Seoul & Hong Kong

I was very excited about visiting South Korea and had no idea what to expect. All the developing asian countries have slogans they use to market themselves to tourists and investors on the international tv channels. There is 'amazing' Thailand, 'incredible' India, Malaysia 'truly asia' and even 'remarkable' Indonesia. South Korea calls itself 'dynamic' Korea, although I think 'ambitious' might be more accurate. Seoul is an industrious mix of old and new, rich and poor. I imagine it is unrecognisable from 20 years ago and in 20 years time this will be true again. Skinny pensioners in dilapidated suits rub shoulders with fashionable smartphone-wielding youths (Samsung of course). We happened to be in Seoul at the peak of k-pop sensation 'Gangnam Style' which was fascinating.

After easily navigating the immaculately clean airport and english-signposted metro, we were left on our own as everything was in Korean. We'ed downloaded the tripadvisor city guide which turned out to be useful as I could match up the Korean symbols in there with signs on the buildings. We had a reservation in the cheap 'Jongno-Cutee' hotel fairly near Insadong, the main touristy road. The hotel was in fact a 'love hotel' where you can book a room for a few hours vigorous karaoke/massage. Someone had attacked the bathroom with astonishing amounts of chlorine (not sure what they'd found?) but thankfully the smell cleared. Oddly, the room came with a proper desktop computer, plasma screen tv and dvd player, along with every kind of toiletery known to man. It was also an amazingly badly-done french chalet theme. It served us fine for 3 nights.

After the incredible food in Japan, I found Korean food tasty, although comparatively bland and peasanty. We'ed had Korean BBQ once before in New York, and I didn't think it was any better in Seoul. Amusingly they always refer to it as korean BBQ as if it is fundamentally different. We also tried a stew restaurant where instead of cooking your own BBQ on the table you cook your own noodle soup. Now in my mind it's a great novelty to be able to cook your own food in a restaurant, but I don't want to have to do it all the time. After all that's what chefs there to do, not to just stand there disapprovingly when innocent tourists cook things in the wrong order. They also provide you with flat, metal chopsticks which only ninjas can use. Korean food inevitably features Kimchi and Banchan, the awesome range of accompaniment dishes:

A selection of banchan

Kimchi is traditionally made in bathtubs

korean bbq

We walked to Gyeongbokgung, the old (or rather, reconstructed) royal palace. It was uninspiring, although the ceremonial guards with their stick-on beards were quite amusing.

We also attempted to find an old, traditional tea house, but failed and ended up in one themed as some kind of weird 80s primary school:

Apparently a trip to Seoul is not complete without a trip to a Jimjilbang. These are basically insanely big sauna/day spas. After some research on the internet we decided on the Dragon Hill Spa in Yongsan. Here's how it works:

You register, take your shoes and socks off and leave them in reception, where they also give you some loose shorts and a t-shirt. At this point, men and women go into separate lifts, to separate floors.
In the changing room, you hesitate briefly before removing all your clothes and entering the spa. Here there are lots of naked people of various ages moving between the various things to do. There was a sauna, steam room, hot floor for lying on (?), various bathing pools from 16°C (very cold, hope no-one is looking at your bits when you get out) all the way up to 45°C (unbearably hot, stifle a yelp and move on). After this it's time to brush your teeth (?), shower and see the rest of the place, remembering to put on that t-shirt and shorts they gave you.

The rest of the building is mixed-sex and comprised a couple of restaurants, a games arcade and quiet rooms of various temperatures (from freezing to sauna). There was also a large central room full of people lying on the floor in various stages of sleep. After you're done here, you go back to the changing room for your proper clothes, pay at reception and leave in a state of bewilderment.

The next day we were flying to Hong Kong. We logged on to the Cathay Pacific website, chose our seats and got to the airport in good time. At check-in there was some confusion as the date on our tickets didn't match the reservation (apparently these are 2 separate things, who knew). The ticket desk needed to call BA's office in Hong Kong, which is empty on Sunday, so they sent a fax, warning us that they couldn't guarantee when they'd hear back. Er, NO SHIT SHERLOCK. They politely did nothing about my protestations for 2 stressful hours, by which time we missed our flight. Luckily someone competent turned up to end the insanity, putting us on the next flight. Now that wasn't so hard was it.

We arrived in Hong Kong that evening and made our way up the hill on 'the escalator'. Our friend Michael had offered us to stay in his apartment for our stay, which we gladly accepted. We arrived and immediately set about abusing his washing machine while he was away motorcycling around Vietnam for the weekend. (this is how the HK expats roll.)

After Tokyo and Seoul we were pretty citied-out and Cath was not feeling well so we took it fairly easy in Hong Kong. We took the insanely steep tramway up to the top of the hill, and took a bus around to Stanley on the other side of the island. On our last day we took the ferry across the harbour to Mongkok, on the mainland side. I also dropped into my previous employers' office to say hello to some familiar faces, before going out for a few beers with Michael.

Hong Kong somewhere behind the smog

And that was the end of our 4 months in asia. Hong Kong is a weird cross between a historic colonial town, a western financial centre and urban China, it is a bit of a melting pot with no clear identity. Good place to fly around asia though. You can even check-in for flights in town and make your way to the airport without bags. Very civilised.

Tokyo

I felt like we arrived in Japan while still in Bangkok. As soon as we boarded the Japan airlines flight suddenly we were surrounded by quiet, conscientious people. The stewardess immediately introduced herself to us and started apologising profusely about the thunderstorm which had just started and any inconvenience we could have had. After a 6-hour mini-redeye we arrived in Narita airport at about 8am and got a bus straight to our hotel. (Taxis from the airport cost about £250 wtf?!)

I'd saved up some Hyatt loyalty points from work trips and it turns out they go quite a long way. We had 2 free nights at the Park Hyatt in Shinjuku which is no doubt the best hotel we've ever visited. I'm not sure how many of their clients come direct from damp hovels on the Khao San road, but they let us check in early and treated us like royalty. The hotel (where they filmed most of Lost in Translation) occupies the 40th-52nd floors of a kind of triple-tower in Shinjuku. The lobby (41st floor) is at the top of the shortest tower, the insane gym and pool (47th floor) on the top of the middle tower, and the swanky New York Bar (52nd floor) is at the top of the third. We had a room on the 49th floor, and they even threw in a bottle of champagne because I had ticked the honeymoon/anniversary box on their website. Nice! We were excited enough just being able to drink the tap water after 4 months of buying it.

Now that's more like it

 After a quick nap we went exploring. First stop was to get some lunch and we stumbled upon one of those sushi restaurants with the carousel bar thing. As soon as we walked the chefs gave a cheer. Oh great, we thought, they're giving us shit for being foreigners, but no it turns out they are just being friendly and all restaurants welcome you like this. Everywhere on our trip until now we have been stared at and treated differently for being funny-looking but not so in Japan. In fact they insist on chatting away to us in Japanese rather than (correctly) presuming we don't speak the language. Anyway we piled into our first sushi for a long time. For places where you can't read the menu it is actually a lot easier to just grab the food as it comes past!

In the afternoon we wandered around Shinjuku, which is mostly a business-y type area but on Sunday afternoon more for shopping. For dinner that night we found a yakitori (barbeque skewer) place and insanely tasty pork cheek skewers, washed down with some Asahi, before walking home in the middle of a typhoon, how authentic.

The next day we set our alarms to get up at 5:30 for the daily fish market. Anyway we ignored them and slept into 11am by accident. Lunch was a quiche from the super posh food halls under Isetan, a department store, however this was not enough so we went for more sushi.

In the evening we went to the very swanky New York Bar back at the hotel for a few cocktails. It wasn't cheap but when in Rome. Even with a free hotel we were incinerating our usual daily budget by lunchtime!

Old Fashioned / Margarita

The next day we did manage to get up at 6am to go to the Tsukiji market. We got there by about 7:30, which was way too late for the tuna auction (apparently you have to be there at 4:30 and queue for this). The wholesalers in the market are obviously getting fed up with tourists getting in the way so you're not meant to go into the market until 9am by which time most of the action is over. So we wandered in and feigned ignorance when the ever-so-polite tourist police occasionally suggested that we should move away. There was a pretty awesome selection of seafood on sale, including some monster tuna.

 

After this we headed to the 'outer market' and got a sushi selection at Daiwa, one of the incredibly busy and small restaurants there. It was tasty, although felt a bit weird to be sitting down for a tasting menu at 8:30am.

sea urchin for breakfast!

We walked into Ginza, one of Tokyo's many posh shopping districts, but at this time in the morning it was empty. We did however go to the Sony building which I thought was exciting and Cath less so. By now we were used to constantly breaking all the Japanese etiquette rules, I found it hilarious when a lady accidentally walked back and stood on my foot. She went bright red and could not apologise enough, it was like she was having a panic attack. We went back to the Hyatt, checked out and dragged our bags onto the train down to Shibuya, where we had 2 more nights. The hotel was meant to be french-themed, but turned out to be more like Cath Kidston meets The Nightmare Before Christmas. One evening the receptionists we wearing dracula-style capes over their suits. It was pretty weird, but perfectly clean and comfortable.

We grabbed a late lunch at a ramen (noodle broth) place called Ichiran. Basically you go in, pay for your food at a machine and then (of course all this is electronic) find an unoccupied booth (or 2 together in our case). There you fill out your order requirements (e.g spicy sauce, firm noodles, extra mushrooms) on a piece of paper, press a button and a window behind the booth opens for someone to deliver your food. It was worth the confusion; the food was incredible.

ramenface

work that out

 If Shinjuku was not bewildering enough, Shibuya was crazy. Hundreds of designer clothes and gadget shops, arcades, flashing lights, you name it. Tokyo is a shoppers paradise, even I was quite impressed. We had a quick go at the arcades but probably just embarrassed ourselves; some of the kids in there had obviously had a lot if practice.

For dinner we wandered round aimlessly for a bit and were finally tempted into a place by the 'English menu' sign. It turned out to be an izakaya, a huge beer hall type place, full of office workers getting on the lash and generally getting rowdy. The ordering worked via some touch-screen thing (like a much worse version of Inamo in London). For the first time in Tokyo, the food was forgetable, but the place was pretty cool. We were surprised that smoking indoors is usually allowed in Japan, and this was no exception. The drink 'Hoppy' I later discovered is a beer-flavoured soft drink; luckily they give you some shochu to pep it up. A bit like shandy in reverse.

salarymen

ordering thing

reverse-shandy?

The next day we wandered around Shibuya and nearby Harijuku. If you want to see people dressed as schoolgirls, this is the place to come.

Schoolgirl-themed love hotels?

get the full look...

...or just the ears

 We had some delicious gyoza for lunch. Cath, who has a bit of a gyoza addiction, claimed it was the best meal she'd had for a fiver, with Damascu bite coming in a close second.

For dinner we had tonkatsu (breaded pork) at a place called Maisen. It was excellent, although I don't think it will ever have the special place in my heart that slow-roasted pork has.

And that was our brief but awesome trip to Tokyo. Four days was barely enough to scratch the surface though, for a city that is up there with NYC and London. The food was incredible, Cath was  complaining there were not enough meals in a day. It was the first time either of us had visited Japan, and was a fascinating glimpse of life there, confirming quite a few stereotypes and providing us with a few more. Tokyo definitely blew away our expectations. For the sake (no pun intended) of our budget and waistlines it was probably good to just have 4 nights this time round, but we can't wait to visit again sometime!

Phuket, Ko Samui, Ko Pha Ngan, Ko Tao and back to Bangkok

Our stops in both Phuket and Ko Samui were both largely due to other people. Firstly we stayed with Richard and Susan for a couple of days. They are living at Phuket marina and, as well as providing us with some accommodation, were kind enough to chauffeur us around and take us to some of their favourite local restaurants. Next stop (after a forgettable rain-drenched stop-over in Ao Nang) was Ko Samui. It took us most of the day to get there via bus and ferry so we stayed the first night in the main, fairly charmless, tourist strip, Chaweng. For the next few nights we had got a special deal on a room at an awesome Relais & Chateaux hotel and were able to eat like kings there courtesy of a wedding gift from some friends. So thanks everyone, it was awesome to have a bit of luxury after getting used to staying in some pretty filthy places!

Real wine and posh food at The Scent Hotel

Phuket and Ko Samui are quite pretty but cursed in a way in that they have airports and therefore attract the package tourist. Our next stop, Ko Phangan, was much quieter. We spent 6 pretty lazy days on Hat Yao, on the north-west end of the island. We found a room right on the beach (although it meant going from our fantastic boutique hotel back to a shack with no aircon or hot water!) 

Our hut at Ibiza bungalows, Hat Yao

busy beach

For us, Hat Yao was awesome. Very quiet (unlike party central in the south-east) but there was still a 7-eleven for supplies and a few restaurants to choose from. It was meant to be the low season but was consistently hot and sunny, which was lucky because it had rained a lot in Ko Samui. We spent a few days lazing on the beach, and watched the sun set while tucking into the Thai whiskey most evenings. Probably my favourite stop on our journey so far.

Rocket fuel

hmm I wonder if the central line is busy today?

another day, another sunset

Our last island before heading back to Bangkok was Ko Tao. After a week without aircon we decided to splash out on a room with it at the north end of the main beach. Ko Tao is dominated by dive schools, but we decided to save our pennies for posh food in Japan rather than going diving (see next post). As a result we had 3 uneventful nights in Ko Tao, and in retrospect should probably have stayed somewhere off the main drag.

Sairee beach, Ko Tao

Last stop in Thailand before our visas ran out was a few more nights in Bangkok. It rained quite a bit, which was a good opportunity to do laundry, get on the internet and sort ourselves out for a busy couple of weeks ahead. We also tried to go to one of the exotic shows Bangkok is famous for, but accidentally ended up in a 'bar' where one chooses numbered prostitutes from a stage in the middle. Little bit awkward.

Soi Cowboy love you long time