure that the shopping centre looked far too up-class to have a dingy model aircraft shop in it. So, we headed outside the arcade, and looked for any other building with the name “Man Yee”. There was a laneway nearby called “Man Yee Lane”, but it was really a dirty back alley. Still, it couldn’t hurt to have a look through there, just in case there was the store in there.

Nope. All that was down there were a few aluminium can depositories and a rather sad looking used clothes stall. We did a loop around the block, and on the way, Emma found a book store. She had a look inside, and while most of the books were in Cantonese, there was an excellent stationery section. Now, I’m not sure how many of you reading personally know Emma, but if you do, you’ll be aware of her burning white hot passion for stationery. Did I mention that everything stationery in Hong Kong is still the official name brands, but about a quarter of the price that it is in Australia? Well, needless to say, Emma was a happy girl after that store.

We headed back into the arcade, doing a double check for the store. Emma took one look at the directory, and then spotted where it was in the centre. I really should read things more thoroughly. We headed up to the top level of Man Yee Arcade, and found the store. It was closed, due to it being a Sunday. I asked the information desk what time it would open on Monday, and the lady informed me that it would be about “1pm tomorrow”. By that time on Monday, we’d be on a real plane, on our way to Seoul. Crap.

So then, we decided to head to Central Station, and on to Prince Edward. On the way, we were starting to get fairly hungry, so we stopped in at a McDonald’s to grab a quick bite to eat. I’m going to try and limit myself to one McDonald’s meal per country on this trip. Let’s see how that goes… Anyways, after waiting in line at the crowded McDonald’s, we got our meal and headed out into the nearby alleyway. In the district that we were in, there were a lot of fillipino women hanging around. Being a Sunday, I deduced that all (or at least the majority of them) were maids, and that Sunday was their only day off of the week. Needless to say, being the only two Caucasian people in the street led to a lot of long stares at us. Some were friendly and smiling, to which we smiled and waved back. Others were less so. Some were just creepy deadpan ogling. Nothing frightening, but not very welcome attention.

After scoffing down my strange marinated chicken burger… thing… We got on the subway and headed for Prince Edward. One thing that I’ve noticed about Hong Kong’s subway is that it is very windy. Not inside the station mind you, the glass doors between the train tracks and the platforms prevents this. Rather, inside the trains themselves, when they gather speed, there is a significant amount of blustery wind within the carriages. I’m not entirely sure if this is the air blowing in from outside, or if the air conditioning fans are just linked in proportion to the speed of the subway train. Either way, it makes for a refreshing trip each time you step on.

Once we arrived in Prince Edward, we headed for a nearby shopping mall. Within it, I was looking for a particular model plane shop. I rounded a corner, and soon found the store. I went in, and had a really nice chat to the owner, Danny, who spoke very good English. We talked about everything aviation-nerd-like, and thankfully Emma wasn’t too bothered by my excessive chatter with him. I ended up buying two models from the store, a Qantas Airbus A380-800, with the registration of VH-OQC. For those of you paying attention (and I fully don’t expect you to), that was the exact aircraft that brought me to Hong Kong no less than 48 hours ago. I thought it was fitting to get a model of the plane that was the most enjoyable flight I’ve been on. I also got a JAL Boeing 767-300ER, the aircraft that will take me from Seoul to Japan in a few days’ time.

After spending a good 20 minutes inside the store, I headed outside, happy with my purchases. We had a quick browse around the other floors.  Bad idea. I discovered that this shopping centre had at least another two model aircraft stores in it. I went into each, and had a nice long look around, and bought an aircraft from each of them. A Cathay Pacific Airbus A330-300, the plane that will take me to Seoul tomorrow, and a Qantas Boeing 737-800, with the registration VH-VZD. The only reason I got this one is because that was the rego of my very first flight to Melbourne, back in 2009. This bloody plane is what started my travel bug. I blame it for the thousands of dollars I’ve spent on seeing the world. Actually, I shouldn’t blame it, I should thank it. The travel bug is a fantastic thing to have.

We then exited the mall before I spent any more money on model aircraft, and headed back through a “goldfish market” street to the subway station. The goldfish street, while pretty, was also very cruel. Hundreds of fish in plastic bags, only just bigger than their bodies. They floated there in the water, idly stroking their fins through the still water. What’s worse, they had even larger aquatic animals at the back of the shop. One tank, the size of your average suburban fish tank, contained a baby sea turtle. This made me feel very disgusted, and we left without paying the shop any more attention. Clearly animal rights isn’t very high on the list of the Chinese’s priorities.

A short subway ride later, and we were back in Sheung Wan. We stopped in at a chain restaurant, Café de Coral. Judging by the size of the crowds in there, it was popular with the locals. We had BBQ Pork and Chicken with rice. And, at around $4AUD for the meal, it was fantastic value for money.

We then went back to the room, where Emma had a nap, and I uploaded some travel photos to Facebook. As a side note, all of this reporting on my travels takes a lot more time than I remember! A good two hours flew by while I chose, uploaded, tagged and wrote descriptions for all of the photos. Still, I shouldn’t complain. I enjoy sharing the experience, in whatever way I can.

After the nap, we decided to go to the Peak. It was really the last big “tourist” thing to do on our list in Hong Kong. Harry had told us the previous night a few things about The Peak. Firstly, that the tram up to it is fairly hair-raising stuff. Secondly, that the view is spectacular. Thirdly, that it is a very big tourist trap. He was right on all accounts. The tram ride was incredibly steep. The view, even on the cloudy night we went on, was amazing. We were able to see across the harbour and into the distance, the millions of lights of the thousands of buildings twinkling in the evening air.

Finally, The Peak is a big tourist trap. The tram dumps you out into a large shopping mall built on top of the mountain, with all of the touristy restaurants being there. Including a Bubba Gump’s. This time, we resisted, and decided not to eat there. This shopping centre was almost impossible to find your way out of, too. There were no clear signs – obviously they wanted you to stay in there and shop as long as possible. I spent a good 15 minutes frustratedly walking around inside, trying to just find a way to get out without setting off a fire alarm.

Eventually we did, and the view outside was brilliant. We then turned our attention to the issue of dinner. There was one restaurant I had read about in the guide that I was keen to go to, but upon actually seeing it, I was turned off by its tackiness and fake-ness. Emma agreed wholeheartedly. We ended up eating at quite a nice Vietnamese restaurant that based all of its food off of Vietnamese street food. So, for dinner, we had some nice light salads and rice paper rolls. Very tasty, and while not super cheap, it was a reasonably priced dinner.

Afterwards, we made our way back down the slopes on the tram, all the while I marvelled at how steep an angle we were travelling at. When you look out and see buildings which are at some bizarre angle to your field of vision, it is quite disorienting.

All in all, it was a fun day, and a nice way to finish off our time in Hong Kong.

Tomorrow: Our last few hours in Hong Kong, and then onto Seoul! The home of people who ride invisible horses and sing one really catchy tune!