Trip to Hong Kong, Macau and South Korea - Jan 29th 2010

The news this morning said that it was -6.6°C outside at 7:15. Went downstairs for breakfast as it is included in the stay at the hotel. Beats rushing around looking for somewhere decent to eat. Had a big breakfast. About 8:30 we made our way to a bus stop on Jong-no which wasn't far away. Bus 5500-1 took us to Suwon and about 1km from the traditional Folk Village.

"Welcome to Hell ladies and gentlemen" - shop sign captured from the bus.

Advertising for a marathon from 4 months ago. What's up with that?

Why not watch TV whilst stuck in traffic?

Huge noise barriers alongside the Expressway.

Fuel prices. I always like to take a photo of them when I travel.

Bang Bang - clothing not weapons store.

Frugal Bastard rugged up against the cold.

Yep, it's winter alright. The landscape is quite bereft of leaves.

Here we went sledding for a couple of hours. It's great fun but gloves are definitely recommended. I didn't have any and made sure that I bought the first decent pair I came across afterwards. The Boy beat me 8-7 in races down the hill. Hundreds of kindergarten age kids were there also. At lunch time there was an announcement and the place was nearly deserted afterwards. There were a few kids that wanted to talk to me and one of them was pretty difficult to shake off.

Frozen lake (or river). Pretty impressive sight.

Kiddies day out at the Folk Village in Suwon.

Ready for the first sled run.

The big sled run at the Korean Folk Village in Suwon.

Here comes the leader.

Miky enjoyed the sledding.

The Boy had more fun with snowballs than sledding.


So long sucker!


Frugal Bastard finishing the sled run first with The Boy a very distant second.

At one stage the snow came up through a couple of holes in the bottom of my sled and sprayed my face for about half of the run. I felt like, and resembled, the abominable snowman. Pretty cool pic, eh?

Frugal Bastard's impersonation of the Abominable Snowman.

Trying to get lunch at all of the nearby restaurants were catering for the kindy kids and so were out of bounds to us. Had to go deep inside the village for lunch - dumpling soup, seafood pancake and mung bean pancakes - absolutely delicious.

Best seafood pancakes I've ever had.

Kimchi anyone?

Korean-style village houses.

Old fashioned toilet - Korean-style.

I think that a better translation would be "Put rubbish here".

I don%'t know why the tree has been decorated this way but it does look nice.

Horse riding show.

Great trick horse riding.


Archery on horseback at the Korean Folk Village in Suwon.


Great horseriding skills on display at the Korean Folk Village in Suwon.

There was a fabulous horse riding display put on in the village. They did all sorts of tricks, rode on top of the rider's shoulders, performed an archery show and were very entertaining.

Took a ride on the amusement park pirate ship which was great fun although I was covered in snow afterwards. There was a museum within the village which was good although the Korean children that visited don't understand the signs asking them to be quiet. Also wandered about more of the buildings and there was a frozen lake where you could do a primitive form of skating. Not bad fun though.

The Pirate Ship was great fun in the falling snow.

Snow to greet the afternoon.

I love the old style.

Ice-covered lake.

Anyone for skating on ice?

We were worried about money as the cash had nearly run out and surprisingly Miky discovered that the banks weren't open anymore on Saturdays. Had to leave the folk village about 3pm and we had until only 4~4:30 before they closed. I spotted a KEB, Korean Economic Bank, and we alighted the bus. Luckily this bank had an ATM that would accept my card and allow me to withdraw money from my own account. Pity that the account it accesses didn't have enough money but I did manage to find out how much was accessable. Withdrew some money to get us by. Success and a lot of worry put to rest. As I said previously I didn't bring an awful lot of cash on this holiday.

Caught another bus to Suwon Station and took a train to Seoul Station. Went to Myeondong so that Miky could cut her hair and The Boy and I could have dinner in Shinsaegae department store. We ate a spicy bibimbap (mixed rice and vegetables) with octopus. The Boy had to mix it with macaroni and mayonnaise to be able to eat. The four cups of water that he drank also helped. We had a chocolate ice cream and went to the arranged, or so I thought, rendezvous point one minute later than agreed. When someone says that they'll meet you at a subway entrance to Shinsegae I expect to wait at the building entrance and not outside the subway when the temperature is -8°C. We played cards for the 50 minutes that we waited. When the store closed we decided to go home.

I thought that it would take only 20 minutes so a walk wasn't too stupid an idea. It wasn't long before I realised that we weren't heading in the right direction. And I didn't have a map with me. I was just about to grab a taxi, on account of the lack of a map, when I spotted a foreigner standing outside the Sejong Hotel with a map in hand. I asked if I could borrow it to get my bearings and the guy was most agreeable. On the walk back to our hotel I did pick up a map from an information kiosk. Forty minutes after we started we arrived at the hotel. Miky gave me quite an ear bashing for having The Boy out in -8°C for 40 minutes after having been sledding and walking around the folk village for most of the day.

Luckily, for me, our friend Keiko from Fukuoka arrived. She wanted to catch up with Miky and booked into the same hotel. We talked for an hour before hitting the sack.

Trip to Hong Kong, Macau and South Korea - Jan 28th 2010

Big rush this morning. Up at 5:50am to finish packing. We left the room at 6:50 and checked out. Walked over to Hung Hom Station and caught the MTR to Tsing Yi Station. From Tsing Yi we took the Airport Express which cost HK$42/adult and HK$36/child. Arrived at the airport at 8am which was one hour and forty minutes prior to take off. We were asked to do a self check-in by Cathay Pacific staff. After entering passport details, some of them manually as the scanner was unable to pick up all details, there was a problem and we would have to go through the normal check-in. It turned out that the problem was caused because we had a child in our group. Why did the attendant ask us to self check-in then? Idiot.

Raced upstairs to a restaurant for a quick meal. Very quick. Left at 8:55 and we had to be at the gat for boarding at 9:15 or risk not being accepted for the flight. Immigration still to go through remember. They always check my face at least twice and it must have been because of my beard. Went as quickly as we could to our gate and then found out that we had to take a train to get there! Then we discovered that gate 46 was right down the end and so had to run down the travellator. It was the final boarding call already. Just made it in time. Just. Nearly everybody had boarded already. Phew. Bit tight for comfort.

Thirty minutes into the flight the captain announced that there was a technical problem and we would have to turn around and return to Hong Kong where, "Hopefully the company has a plane available for us to change to." I blame the missus for pointing out that the on-board entertainment system had crashed (ok, I noticed that) and after informing one of the stewardesses the captain made his announcement. I like the fact that once we landed our screen informed us "Thank you for flying Cathay Pacific". We didn't go anywhere! Landed at 11:10. So much for all of the rushing about. Captain announced that there may be a quick fix or we may still have to change planes.

Entertainment system crash.

Hong Kong round trip.

Thank you for flying Cathay Pacific. Surely you can't be serious?

What's the problem.

And so we had to change planes. Luckily the company had a spare Airbus just lying around. We waited in another lounge and they provided a bottle of drink and chocolate butter cake. So much for compensation. Headed off again at about 12:50. Only three hours later than planned. Watched District 9 on the flight. Interesting movie but not suitable for kids [It's R-rated]. Don't think much of the toilets on board as they are still tiny and a somewhat odd shape and positioned strangely.

Waiting lounge for turn-arounds. Obviously.

Bus out to plane on the tarmac.

Boarding the plane on the tarmac.

Busy boarding.

First view of Korea.

Densely populated Korea.

Bit cold as you can see.

Coming into land at Incheon International Airport.

Piggyback.

Flight was too long for this girl.

Arrived at Incheon just after 4:30pm local time. Miky had an easy time at immigration but we picked the slowest line. Of course. The immigration guy asked me if I'd been to North Korea when he saw my Doosan stamp in my passport. It was a bit embarrasing to inform him that it was the last station in South Korea. I'd been to the DMZ previously and he should have known that. By the time we'd finished Miky had collected our luggage.

Miky hired a mobile phone and I exchanged pretty much the last of our cash. Could be a problem later on. Grabbed a limosine bus to Anguk Station which was just down the road from our hotel, Somerset Palace.

Catching flies on the bus.

Checked in - marvellous room with two TV sets. Left as soon as we could and took an expensive (W4500) taxi to the Lotte Department Store. Arrived at 7:45pm which was only 15 minutes prior to closing time. Had to buy some gloves for The Boy but they didn't have what we were looking for. Went outside to the street market stalls and checked. It took a while to find gloves and then we wanted a price check. My question is why were there so many stalls selling socks in winter but almost nobody selling gloves. Surely they should be as plentiful as umbrellas in the rainy season. A further 20 minutes were used looking for another stall that sold gloves before we realised that we'd have to return to the first stall. Then the problem was finding it as we had been weaving around the streets without taking notice of where we were. It took some time, and frustration, before I saw a stall selling Dolce & Gabbana wares that I recognised and Miky thought that she had seen the glove stall before that. Sure enough, that's how we found it. Returned to the department store for the restaurant level, which was still open, and had W10000 bibimbap. The kimchi side dish was so good that we had to have another one. Caught a W2400 taxi back to the hotel. It was an international taxi, the driver spoke English also, so it was quite amusing when he sneezed and said, "Excuse me", and I responded with "Shillye haseyo".

Street decorations in Seoul.

More street decorations in Seoul.

Lovely decorations on trees.

Beautifully decorated streets.

I went shopping at Family Mart for saewoogang (shrimp-flavoured snack) and ice creams. Boy, the footpaths were slippery where they were covered in ice. The Boy watched Cartoon Connection whilst we viewed Korean TV.

Funny Ads In Korean Newspaper

I can read Korean but there isn't much point when I don't understand what it is that I'm reading. So when I came across an ad with a bit of English in it that caught my attention. Closer inspection of the language revealed a lack of depth of meaning. Heck, we can't even get it right in our own country so who am I to badmouth someone else who's mother tongue it is not?

The Swiss Jura ad contains a funny line. See if you can spot it.

Swiss Jura Special Event

I saw a few men who could do with more hair in parts but I can't see too many of them using this product. Not that it's any worse than the comb-over though.

Korean spray-on hair

Gotta be careful not to get the spray on your palms or people might start talking. I'd say the guy needs a bit of the spray above the top lip as he's a bit thin in that area.

Spot the funny bit in the coffee machine add. "Buy One Get One. Special Event!" Since when was that ever a special event? If I buy one I at least expect to get one. I'd be quite disappointed if I only received 95% of one after paying for a whole one. It's a fairly normal occurrence actually.