31 March 2019
Everything is grey
Myeongdong at dawn and a trip to the Lotte tower
Finally, some photos of things that are not airports or aircraft. Please consider when reading this that I am now entering..... my 49th sleep free hour, let see how this goes!
If you were paying attention, the flight times and hotel check in times had lined up against me to make sure that I was not going to be able to get any sleep of any kind, that is still the case. I am full of coffee. I am gloriously delirious. Yet still I type.
After dropping may bags at the hotel at whatever time that was, it was time to pace around and wait for a cafe to open, the earliest opening one I could find didnt open until 8am.
It was cold. So very cold. And grey! No leaves on anything. No cherry blossoms, yet, actually there were a few, at a lake, a grey lake. I took a train to the Lotte tower and shopping centre, had more coffee, glared at people.
On my way back I missed my train stop which wasted time which was good.
Then my phone went flat which was unexpected, something here is eating my battery more than in Australia, despite my phone being Korean. Actually I think my phone was stolen in Korea, re-birthed in Dubai and sold to me by a Chinese woman on a street corner, so maybe now that its found its way back home its really excited.
Surely this is making little or no sense by now, and yet theres still more sleepless hours to go, my goal is 8pm local time, its 5:30pm here now, I must find my dinner, and shower again.
I already had 2 showers in my excellent hotel room. More on that later, more hotel and shower pics. More semi incoherent ramblings.
SO GREY! My hotel is in the main area called Myeongdong, home to various animal by-products that are ground up and applied to Korean girls faces.
There is the tower. I have been up there a couple of times. I will probably go again, not today though, too cold. Also they have knocked a lot of stuff down since I was last here, but not much seems to have been built to replace it yet.
I sat and chatted with the giant teddy bear for a while, until he started to ignore me. So I punched him.
Being the fashion area, theres numerous ways to make your eyes look less Korean. Here you can stick contact lenses over your eyes to add fireworks, swirling galaxies, angry ocean. Then you cant see out of your own eyes and people looking at your eyes thing you have a terrible eye infection. Win-Win!
A nice tree getting photo bombed by a church. This is the main church, the map says so. There are mega churches all around the place but this one has the best location. I wandered up the hill but beat a hasty retreat when I saw hundreds of nuns recruiting people on Sunday morning. Lets not forget the Korean president lost her job because she was dealing with religious psychics to make decisions on what to do with the country she was running.
Near the Lotte tower is Lotte world theme park. You can walk all around it without paying money to go in, so I did that. There are a few cherry blossoms to look at here.
A fake mountain has been constructed with a roller coaster running through it. A beautiful brown construction framed by grey skies.
The Lotte tower! Its huge and impressive. The way it bulges out and gets skinnier makes it look taller than it is. I believe a few windows fell off and some cracks developed soon after it was finished!
Inside the Lotte mall is a heap of faux gold and blocked off spiral staircases. It is a large modern mall with lots of good food.
Just when you thought we couldnt sink further as a species, here is the latest thing I am seeing a lot of here already. It is a pusher / stroller / pram for young adults. Basically anyone up to the age of 16 can now be wheeled about and force-fed fried snacks. You can then buy various stuffed animals and pile them on top of your adult children then throw them all out when you get home and do it all again tomorrow.
Infinite ice block.
Apparently someone in Melbourne has imported one of these robotic coffee making machines, and charges $10 a cup. People line up for it. Not a good photo but I couldnt figure out how to remove the glass case to eliminate the reflection.
For my lunch, tofu gimbap. One of the default standard Korean foods. Yes its basically sushi, but fresher and crunchier, less sauce and mayonnaise, more vegetables.
After killing for as long as I could, I mean killing as much time as I could out at Lotte world tower amusement park, I returned to Myeongdong, which was now open, and now crowded.
Coming soon to Australia, Oreo Churros. Those adult children have emerged from their cage with wheels to line up and get a bucket full of fried chocolate and icing.
Annnnd one more photo of busy day time Myeongdong streets. It gets busier at night. Eventually theres a sea of discarded sharp food sticks to wade through. Every morning an army of grandmas sweep them up and start small fires in the street to destroy them all. The smoke blows over to China and causes their pollution issues.