It's the final count down...

Yes, the time has come. Almost. Just another 12 hours before I try to haul my bags out of the apartment and get myself to the airport to come home. It's been emotional... sometimes accident prone, and often embarrassing, but my time in Korea has been an amazing opportunity, and I have not wasted the last few days in this country (and here is just another example of pavement driving, you can even see the oncoming scooter!).

After returning to Korea from China, I unfortunately went down with a nasty case of bird flu - not the avian kind, just the female equivalent of man-flu, (which is like man-flu, but much, much worse). Still, with Gemma having left for sunny Australia there was still Kev to entertain, so on Monday morning we managed to drag ourselves our of beds in time to catch the 5.30am bus to go skiing. The ski resort was very similar to the ones on the East coast of the U.S in that it was a fairly small selection of slopes on hills rather than mountains. Interestingly, they only had blue runs or black runs, and some runs which would be half and half- not very fair on a beginner!

However, having skied even the most gnarly, double diamond, "expert only" runs a few times, we concluded that in Europe they would be nothing more than a slightly shorter than usual red, as there were no large patches of ice, grit, rocks, precipices, crevasses or long trains of out of control ski-school kids nearby as with most European black runs...now where's the fun in that?!

The resort we went to was Yongpyong which is one of the candidate resorts for the 2014 Winter Olympics as advertised absolutely everywhere... but I would be very surprised if they were successful as there were no runs long enough or steep enough for a downhill ski race, the half pipe had the side profile of a plate, and the gondala lift took 17 minutes to get to the top, and about 4 minutes to ski down (would have been much quicker if the "blue" run had been steep enough that you didn't have to walk...)

However, all in all it was great for one day of skiing, and had I not felt so ill I may have gone back for a second day.

So, what to do on the last few days in Korea?! We headed off for a tour of the war museum which was really interesting (and not just because you could climb inside lots of military planes). It seems that Korea is not only one of the few countries that never appears to have tried to take over anywhere else (largely because throughout most of it's history it was defending itself against the Chinese or Japanese) but it also seems to be a place that England has not tried to own. We did turn up in the late 19th century asking for trade, and at one point occupied a small Island for a couple of years, but then it appears we wandered off elsewhere and just opened trade routes (although the history books claim that we did much unauthorised surverying...)

We visited an aquarium today which did, as I had hoped, have a Korean twist on things... namely the displaying of fish in everyday unusual items such as drinks machines, a washing machine, and yes.... a toilet bowl.

They also had a decent tank of sharks which always grabs your attention, and a huge sea turtle which I don't think I have ever seen before in an aquarium.




So, to conclude my time in Korea, we went to a restaurant called "Mad for Garlic" which seemed to pay tribute to Dracula as you would expect of a Korean Italian restaurant (?!). All good fun though and we did manage to get a decent bottle of red, and some steak, even if the garlic may stay with me for a few weeks...

And so, it is time to leave Seoul. I have had a great time here although it has been tough at times, mostly due to being quite isolated or me doing ridiculous things to embarassas myself, and I swear I never normally fall over at all! Seoul is very modern and doing extremely well for itself with an incredibly high standard of living. At the moment though, there are very few Brits out here and I could have done with a few more young females for company, but I strongly suspect that in a decade or so, Seoul will be like many of the other up and coming Asian cities and a fantastic place to live and work. I have certainly never felt safer anywhere. I have to say though, I will not miss the view from my flat too much....

Thank you to everyone who has kept up to date with my exploits... I hope you have enjoyed reading this as much as I have amused myself in writing it (probably not I would guess) but my mum likes it so that's ok. You never know, there may just be a next chapter round the corner, who knows....

Anyong haseyo, and kamsahamnida (goodbye and thank you)...

Visitors to Korea and China

Well the final week of the project went well, despite me developing a nasty case of comedy falling flat on my face whenever a flight of stairs presented itself. Pointy boots and flared suit trousers are not good for your health. I managed to go splat twice in one day, which did at least even up the scuff marks on my suit knees, and of course my bruises!

Gemma and Kev arrived here last Saturday, so I thought it was only right to take them out for some Korean food. I went for the tamest option I could; a Korean BBQ but there's no getting away from the fact that a) everywhere you go you will be served Gimchi (previously mentioned pickled, fermented and chillied cabbage) and b) it just doesn't taste great to unaccustomed palettes... and I still class myself in that category.

So, after a brief stay in Korea, we headed for Beijing - the city of high rise, bicycles and smog as it turned out. We had a brilliant guide called David, who said he had not seen an orange until the age of 11; massive changes he must have seen in twenty years as he was chatting away on a mobile phone much of the time. He was the hostess with the mostess, with the most amazing whistlestop tour I have ever been on. We managed to fit a huge amount into 3 days, partly because rather than allow us time to read the signs around the palaces etc. he gave us a summary on fast forward mode; quite difficult to understand at times.

We of course went to the great wall, which was as impressive as you would expect, and I never realised before that it was 6000km long. Did make me wonder though what purpose it actually served as there were many areas where a small ladder would have got you over the top no problem... I have perhaps missed the point. What I didn't miss though was the opportunity to get into fancy dress! I would have prefered the warrior outfit myself, but the Chinese guys were looking at us a bit wierd so I thought I would be feminine for once...

The food was fairly palatable to Kev and I, although Gemma wasn't particularly keen but after the 5th meal of chicken and peanuts, it was getting a bit repetitive. It was also served to us in huge quantities, and it seemed we were often closely supervised by the waiting staff; I'm sure they were just being helpful but I did feel a bit like I was on stage.

Then we hit the dumpling restaurant. There are 180 varieties of steamed dumplings in China, but we were assured we would only be served 16 of them. However, I lost count after 25 and Kevin ate far more than I managed (I actually had to have a lie down afterwards as I was beginning to get stomach cramps). Technically speaking, I am not sure that I would have counted that many varieties as every other course seemed to be: "this wan is... Pork!".

Tip of the week: Chinese Soju and Korean Soju are very, very different...

We were given a complimentary bottle of Soju with our lunch on a few days... no problem I thought, well used to drinking the odd shot of this stuff (mere 20% in Korea). The tiny, thimble sized glasses really should have rung some alarm bells. It wasn't until we had set our gullets and insides on fire, that we read the bottle... 58%!! It cannot be good for your health!

In Beijing we got to visit Pearl factories, jade factories, silk factories, ming vase factories and found out that had the Ming dynasty in around the 1300's not been abruptly ended by Ghengis Khan, within 50 years or so they would have been very likely to have had an industrial revolution as they had the beginnings of mass production techniques. More surprisingly, back in the 600's not only did women have rights including the right to divorce, but it appears that the fashion was for dresses that started under the bust, rather than above it...

We also wondered whether they might want to change the wording on the packaging for westerners in the Silk factory...

We also had a tour of Tiananmen Square, although we were given none of the history, and although I took this picture from a distance, Gemma and Kev are convinced the soldier is blowing me a kiss. I beg to differ...

We had a tour of the Forbidden city which is fanastic - a huge expanse of palacial buildings (9,999 rooms in fact) - well, you need a lot to maintain 3,000 concubines, and then we went onto the Summer Palace which was incredible too. As incredible was our guides excitement at bumping into "the best musician in China" - he said his Daddy would be so proud of him as this man is a celebrity in China and has been on the TV. I couldn't resist a quick video, so I will leave it up to you to decide if he is set for international stardom...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BsGa2jX-tY

After a few days in Beijing, and a large amount of shopping, we flew to Xian to see the terracotta warriors, and quite a lot of smog. The story of the Terracotta warriors is fascinating.

They were only discovered in the 70's by a farmer digging a well, who would have missed the whole lot if he'd been more than a metre in the other direction (he is till in the museum every day signing autographs!). There are hundreds of them, and they were all smashed when they were discovered, so archaeologists have been painstakingly piecing them together ever since.

The emperor who ordered them to be made wanted them to be built to protect him in the afterlife, and it took 700,000 people 38 years and a third of all of the palace income to complete them and his burial tomb, which is thought to be a vast underground palace but is as yet uncovered. The Chinese know where it is, but don't think they have the technology to dig it up and preserve it all at the moment, so are leaving it until a generation does have the skills - unbelievable patience! The figures are also over 2000 years old which is staggering. What amazed me most though is that every single soldier is different, and was modelled on the actual army of the time down to the hat, uniform and moustache! Originally they were in full colour too though now most of this has worn off. They also stand in 3 different museums as they are all standing in military positions, with guards on the flanks, archers and even horses and chariots. They also had chomium plating technology which until this discovery was thought to be invented by the Germans in the 30's, and their weapon blades have stayed sharp for over 2000 years.

What isn't quite so fantastic is the fact that upon his burial, the Empress, all of the favourite concubines, all brothers and sisters and top officials were also buried with him, and therefore had to commit suicide or be tortured if they didn't.

I have never been anywhere so polluted and dusty - it was really nasty trying to breathe - Gemma and I have both developed chesty coughs since and I'm not at all surprised. Our guide was actually saying "at the top of this hill, you should be able to see a huge mountain behind it" but we couldn't because of the smog. It doesn't often rain there which doesn't help. This picture of a buddhist temple isn't just a foggy day... it's always like this apparently!

The other highlight of Xian was having a Chinese massage. We were made to wear big baggy pyjama type things and had a fantastic massage although there were a few unusual twists, such as the element where she really punched me in the back a lot, (anyone who punches me that much would not usually get away with it!) and then the punching in the head element. I think she must have just had it in for me though as the other two didn't get this wondrous treatment... perhaps it was something to do with the fact that all over China I managed to pick up so much static that anyone who touched me got a shock - not particularly friendly when some nice Chinese lady was welcoming us to a factory and shook my hand and visibly jumped back a few feet after getting a shock... oops.

I'm back!

After 2 weeks of severe blogging technical difficulties, the site is finally working again. Just one problem, they have converted all the language to Korean so I am having a few issues. however, I am sure I will resolve these shortly and continue the updates - of which there is much as I have now got company out here in the form of Gemma and Kev, and as you can see, Kev is absolutely delighted to be here...