A Crazy Week in Seoul

Mid March we flew to Seoul to meet five friends that we had lived with in Niseko. Alex had organised a large studio apartment for us all to stay in. The apartment consisted of four large double beds and one single bed, so it's fair to say that it was pretty cosy, and quickly became rather messy. However, the apartment was brand new and everything was finished to a high standard so our stay there was far more favourable than the hostel alternative. It also boasted panoramic views of Seoul city, providing a stunning backdrop to a number of silly drinking games, humorously played in both English and Japanese, and plenty of beer pong.

On our first day we visited the War Memorial Museum. The museum was outstanding, featuring multiple interactive sections, such as 4D cinemas where they showed short twenty-minute clips and documentaries.

The following day Hyeon, our Korean friend who we lived with in Niseko, took us on a walk through Seoul to visit the Gyeongbokgung Palace. The Palace was built in 1395 and served as the home to various Kings during the Joseon dynasty. It was destroyed by Japan during WW2 and has since been restored. 

After walking around the Palace in the glorious sunshine Hyeon took us to a famous chicken soup restaurant. We were a little surprised when a whole chicken arrived in a huge bowl, and were even more surprised to find that it was really delicious. 

The next day we went to a crazy theme park called Everland. Everland is home to the world's biggest wooden rollercoaster. This was an awesome ride and, as expected, very bumpy. We repeatedly went on the dodgems alongside families and their 'Rugrats'. They dodged one another and drove politely round in circles, whilst we made it our joint mission to crash into every one of them. After a long, fun-filled day we somehow found the energy to party in Gangnam that evening. 

After spending the next morning in bed recovering, we visited Seoul's dog cafe that afternoon. Think fifty dogs, all different breeds, personalities and sizes, some lounging about and others running around playing, whilst you try not to spill your cup of coffee amongst the chaos. It was great fun. 

On Wednesday we embarked on our much-awaited tour of the demilitarised zone, the DMZ. Despite numerous tours visiting the DMZ daily, the time spent at each stop is very restricted, ranging between 10- 40 minutes only. Our first stop was the Dorasan station. This station once operated between Seoul in the South and Pyeongyang in the North. Today it still operates, primarily for tourists, yet only goes back and fourth to Seoul. 

Next we visited a lookout point; on a clear day it is possible to see both South Korean and North Korean flags sitting either sides of the border and also to see a statue of Kim-Il Sung.  Unfortunately it was a fairly cloudy day, yet through binoculars it was still possible to make out the opposing flags in the distance and to note that North Korea have made theirs considerably taller. 

Our third stop was a visit to the 3rd Tunnel. The 3rd Tunnel was discovered in 1978 by South Korea forces and is located 52km from Seoul. When the Tunnel was discovered North Korea claimed that it was made by the South to invade the North. However tests proved that the explosions used to create the tunnel face southwards, hence showing that it was North Korea who made the tunnel with the presumed objective of invading Seoul once again. Four tunnels have been found all pointing towards Seoul from North Korea, although they expect that more are yet to be discovered. 

The 3rd Tunnel is approximately 1600m in length and apparently it is estimated that 30,000 soldiers could move through the tunnel per hour. Our conclusion was that these soldiers would have to be extremely short as we all crouched our away through the tunnel with difficulty. At the end of the tunnel is a small window; through this window you can see a window on the North Korean side of the tunnel merely 10 metres away. Despite it being forbidden, we smuggled a camera down into the tunnel to take some photos. We very relieved to find that there wasn't a soldier waiting for us or the camera when we exited the tunnel. 

Our final stop was a souvenir shop. Here Alex bought a hideous bottle of wine made in North Korea; we have been carrying the leaking bottle around with us ever since. 

After another big night in Gangnam we decided to sweat out our hangovers by hiking up to the current presidential palace grounds. This is armed with soldiers and our passports were taken and screened at a checkpoint; this security is put in place to prohibit North Korean spies and/or assassins. On our last evening we feasted on a typical Korean BBQ, where the meat is wrapped in giant salad leaves.

After a hectic and thoroughly interesting week in Seoul we said 'see ya later' to our friends and got on a plane to Manila. 

Firework and Lantern festivities in Taiwan

At the start of our trip, on a diving boat on the Great Barrier Reef, we met a guy from Taipei. He was a bit weird and didn't speak much English and was the first Taiwanese person we had ever met. From that moment, Alex decided he wanted to go to Taiwan and find out what went on there. 

So when we met more Taiwanese people in Niseko, who were incredibly friendly, fun and keen to show us around their country, we didn't take much persuading. What really sweetened the deal was that we coincided our trip with the Taiwanese Lantern Festival, a famous celebration on this side of the world of the end of Chinese New Year. A man called Sky, who worked alongside us in the restaurant, showed us pictures of gigantic lanterns and videos of people being shot with fireworks . The whole thing seemed so bizarre and different to anything that we had ever done. So we packed our bags a fortnight earlier than planned and flew to the second largest city in Taiwan - Kaohsiung. 

Taiwan is a very small island, especially compared to Japan. On the west coast are the major cities and ports. A high speed rail connects the North and the South, to get from top to bottom takes just a couple of hours. Dividing the west coast from the east is a line of mountain ranges and national parks, famous for great walking trails and stunning scenery. The east is less developed and more scenic.

Kaohsiung is the major city in the South.  We weren’t really sure what to expect yet were very pleasantly surprised on our arrival. Kaohsiung is full of busy night markets serving an enormous variety of Taiwanese food, bubble tea shops are found on every corner, everything is very cheap, the trains are cleaner and more comfortable than in London and compared to the streets of Japan, it was relatively quiet and peaceful. There were nice parks to walk around and hardly any tourists. The people were very friendly if not a little surprised to see us. 

There is a myth that Taiwanese people eat in once a month. Having now been there, we can see why. Everywhere you look people are selling fresh food from a street stall. The night markets in particular are packed with groups of people enjoying food ranging from hot pots to dumplings to duck wraps. Tofu is extremely popular, fresh fruit is everywhere and a variety of tasty vegetables are easy to come by. One market even had a teppanyaki stall where the chef cooked our meal on a hot plate in front of us. Wash this down with a large cup of papaya milk or another bubble tea, all for roughly £2 per person. 

A menu for the more adventurous is also available at the night markets. Every other stall sells fried chicken feet. The smell of 'stinky tofu' haunts the air and cooked duck necks are strangely popular. If these don't appeal, you could always opt for offal soup, intestine sausages or a squid on a stick. 

Kaohsiung were hosting their own Taiwan Lantern Festival festivities with  nightly firework displays and a small range of bright colourful lanterns. The fireworks were great and an exciting start to our Lantern Festival experience.

Next we moved north to Tainan, a smaller and quieter city. Here we rented bicycles and explored parts of the city by road and alongside hundreds of crazy scooters. The locals seemed quite surprised to see two tall, blond, white people cycling around but it was a fun experience.

It was now time to meet a group of our friends from Niseko. We were lucky enough to be shown around by our Taiwanese guide Sky. Sky is from a city called Taichung, which happened to be the host city of this year's festival, so we planned to eventually make our way there and stay at his apartment.

Before heading there, we all took a trip east to a famous mountain range resort called Alishan. This is a hotspot for Chinese tourists who visit Taiwan and it was easy to see why. Just a few hours drive from the major cities was a green, mountain paradise. We drove through Oolong tea plantations and saw the cherry blossom trees before arriving at the resort. There were 7 of us in the group and we all shared one big room with 4 double beds. Cosy.

After sampling the local tea, walking through the resort and getting up at 5am the next day to see the sunrise over the mountain range, we got back in the car and drove back to Tainan for what would turn out to be one of the most surreal, scary and exhilarating nights of our lives.

Tainan has an annual festival which coincides with the Lantern Festival. It is called the Yenshui Firework Festival. The idea is this: small statues of gods are brought out from the temples and paraded through the streets on carts. At intervals during the procession, the gods are placed in front of very large fireworks. These are then set off, showering the gods in sparks and rockets. If you aren't Taiwanese it is certainly a terrifying sight. As if that wasn't enough, the locals decide to arm themselves with helmets and homemade protective clothing and join the gods in getting showered, or perhaps more accurately, directly shot at, with fireworks. Egged on by Sky, we joined them.

It was painful, scary and chaotic. It was also phenomenal.

The next day we travelled to Sky's apartment for the opening of the official Lantern Festival in Taichung. This was another display of fireworks and large themed lanterns, but on a much much bigger scale to what we had already seen. Pictures speak better than words here:

After the lantern festival, we said goodbye to our friends and took the train to the east coast and a city called Taitung. We were expecting some calm and peace after a fairly loud and busy few days. Yet when we arrived in Taitung we found ourselves in the middle of another bizarre festival, entitled The Bombing of Master Handan Festival, we were more than a little surprised. A similar evening of fireworks, gods and madness ensued.

The next day was much calmer; we rented bikes and took a 25km ride around the outside of Taitung. We were met with great views of the mountains and the sea.

A train north took us to Tarako National Park, our penultimate stop in this crazy country. Taroko boasts a large and impressive gorge, full of great walking trails and stunning temples set into the side of mountains. The weather was slightly against us and the hostel we stayed in was very strange, nevertheless it was another nice break from the cities and fireworks.

We ended our Taiwanese whistle-stop tour in the capital, Taipei. Alex usually organises the accommodation so when Hostelworld.com offered him two beds at 'Space Inn', I was informed that the secret astronaught wannabe inside of him clicked Book Now.

We were not disappointed, it was by far the best hostel we have ever stayed in. The space theme was flawless, right down to the astronaught uniforms of the staff. However after a manic two weeks running around the country, eating strange food and being shot at with fireworks, a rainy and cold Taipei was a bit disappointing.

We spent our last few days enjoying 'cinema street', warming ourselves up in the natural hot springs and preparing for the next adventure: South Korea.

Skiing and Japaneseing- Our 6 Weeks in Niseko.

We arrived at Sapporo airport on 11th January and took the train in the dark to our new snowy home. Because it was dark, we didn’t realise how spectacular our surroundings were until we arrived in Kutchan town, about 5km from Niseko ski resort and our home for the next 2 months. Kutchan is renowned as one of the snowiest towns in the world, with good reason. After briefly meeting our new boss Scott, an Australian who has lived in Niseko for twenty years and built up a monopoly of properties and restaurants, we met our new housemates. They were a mixture of Australian, English, Taiwanese, European, Korean, Canadian, Singaporean, Kiwi...the list goes on. 

We went to bed early that night as we were exhausted. The house in Kutchan was a typical Japanese house we were told...what this means is that it is made of paper thin walls and is very very cold. Luckily our room had a kerosene heater - Bex's new best friend. We were lucky to have our own private room, most of Scott's staff lived in dorms or on the floor in the attic. 

From here, we slowly but surely settled in to our new routine. We were to work in one of the restaurants called Wabi Sabi - a self proclaimed Japanese home style cooking, 40 seater restaurant. To begin, Bex worked on the floor serving customers and I put 23 years worth of education to good use washing dishes.

The restaurant was staffed mainly with other backpackers like us, all working 6 evenings a week in exchange for accommodation, food and ski passes. The other workers were Japanese paid staff. They were very friendly, had mixed English abilities and were all happy to help us practise our Nihongo (Japanese). 

The shifts were fairly laid back but quite long and dull. The best part of work was getting to eat and drink the entire menu and speaking to the other workers. We made good friends with the majority of the people we worked with and ended up travelling with some of them in Taiwan (see the next instalment for more details). Being in the kitchen in particular was helpful for 'nihongo o renshu shimashita' (practising Japanese).

As time went on, Bex soon became the host/manager of the restaurant. 

Whilst after a week of dishwashing, I got fed up and became a chef instead. 

(Reservations are available from September onwards.)

The other side of life was of course the skiing. As mentioned, in return for work we were given access to a free lift pass. This was a pretty good deal as they are expensive in Niseko, around £30 a day. What we didn't have was a set of skis or boots to use. We quickly found what we needed for the reasonable price of 30,000 yens each and we hit the slopes.

For the skiers amongst our readers, the average day's snow in Niseko is equivalent to a very good day's snow in Europe. On a powder day, the snow is unrivalled. What Niseko lacked compared to European skiing was comfort and ease. It was relatively hard to work out the best way to get around on the slopes, pistes weren't marked very well and the restaurants on the mountain were like school canteens. All this doesn't matter however when you are rewarded with one of Niseko's greatest gifts on a clear day; a rare spectacular view of the iconic Mt. Yotei.

For all intents and purposes, Bex started the season as a beginner skier. The grading of slopes in Niseko goes Green, Red, Black, Double Black, the latter being the hardest. After a week Bex was confident on the greens. Two weeks in reds were no longer an issue. By the end of our time, Bex could ski every slope on the mountain confidently, in control and looking like a pro. This included a small bit of off piste skiing and some ventures into the powder and the trees, which she didn't like. She is the only skier I have met so far who was upset when it snowed, as the powder 'gets in the way of her skis'. 

This busy routine didn't leave much time for extra curricular activities. Here's a few things we did do:

Made the trip to Sapporo for the annual snow festival which was great. The highlight was a gigantic snow sculpture of Darth Vader.

Picked up a new skill - hitchhiking. 'anata wa Niseko ni ikimasuka?'

Spent Valentine's Day at Niseko Pizza - a nice break from rice and noodles. 

Went for a night out to the karaoke bar; hearing our Japanese friends rocking out to Living On A Prayer will be a tough memory to forget. 

I had a haircut at a supermarket for 1,000 yens (£5).

Taught Japanese people how to play beer pong. 

With the busy schedule of skiing in the morning and working at night, the weeks flew past in a blur. It was tiring, fun, rewarding and mostly exciting. Towards the end the work began to become a bit of a drag and I think we were both happy to see our last shift arrive.

To sum up, it was a busy couple of weeks. We learnt a lot, met many new people from across the world and will take many happy memories away with us. 

Next stop - Republic Of China a.k.a Taiwan!

Our Brief Tour of Japan

2015 got off to a cracking start as we landed in Tokyo on New Years Day. During the flight a friendly Japanese man taught us how to use chopsticks properly and went through our Japan guide book with Alex and gave him his suggestions of the best places to visit. He slightly underestimated the taxi fare from the airport though, telling us it would cost 500 yen yet it set us back 10,000 yen.

We spent the first four days in Tokyo. Having arrived very late, waking up the following morning was a little disorientating so we spent our first day getting our bearings and wandering around in bewilderment. We went to Shibuya crossing, supposedly one of the busiest crossings in the world, saw Shinjuku and walked through the shoppings streets of Ginza which basically resembles Oxford Street. We tried to embrace the Japanese culture and sampled different foods throughout the day including noodles, curries, Japanese green tea, broths/soups and horrific hot coffee in a can sold in vending machines at almost every corner.

On our second day in Tokyo we went to Senso-ji Temple and the hectic surrounding markets. It was unbelievably busy as we found out that the Japanese people visit a number of temples in the first few days of the new year to say thanks for the previous year and to pray for the year ahead. Part of this ritual included throwing coins into grids on the floor of the temple; we bowed our heads and throw our coins too. We really enjoyed the buzzing atmosphere here and it was certainly a highlight of our time in Tokyo.

On day three we escaped the busy streets and went to Ueno Park. We enjoyed a walk through the park and went to Ueno Zoo seeing two Giant Pandas there. In the evening we went to the owl cafe; this recently opened and people line the streets each day to try and get in. This 'cafe' was actually a very small room and no one there spoke any english. The encounter was pretty strange but we enjoyed holding a number of different owls whilst there.

Next we headed to Hakone on the Shinkansen bullet train. We bought a sightseeing pass and experienced spectacular views of Mt. Fuji via 5 different modes of transport, the mountain railway, cable car, ropeway, a pirate ship and finally a bus.

The following day we arrived at Kyoto and checked into our Japanese style room at a capsule hostel near the station for the next two nights. During our time in Kyoto we went to the bamboo forest and Nishiki food market. The highlight of Kyoto was our visit to Kinkaku-ji temple, known as the Golden Pavilion. The temple consists of three stories and the top two stories are covered with pure gold leaf. Here I purchased 'good health and a long life' for the very reasonable sum of 400 yen in the form of a small hanging purple ornament, much to Alex's amusement. 

Our next stop was a very chilly Osaka. We wrapped up and visited Osaka castle, one of the more famous castles in Japan and we could see why. It consists of 8 levels, which have been made into a museum and an observation deck. The following day we sidetracked from our culturally rich trip and spent a fun-filled day at Japan's Universal Studies, and the recently opened Harry Potter World that they have there. This was an excellent idea until we queued for our first ride only to discover that obviously it was all in Japanese. Nevertheless we drank butter beers at the three broomsticks and tested our imaginations on Japanese simulators. We topped off our day by devouring two full racks of ribs at The Outback Steakhouse. How very cultural indeed.

The final destination of our 10 day tour of Japan was Hiroshima. Having studied history I was particularly looking forward to visiting Hiroshima and learning more about the devastation of the first ever dropped Atomic Bomb. We went to the Peace Park Memorial and found the museum there to be both heart wrenching and highly interesting. We saw the Atomic Bomb Dome; the ruins were preserved when the reconstruction of Hiroshima began and consequently serve as a memorial to the people who were killed on the 6th August 1945. Our stay in Hiroshima was a highlight for both of us. 

Safety checks were taking place on the
Atomic Bomb Dome hence the scaffolding

So, what have we learnt from our first 10 days in Japan?
1. Japanese Katsu Curry is a safe food choice, 
2. The Japanese people are very friendly and happy to help you if they can, but they understand written english much better than spoken,
3. The rail network is excellent
4. The donuts here do not contain delicious jam but rather cold, mushy red beans, much to our bitter disappointment,
5. Do not play with the buttons on the toilets in Japan because you will get wet...



The next chapter of our travels gets a little snowier....