Monthly Archives: May 2010

Go Busan Giants Go

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Fun days with Tanners and MAP are over. (Boo!! But thanks peeps for a great time.) The first day we met up in Seoul and caught up on each others biznasss. We went to eat at a traditional Korean family restaurant which was good – I order meat because oh many I was craving protein! Observation #1: Koreans are generally speaking super nice and considerate. The Korean woman at the restaurant went out of her way to show me how to eat my food because I had noooo idea what I was doing. After we walked around and then I  learnt a game that would be the obsession of the entire trip – a Korean gambling game called `go stop` using some hwatu cards. The game is tricky and fun, where you have to match cards that kind of match but not really plus a whole lot of other crazy rules. As in apparently `takes 4 hands to understand, a lifetime to master`.

The next day we super lucked out because apparently there was a big lantern parade happening for buddah`s b-day. It was great that someone gave us the tip to go there. We got there around 1 and got to make our own lotus flower lanterns! Super fun. Then we walked around to all the other stalls – it was a carnival type environment. After we watched the lantern parade which was super awesome also. Then we headed to Busan playing `go stop` all of the way.

In Busan the first day was fun because we went to the shopping district – its fun and relatively cheap and cool stylish / cutesy asian type fashion. I had fun buying things – mostly a lot of big random shirts that can be totally worked in easily to a Pakistan wardrobe. So much good food in between!! The next day we went to the Korean Modern art museum which was good but mostly just ok because there was that much actual Korean modern art in it. At night we went to Tanner and MAPS local bar and played –  YOU　GUESSED it – go stop! Just have to say that Tanners has some ridiculous unbelievable luck in this game and basically ALWAYS wins. I think she`s cheating.

We also went to Spa City in Sentum City – basically its like a Korean style bathhouse type place. I was a little anxious about seeing all these naked Korean women but its was okay once you get used to it. Its fun because the female section has like lots of different tubs ranging from the ice cold 17 degrees to the insanely hot 49 degrees. The ideal situation is that you go from hot to cold hot to cold and we tried out best. Also go scrubbed down by the professional female scrubbers. Yuck! It was super gross how much dirt and skin that came off. Omg I think the scrubbing lady was disgusted but I was happy because she scrubbed a lot of my gross tan. At night we wen to see the Hyundae beach and the bridge there – I wonder if its named after the car company.

The next day we were all in the pre-preps from Buddah`s bday. We went to a temple -I don`t remember the name but its one of the places where they have some  crystals that supposedly appear when an englighted persons body is burnt (this enlightened person being the Indian Buddha.) That night I had the best meal ever which was an authentic Korean (although unsually veggie for Tanner and MAP) meal thanks to their friend May who invited us for dinner. The food was amazingly delicious – and then we played Go Stop at night . ;P My last day was the quintesential Korea expereince which included going to the Busan Giants game, eating Korean bbq the PROPER way and of course some Norebang! (aka karaoke).
Ok in Kyoto Japan now – more to report but that`s gonna be from another day. Only 7 more days till I`m back home. booo!

Please be self-restraint and be a good tourist to mold a well-mannered imagination.

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Officially been a long while since I updated my blog. Currently I’m sitting in Tanners and MAP’s super cute but small apartment. MAP is making Daal and it smells yum! After I floated down ‘tha river’ we headed to Xi’an. Xi’an is mostly quite a big city but its still really pretty and our hotel was really well placed. At night we would hang out in the park area near the bell and drum tower and fly kites. There is a pretty big muslim quarter in Xi’an. I went to the ‘grand mosque’ which was a really interesting mix of Chinese and Muslim-style architecture and is very serene and beautiful and right smack dab in the middle of an otherwise super hectic market.
I’m so happy that we had a Chinese guide – first of all because China is officially hard to navigate without speaking the language. There are officially times where people in train and cabs speak not a word of English. Anyways I ate this very local yummy food which was made out of yummy herb soup and pancakes and noodles and beef. It was so good especially when all the pancakes soaked up the soup.
Anyways went to see the Terracotta warriors and it was good, but in a way super sanitized and organized. You are basically in these huge rooms and are looking down into the pits and are generally far away from them with a LOT of Chinese tourists everywhere. I think the interesting thing is that there are a lot of warriors and other things buried down there that they have not excavated yet because they don’t know how to without exposing them to air which makes them loose the original color pigments of the warriors.
The second day at Xi’an I got to ride the bike around the great wall which is all around the city which was really fun. Another overnight bus to Shanghai which is really modern, bustling and happening city. We walked around the river area and the French Concession part which was fun and beautiful. The second day we went to the Shanghai Expo. Expo was and interesting experience – but really I can see the fascination with it maybe even 20 years ago but now with the internets and YouTube basically the world is a smaller place and other countries don’t really seem that exotic and crazy wild.
Last stop on the China tour was Beijing which is BIG BIG BIG with a crazy metro system that would put Toronto’s to SHAME. I climbed up the great wall which was really fun – it was a slightly tiring hike but was worth it to be able to say that I actually climbed it. Also went to Tianamin square and also the Forbidden City. I think the ‘forbidden city’ is really big in terms of size and grandeur but its not really the most ornately designed palace area and can almost look severe and soviet-like at times. I also went to the summer palace which is like an hour out side of the city. It’s really nice, really huge with a very big man-made lake.
Korea updates will come soon!

Floating Down the Yangtze

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Back on solid land now after spending 3 days and 2 nights on a boat on the Yangtze river. The boat was full of Chineese tourists that were vacationing for their ‘May Day’ long weekend and was a great slow paced break with lots of ‘relaxation time’. We went down (actually up) the river past each of the three Gorges and past the iconic landscape which is on the 10 Yuan note. To get to up the river over 3 shipping locks, which took around 20 minutes to 1 hour to fill up with water so we could ‘climb up’. So far I’ve seen the exact landscape that is on the 20 and 10 Yuan note – hopefully we hit up some of the higher denominations for the rest of out trip!
The boat was nice – like a small hotel with a bar, lounge, majong and Karaoke room. The whole time I felt like I was on a mini Titanic - especially when on the deck at night when all you could see up ahead was pitch blackness. I also SLEPT a lot on the boat since anything moving (trains, cars, boats) makes me feel really sleepy – which was good because other than two short excursions we did there wasn’t too much to do on the boat itself. We did have the chance to party with some Chinese people though which was fun – for some reason all the men like to lift up their shirt and rub their belly. It’s so weird! I will have to remember to take a picture of it.
Ate a lot of sweet and sour chicken, rice, cabbage and shredded potatoes on the boat – that is 2 meals a day for 3 days. That’s the only items the group found acceptable to eat – so sick of sweet and sour flavor I would be happy to not eat it again for the rest of my life.  On the other hand today I have also had the chance to eat totally delectable and authentic Chinese food in proper Chinese fashion thanks to our guide who is Chinese. My favorite things so far has been the yummy ‘black fungus’ (mushrooms) and aubergines with ‘local plant matter’.
Tomorrow we board the train at 2pm and don’t get off until 7am in Xi’an. That’s 16 hours on the train and I don’t have a book to read. I’m gonna have to try to hunt one down but China is very non-english and a LOT less touristy than the other places I’ve been so far.