July Review

This is a very late and abbreviated July review, as a holiday took over most of August.

The start of July continued on the World Cup in Brazil. Unlike the exciting group stage, the rest of the tournament was lacking in goals and interest. Typically an early goal by the team dominating possession would kill off the game. The only real highlight was the massive 7-1 win by Germany over Brazil in the semi final. The final was at least more competitive than that, when the goal finally came for Germany in extra time it was a pretty good highlight and a nice way to finish a tournament that overall was still one of the best.

The Tour De France was also running through July, but with many of the main competitors pulling out along the way it was always going to be a victory for Nibali. There was a number of good stages this year - the rainy day on the cobblestones with massive crashes, and the many hill stages were the peloton broke apart and the top riders all finished in separate groups rather than just being bunched together day after day.

I had another visit to the physio as my leg injury has made no real improvement, I got another round of stretches that are actually difficult to perform, so there is a chance they will actually lead to an improvement in strength if I keep doing them. I also think I need to try and change my running style to:

• Run with me feet pointed straight ahead, instead of slightly inwards
• Run more on the front of my feet than on my heel

My time at work has been acceptable as I'm still splitting time between two projects, which actually means I don't really have the pressure of reporting in my progress to either team quite as much. I also won four gold class tickets for the previous quarter, but there are no good movies out at the moment. I had two on-call sessions for the month, my normal weekend which started with heaps of false alarms but then went through without incident, then I stupidly offered to pick up a free week shift, which was going great until I was in the middle of cooking a big dinner on Thursday night and the alarms kept going off. I had to spent over an hour looking into a misdiagnosed problem that didn't really end up being a problem.

After a few weeks off I finally got back into a bit of baking at the end of the month. I went with something fun - finger buns, but they took forever to make and almost occupied a whole night. Still, I think the result was worth it in the end.

Despite the injuries I was still able to attend two running competitions - a Coburg 12km fun run and the 10km event at The Age Run Melbourne. The Coburg event I had a slow start and was at the back of a pack of six runners, with one other fast runner well ahead. I was stuck in third just behind one guy up until 7km and thought I was never going to catch him, but then he finally broke and I was able to finish in a very comfortable second place in a time of 46:56 for 12km, although my Garmin watch recorded a distance about 200 metres less than that. It was just good to see I hadn't lost a significant amount of speed due to taking some time off with the latest batch of injuries.

Out on the course.

The trophy presentations.

For the much bigger Run Melbourne I got to the start pretty early and was about 10 rows back from the front. I felt very sluggish at the start of the race and had a particularly slow third kilometre for some reason, it went from 3:47 to 4:10 then back to 3:44. After I reached the apex of the hill at The Tan I was feeling great and finished out the second half of the race quite strongly, overtaking a number of runners all the way to the end. I finished 40th overall in a time of 38:33 for 10km, which was actually about 30 seconds off my personal best but still good enough.

After the race I went to a toy and collectibles fair where I thought I might find some good basketball card boxes to buy, or perhaps some other good retro video games. Sadly it was a lot smaller than I thought it would be, there was a few boxes of basketball cards but no good value, and most of the rest of the stalls were selling AFL cards or random vintage toys.

Another big sporting event took over later in the month, the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. I used the PVR to record up to 10 hours of action overnight, then had to flick through at 64 times normal speed to find anything good to watch - sometimes there wasn't much. The highlights included:

• Cycling
• Marathon
• Swimming
• Track (but not field)
• Triathlons

And now for the usual summary items:

• Books
• Console Wars
• Great background into Nintendo vs. Sega, mostly during the Mega Drive era
• Lots of insider information from the Sega staff
• 9 out of 10
•  Cujo by Stephen King
• A shorter story than most by Stephen King
• Good character development like usual
• 7 out of 10
• TV
• The Challenge Rivals 2
• Fantastic as usual, over too soon
• CT finally won
• 10 out of 10
• Revolution
• A terrible finish, they just wanted a third season but got cancelled
• Not satisfying at all, not worth watching
• 2 out of 10
• 24 Live Another Day
• A pretty good return, and a shorter 12 episode format helped
• Still too many of the typical twists to keep the story running
• 6 out of 10
• Video Games
• Grid 2
• Played a couple of hours, getting slightly better but not great
• I searched for some games in the city Cash Converters store, but didn't find any retro bargains
• I purchased a batch order of games, which I hopefully get around to playing after my holiday
• Wii
• Mario Galaxy 2
• New Super Mario Bros
• Pikmin
• Super Paper Mario
• XBox 360
• Call Of Duty - Black Ops 2
• Call Of Duty - Ghosts
• Diablo 3

Asia Holiday 2014, August 22 (Felina)

Despite an early night I was still pretty tired and fatigued after a long two weeks, so it was good to have the whole morning free before having to go to the airport.

I completed hotel checkout and left my bags behind, then conveniently right around the corner was a movie cinema. I think I've mentioned this at least once before, probably in KL last year, but somehow these Asian countries take forever to sell movie tickets. I don't know what the problem is, but each transaction seems to take minutes instead of seconds.

The two main options I had given the time available in the morning were Lucy and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I didn't know much about either but since TMNT was starting first I went with that. The ticket price was good, less than $10 for the morning sessions every day. The movie only deserves one sentence - absolutely horrible, 2 out of 10, and that's being generous.

I collected my bags from the hotel and was off to Taiwan Taoyuan airport. There was very little to do there, but I only had an hour to waste. I had a whole row to myself on the plane and somehow I even managed to fully stretch out my legs under the seats in front, so the flight was terrific and I still felt pretty fresh after four hours. I did have a bit of neck pain start up, but that was just a minor inconvenience compared with my usual problems.

I got into KLIA2 (KL international airport terminal 2) in the early evening and it was about as crap as I expected from my last time departing KL. There was almost nothing around, and most of that was before the security check. I hate the way they have the security and liquids check at KL so deep into the terminal, after all the shops, so you can't get any drinks through to your boarding gate. The one or two shops that did exist after the security check either accepted only KL currency or had a high minimum transaction to use credit cards.

• Asia Summary
• Days - 15
• Cities - 4 (maybe 6)
• Cost - $4000 approx
• Flights - 6
• Taxis - 1
• Bucket list if I had a bucket list
• Survived getting seriously ill on holiday
• Visited The Great Wall
• Watched a game of the C-League and the K-League
• Photos - 600
• Words - 19,000 approx !

Asia Holiday 2014, August 21 (All These Things That I've Done)

After a pretty average week I started to see some signs of improvement in my health, but it could have been just temporary relief from the cold tablets and cough syrup.

I took the train as far north as it goes to Beitou, which isn't really that far actually, maybe half an hour. At Beitou I had to change onto another train that simply runs back and forth between Beitou and Xinbeitou - maybe Xinbeitou means "After Beitou" or "If you wanted Beitou you've gone too far".

It was another steaming hot day when I got off the train (no complaints from me) as I walked through Beitou Park and past the Beitou Hot Springs Museum in search of the Thermal Valley. I was pretty familiar with what hot springs are, but it was quite a spectacular sight (and smell) when I actually got up close. There was endless steam coming off the water, and it was much hotter than I anticipated, particularly if you walked over one of the drains along the footpath. The smell was intense too, a very strong sulfuric aroma.

Onsen.

Onsen again.

On the way back down the hill I stopped in at the Beitou Hot Springs Museum, since it was free. You had to change in to slippers before entering, and mine didn't fit so well, making it next to impossible to walk up stairs ! I didn't learn a lot from the museum, you had free reign to walk around the whole house as you please, but at the end of the day we're just learning about hot water.

Always wondered what a hot springs museum would look like.

With that taken care off I ventured about half way back to the city and got off at the stop closest to Jiantan Mountain hiking trail. The directions to the bottom of the trail were good again, at which point a very steep trail began, before flattening off towards the top. The directions along the trail were sparse and very confusing, it was one of those hikes where you aren't sure if you are going in the right direction because of:

1. Skill
2. Luck
3. Doing the most obvious thing
4. All of the above

The beginning stages of.

I found an observation point with a good view of the city, and discovered there was a large riverside area at the north of the city which I was not aware of. While I had stopped to take photos a woman passed me on the trail, but I soon caught up to her as she had suddenly stopped along the path. I wasn't sure why at first, then at the last moment spotted the massive spider hanging out in a web. I like spiders about as much as the next person, so I just kept on going and didn't look back - or have any intention of going back the way I came...

Downtown Taipei.

I took somewhere between one and several wrong turns trying to loop back to where I started, but it wasn't all bad as I ended up instead at The Grand Hotel which lived up to it's name. Quite by luck there were signs from the hotel pointing back to the train station as well, so it all worked out in the end.

The Grand Hotel.

Do they still have a team ?

The weather was a lot more calm today, so I made another effort to take a ride on the Maokong Gondola. In the south direction it was quite a long and rural train ride to reach the end of the line, it reminded me of the time I went to Belgrave. Taipei Zoo was also around, but I didn't really have time for that so I just got in line for the gondola. There was about ten times as many people lining up for the glass bottom cabins, which seemed pretty pointless to me - pay more and stand in line longer just so you can see out of the bottom of the cabin. The journey took ages as there was three stations in total to get to the finish, it took about twenty five minutes each way and there wasn't a lot to see other than the forest below. Since it took longer than I had planned I didn't spend much time after I got off at at the end, instead I just bought a ticket back the other way.

Gondola ride, just like in Italy.

I finally went to see what was happening at Taipei 101, since it dominates the city skyline. The shopping seemed to be concentrated to the bottom few levels and while the food court was alright the rest was generally higher end fashion. Across the street were some basketball courts with "Adidas 101" promotional banners everywhere. From reading some websites I found out that New Zealand's Steven Adams (from the Oklahoma City Thunder) had been there the day before, but today it looked like it was just people having a shoot around. I think there may have been a tournament happening at some stage and that it was related to the larger NBA 3X (nba3x) three on three tournaments being held in Philippines and Singapore - I picked the wrong countries...

With my final day winding down I again went in search of dinner. I found a burrito and taco place in a small laneway, but decided to keep walking and see what else was around before making a decision. I'm glad I did, because although I didn't find an alternative dinner spot I did find a small stand on the corner of the street selling small red bean cakes !!! The best thing was they only cost about forty cents each - incredible.

Red Bean !!!

I went back to the burrito place and put in my order before realising there was also nachos at the very far end of the menu board. Damn it. After dinner I went back to the red bean stand one more time, to try the custard cream variety as well, only there was two women at the front of the queue who had just ordered something in the order of eighty cakes. It took like five minutes to cook and bag them all.

On the way back to the hotel I started having the strange headaches again, which I've deduced must be some kind of ongoing nerve pain from the neck issues I had during my time in South Korea.

• Taiwan Summary
• 8 out of 10
• Good
• A lot more relaxed by comparison
• Lots of English signs
• More tropical climate
• Quick to get from place to place
• Red Bean cakes !
• Bad
• In most places soft drink was limited to Apple Sidra, Coke, Diet Coke, Sars and Sprite
• Not as many major tourist attractions
• Missed Out
• 228 peace park
• Chiang Kai-Shek memorial hall
• Daan forest park
• Didn't really get to go to any shopping centres
• Xianjiyan hiking trail
• Yangmingshan national park

Asia Holiday 2014, August 20 (Los Elefantes)

This virus I picked up is like magic, every day one new symptom arrives. It started with a fever, then muscle aches and weakness, then headaches, then running nose and now I can't stop coughing. Just when I thought I might be getting through the worst, I was up half the night coughing every couple of minutes.

With my lack of appetite still going, I just picked up my new standard breakfast meal - an ice cream and a malt milk from the convenience store next to the hotel, before leaving for the day.

I took the train out to Taipei 101 and set out in search of the Elephant Mountain hiking trail. Surprisingly the directions were very well marked and in English too, also surprising was how warm it already was at 9:00am - I guess that's what happens when you travel much more than 1000 kilometres closer to the equator. I picked up some supplies from the 7 Eleven and should point out that all countries had 7 Eleven but none had slurpees ! Taiwan also seemed to have no sports drinks at all, which I thought was really weird. The only thing that maybe came close was this one lemon flavoured water drink that tasted quite poor - probably like England are their fascination for that terrible Lucozade. Even the soft drink range was just a few Coke brands, although they did have a 920ml bottle of Coca-Cola which was quite an achievement.

A handy 920ml bottle.

The hiking tail was non-stop steps, which was very challenging but rewarding. I was sweating like mad by the time I reached the first lookout, which provided the first view of the Taipei 101 building - it's impossible to miss - and everything else which looks tiny by comparison. I kept going up to the peak of the hill, where the trail breaks off in a few directions. Since each path was quite long and heading away from the city - meaning there probably would not be any more good views along the way - I finished up and headed back down.

The beginning stages of.

Taipei lookout.

Taipei lookout again.

By random luck I found an article on the main page of Yahoo NBA promoting some weird looking Kobe Bryant artwork at a basketball art expo in Taipei, and it was still running during my visit. Most of the information on the internet was not in English, but I was able to determine it was the Conscious 3 Basketball Art Expo at Huashan Creative Park. When I arrived at the park I thought I might have got some bad information, as there was some One Piece exhibition being promoted instead. I thought I had covered all of the park without success when I found a small sign pointing off to the basketball expo in some secluded location. I walked in the front door only to find out they weren't starting until 1:00pm, which seemed quite late to me, and it was still only 11:00am. Luckily it wasn't much of a detour and I now knew how to find the place for later.

Longshan Temple was described on my map as the top tourist attraction, or maybe it was top five, so I decided to give it a try even though one temple is usually about the same as the previous...and the next. Getting from the station to the temple was a bit depressing as there was this run down underground mall offering things like massage and nail salons, but it was a bit dank and there were no customers, although I did see this really nice piece of artwork on one of the walls. The best thing about the temple was that it was free. There was a couple of shrines inside, and unlike most that are just full out of tourists this one seemed to be mostly locals praying and dropping off their joss sticks, so it felt a lot more authentic. I also picked up a pudding pop from 7 Eleven on the way out, always wanted one of them...

Subway art.

Longshan temple.

Not sure if you're supposed to join in.

Ximen was only one stop away on the subway - since Taipei is a fair bit smaller but still has a good train network, it is quick and easy to get from one place to the next. First I was going to see The Red House, about which I had no idea. The sign out front solved the mystery, it is one of Taipei's oldest preserved buildings and was the location of the first market - not incredible but it'll do. Although the building was quite large the accessible area inside was pretty pathetic, it was just a small round foyer with some historical information and then about the same amount of space was allocated to a gift shop.

The sort of Red House.

Across the street was the Ximen Pedestrian Area - fun fact, I just started watching an old season of The Amazing Race which begins in Taipei and they are wandering around the same place. The area was all quite new and had some shopping streets running in various directions, kind of like a smaller version of Shibuya. I found several places selling magnets, each overpriced by the same amount - $7 for a metal magnet and $10 for a large rubber magnet, crazy ! There was a lot of advertising around for The Expendables 3 movie - another fun fact, in The Amazing Race the same street arches were being used to promote The Green Latern movie, so not much has changed. I got another curry for lunch, which came with a mountain of rice.

Ximending.

Lots of happy smiling people. Also The Expendables.

After getting a good meal down for a change, I went south to the Gongguan district. I happened to come across Taiwan University which looked fantastic, lots of open space, endless rows of palm trees and thousands of bikes - not sure what the education is like though. There were some outlet stores on the same street at the university, I found Adidas and Nike, and a couple of others I forget. The Nike one was pretty empty and had very dated stock, but the Adidas one was good. Amazingly I found an Adidas t-shirt that I liked, possibly the first time ever, but it was only available in large. Closer to the station a number of sports stores also had big Nike logo's on display, so I tried a couple and found a good discounted running t-shirt for about $30, so I'd say it was a successful trip.

Taiwan University main entrance.

I was planning to check out the Maokong Gondola next, but some announcements at the station said it was suspended due to high winds, so I went back to the basketball exhibit instead. This time it was open and there was a lot of artwork on display, from a number of different artists it seemed. A couple of the more comic-y collections were a bit stupid, but most of the others were excellent, my favourites were of Kevin Durant, Kawhi Leonard and the Spurs team - but the little Kobe statue was a bit weird. A few t-shirts and bags were being sold with some of the artwork printed on them, I definitely would have bought something but the choices they had made available for sale did not include any of the pieces I liked.

LeBron.

World champions.

Carmelo, Reggie and Kawhi.

The dream team.

#linning.

KD.

Some lego house around the creative park.

The final stop of the afternoon was the National Dr. Sun Yat-sen memorial hall. I spent about as long typing out the name as I did visiting. I think every Asian city has at least one of these Yat-sen places, but this one was a bit more elaborate than most, a huge building with a big curved yellow roof. Inside some guards were performing some kind of ceremony that had attracted a large crowd, but I was about to have a coughing fit that would have probably disturbed the proceedings so I ducked back out again.

Not sure if it was better than the Chiang Kai-Shek memorial hall.

Back at the hotel I took a short break, then started having a weird headache again which seemed to be originating from my neck, not sure what that was about. I found Gone In 60 Seconds on the TV just as it was time to go back out again.

Since it was now early in the evening I travelled to the Shilin public market (aka day market) and Shilin night market. A lot of carnival games were just being set up as part of the night market - those games that look easy but you never win. I passed a few magnet stores on the way to the night market, located the street with all of the food carts but nothing else worthwhile. All of the laneways started to become a bit confusing after a while, so once I'd seen enough I just wanted to collect some magnets and get out. I chose a store which was selling magnets for 80 TWD each, so I asked how much for three but the girl didn't really seem to understand. I tried to reword the question and she came back with "buy ten get one free" - who the hell is going to buy eleven magnets ? So instead I offered 200 TWD for three which I thought seemed fair enough, but she seemed either confused or angry that I would even contemplate a discount, and said she couldn't change the price. So I just shrugged and went off to buy some different ones at the next store down, before heading home.

Early hours of the night market.

Skill testers, another game you won't win.

At last the food court.

Asia Holiday 2014, August 19 (Let's ROC-T)

It only took four nights, but I finally found a pillow to get through the night. I had a pretty tight schedule in the morning again - not sure why I keep doing that - so I figured I'd turn up five minutes early for the 7:00am breakfast start. The woman was not happy. After rushing through breakfast and saying farewell to the hotel once and for all I was on the subway back to Seoul Station. One benefit of these early starts is that I managed to get on and off the rail network before the peak hour rush began.

A benefit of paying a few extra dollars for the express train to the airport was that I was able to check-in with Korean Air before leaving the train station. I got my boarding pass and dropped off my suitcase, so I was able to relax on the train and not have to worry about any of that stuff at the airport.

The plane was idle on the runway for about half an hour once again - it seems like that has happened every time so far. As we were getting close to Taiwan and started decreasing in altitude I started having some intense ear pain that I'd never experienced before, I'm guessing it had something to do with my sickness. I was feeling really uncomfortable and we were still twenty minutes away from landing, then I was saved because we got stuck waiting for clearance and had to maintain our current altitude ! In the time we spent going around in circles above the airport my ears managed to settle down and didn't have a problem when it was finally time to land.

The Taipei airport was a bit small, and I didn't manage to find any visitor information before jumping on the bus to get to the high speed train station. When I went to buy my ticket at the train station I encountered VISA pay wave for the first and last time, incredible. Taipei was off to an even better start when I made it to the hotel, with only my own printed maps, without any problems at all.

Just as I was finishing my unpacking and deciding what to do for the last few hours of the afternoon a big thunder storm came in, so my options suddenly became quite limited. The hotel didn't have any good maps in English so I went back to Taipei Main station to find the visitor centre, only Taipei Main station is part of a miniature underground city with 4 train lines, 2 underground malls (those two words together never result in anything good) and about 30 different exits - this is the one downside of having underground stations I suppose, also not getting any sunlight. I got some maps from the visitor centre eventually, and there was a lot of small food stalls around which had some good stuff, but ever since I got sick I seem to have lost my appetite for Asian bakeries, which is no good at all.

Rained out.

Taipei Main - I had no better photos to choose from.

Monster muffins - hard to tell with no perspective.

I got back on the train to get dinner, and found a restaurant called KGB (Kiwi Gourmet Burger) hidden down an alleyway. The menu was great because there was about twenty different varieties and most of them you could choose to have either a beef, lamb or...veggie burger ! I got the standard cheeseburger, it was alright but the pattie seemed a little bit dry. With a vanilla milkshake it cost 410 New Taiwan Dollars (is there an Old Taiwan Dollar, and why does everyone use dollars) which was slightly expensive perhaps, but not too bad.

It's not Burger Fuel, but a decent NZ burger.

As the rain was still heavy and it was getting dark that was it for the day. Thoughts about the hotel:

• Much better than Seoul
• Spacious room
• Free washer and dryer, including free powder
• Strangely no fridge in the room
• But a communal mini fridge with a few free drinks
• There was also a big fridge one floor down where you can put your own labelled items
• Reception speaks good English
• Reception didn't have any English maps

Asia Holiday 2014, August 18 (Seoul Survivor)

The new pillow was a moderate success, and my health has improved by about 25%, just in time for my last day in Seoul. Before leaving the hotel I came across a Korean drama (K-Drama) on TV, there weren't any subtitles but I could still follow what was going on pretty well, it was just a shame I had no way to figure out the name of the show.

I walked from the hotel to the nearby cable car station at the bottom of Mt Namsan. I was planning to walk up to the top of the mountain for a challenge and then maybe get the cable car back down, only the cable car service was unavailable for servicing from 9:00am to 1:00am every Monday - damn. The distance to the top was about 1.2 kilometres but it was quite a steep hill so it took some time. There was a good view from a lookout point about halfway up, but the skyline of Seoul wasn't so photogenic, at least in the direction I was facing.

Seoul lookout.

Padlock fence, pretty sure I've seen this somewhere before...

Just before reaching N Seoul Tower at the summit the rain started, so there was even less value in going up to the observation deck as it had quickly become very overcast. I did stop in at the gift shop which had decent prices for their souvenirs, I was quite amazed. After spending a bit of time at the top I headed back down the same way, made one wrong turn along the way but made it to the hotel.

N.S.T.

After getting a dry pair of socks and failing to navigate the online check-in for my next flight with Korean Air I departed for the Yongsan district. My neck was now feeling just horribly stiff and sore, so I'm guessing the new pillow was just good enough to get through the night, but with the side effect of causing long term neck pain - now I'm not sure if that's better or worse than the previous situation.

The station came out inside I'Park Mall, which was another one of those sad department stores, maybe slightly better than the others. On the top floor there was an e-sports stadium which I believe is like a theatre where they broadcast video game tournaments such as Star Craft, so I looked in on that but there was nothing scheduled for the day.

The main reason for stopping at Yongsan was to browse the Yongsan Electronics Market. I hadn't read too much about this place but I had an idea that it might be like a smaller version of Akihabara in Tokyo. It took far too long to work out how to get from the mall to the market, as no signs existed, and probably with good reason I soon discovered. I'm not even sure if I'd call it a market, there was a couple of streets and one small building with various electronics, but one section was dedicated to just CCTV equipment while another had various computer parts. I was hoping there would be a lot of video games, merchandise and collectibles, but there was almost none of that.

Yongsan.

Seoul Forest Park was next on the list, I wasn't sure how much of a forest could possibly exist within a highly populated inner city area. After entering and reviewing the map it turned out to be a good size but I think, as the clever name suggests, it was more of a park than a forest. There was a Waterworks Museum which could have been great or probably really bad, but it was closed as with most things on Monday. The main attraction instead was the deer corral - a place with deers - so I went in that direction. You could buy packets of food to give to the deer if you wanted, but that just seems like you are doing the park rangers job for them. On the way out of the park I passed a sculpture area which had some reasonably good artwork.

Just need the electric company now.

Do not feed the bears.

Sculptures.

Another sculpture.

I was going to make one more stop at the Gangnam district, but it felt like it was going to be one thing too many for the day. Instead I went back to Seoul Station to get my train ticket sorted out for the airport, then searched around the Lotte Mart. This was actually the closest thing to a K-Mart by far, I even discovered an unadvertised pillow section ! They didn't have any normal pillows, just those stupid memory foam ones, but there was a range of big soft cushions that could easily become a substitute pillow for about $10 so I grabbed one of those.

I found a Quiznos for dinner, which is basically the same thing as a Subway. I can't remember if they had a veggie patty on the menu in the USA, but they had a veggie delight in Seoul so that was good enough. After dinner I made it back to the hotel to prepare for my final destination.

Should have asked for no olives. And definitely no mushrooms !

• Seoul Summary
• 7 out of 10
• Good
• Better soft drink choices
• Cool tune when the train is arriving (might get annoying eventually)
• Lots of similarities to Japan
• Mountains nearby for hiking
• Not too crowded
• Quicker to get around on the subway (a little)
• Toilets at all the subways
• Some have this weird ball of soap on a stick for everyone to share !?
• Bad
• Being sick
• More expensive than China
• Not many good restaurants and shops in my area
• Street names are really confusing
• The department stores
• The hotel !!!
• Wasted a lot of time trying to find places
• Missed Out
• Baseball game
• Mt Inwangsan
• Namsan cable car
• Seodaemun Prison History museum
• Seolleung Park
• Trick Eye museum

Asia Holiday 2014, August 17 (Old Seoul Song)

The horror of my first night in Seoul was even worse on the second night, something which I wouldn't have imagined possible. I asked at reception if they had a softer pillow but apparently they only have one size fits all - rock hard. I had to resort to my makeshift pillow but it was so uncomfortable, and I was still as sick as ever, that I was waking up almost exactly every 40 minutes. By about 4:00am I was seriously considering if I was even going to make it to the end of this holiday when I had the idea to bunch up the quilt and use that as a pillow. It was a little bit uneven, but at least it was soft and it got me through the rest of the night.

I was feeling a bit better in the morning but didn't have an appetite for much breakfast, so instead I took care of some tasks I really should have done one or two days ago, first visiting the pharmacy to buy some tablets - 12 tablets for 2000 won was pretty cheap - and then searched for a legitimate pillow at a couple of department stores. Afterwards I had a hard time deciding if the shopping experience is worse in China or South Korea. Both of the department stores I visited were empty, upmarket and had way too many staff. The staff are all assigned to one small section selling like four products each and not allowed to leave that zone, so once again it's really awkward and uncomfortable if you just want to casually browse around, poke at things, check prices and so on. I found a few pillows scattered around the bedding section, but they had crazy prices ranging from 50,000 won up to 200,000 won.

I put the pillow search on hold for the morning and set off for the War Memorial Of Korea. There was no entrance fee which was great, inside the main hall there was lots of exhibits to look at and read about, but I found the video presentations to be much better and more interesting. The route through the building started with some very ancient Korean stuff, but then got a bit better and more recent when the focus became the 1950 invasion by North Korea. I didn't know a lot about the Korean war going in, so I was able to pick up quite a few new facts. Once I was finished with the indoor tour there was also an outdoor section with a lot of planes and tanks on display. Overall it was a good way to spend a couple of hours.

The entrance to the War Memorial.

Somewhere near the entrance.

Drums of war.

Won't get invaded once these guys arrive.

I travelled to the Olympic Park area next, getting an ice cream and a banana milk drink on the way out of the train station. The ice cream was refreshing but the milk didn't take too well. My first stop at the park was the Seoul Olympic Museum. I had reasonably high hopes for this place, but once I got inside I found out there was only a few small rooms to walk around and that was it. Only one room was actually dedicated to a brief summary of what happened at the games, while the others provided some background about the Olympics and about how Seoul won the bidding for the games.

The entrance to the Olympic Museum.

Vancouver is bottom right, don't know the rest.

This was one of few highlights of my visit.

Similar to Beijing, the aftermath of the Olympics is a great big park (and lake) area with lots of tracks perfect for running. There were a few monuments around the place, with the biggest and most recognisable being the terrific World Peace Gate, which doesn't really look like a gate at all, and certainly wasn't keeping anybody out. The various other buildings and stadiums that hosted Olympic events were quite far away, a minimum of at least a kilometre, so I didn't see any of them.

World Peace Gate.

The park entrance.

Munjeong was close on the subway network so I was off to find Munjeong-dong Rodeo Street. The rodeo street had nothing to down with cowboys, it was actually a street with some outlet stores including Nike ! When I arrived I discovered that the street was not very long, probably less than fifty stores in total across both sides of the street. The Nike store was rather pathetic as there was barely any stock in the store and the prices seemed no different to normal, despite big SALE signs at the entrance. The South Korea national soccer shirt was the best item, but their current design is not very good - at least they don't have collars like teams in the Premier League keep trying to bring back in fashion !

Not quite Rodeo Drive.

Since Itaewon had it's own mini map in my tourist booklet I thought it was worth a try to finish the day. There was a couple of places listed as shopping centres on the map, but they were both just more collections of crappy small stores that would have been better described as "indoor junk markets" - clothes, handbags, jewellery, sunglasses and watches basically. I got some cheese quesadillas from a Taco Bell which would have been a highlight, but most of the cheese leaked out of the bottom and into the paper bag instead. Running parallel to the main street was a terrific international food street with dozens of great restaurants, my timing wasn't great though as I'd just had some cheese-free quesadillas and it was still only late afternoon. I found a few cheap magnets before getting back to the station, so the visit was a bit of a mixed bag overall.

If I had been feeling better if you have gone to a baseball match for the evening, but given how I deteriorated during the soccer match the previous match I thought it would be safer not to risk it again. On the way home I searched around the market next to the hotel and found a small cushion pillow thing for about $10, it didn't seem totally soft but it has to be an upgrade from the horror I've had to put up with the last two nights...