Korea - HK - China - KORKONG! - Page 1

Enjoy 25 x postage stamp sized photos that appear elsewhere beyond this point in full hi resolution!

The aforementioned Virgin lounge which is actually the Etihad lounge which is actually called 'The House' and they try to hide the fact that Virgin elite status dorks get access because presumably they have to pay Etihad an exorbitant sum of money for anyone that figures out the riddle and pushes their way in demanding 'free' breakfast.

OMG its an omelette. You can order off the menu or go to the buffet. Since there were about 20 guys standing around with nothing to do, I ordered off the menu. They appeared to be annoyed that I did. Also the coffee was ok but the sugar situation was amusing. Instead of granulated powdery plain sugar they had artisan lumps of some kind of non dissolving glass like substance that added a rich earthy aroma of sugar well past its used by date.

'The House' does have a good view of the runways, but most of the aircraft are behind me. I pretended to be an air traffic controller for a while, looking at flightradar24.

That is not my plane. It is a Qantas jet, but I took the photo because of those mountains, calling me, shrouded in cloud currently. I will be back in 2 weeks time to climb those mountains.

I like Hong Kong airport. You really have to walk a very long way. That suits me fine. I walked to all corners of the main terminal... and then....

My flight is leaving from the satellite terminal, which has blue lighting. It is also large and I can do some more walking, with my heavy backpack. Then I can have a shower. Walking and showering, holiday highlights! I sure cant do that at home.

ITS ME! And I dont look as tired as I feel. I am balding I fear, and going grey (should that be gray or grey?), this is exacerbated by aircraft air conditioning. I always notice whenever I get off a long flight it feels like I have spider silk for hair, and not much of it. Thats enough hair talk.

I cant just post a photo of my big stupid head, so heres some flowers and lights in the airport arrivals hall. Basically this is where I sat to sip my coffee, so this is the photo I took. Thrilling stuff!

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.

Brilliant clear blue sky! I celebrated by taking photos of random buildings. This part of Seoul is not where the nice modern buildings are, that is over in Gangnam. I will be staying in Gangnam next week after returning from Daejeon, taking photos of shiny buildings. Thats a nice sunstar on the right though!

Just a random street in the direction I was walking.

This building mural is so blue it makes the street blue. Actually I think my camera made everything blue, I dont know, maybe everything just looks blue to me now. What I do know is that it says Seoul Animation Center and they painted an unanimated mural. They should have painted an animated one.

Shinsegae is the biggest nicest department store. I knew I would get dinner from there when I saw it, and I did. It spans many buildings, you cannot really tell how big it is from this angle.

My dinner was a curry of sorts, with Korean accoutrements. I ordered the house special, which means its the one they have the highest profit margin on. It contained tofu, eggplant and macaroni and cheese and a quite spicy curry sauce. Small serve, quite pricey! Thats what you get for eating at Shinsegae. This photo looks like it was taken with a flash. My camera does not have a flash, weird. I hate flash photography. Today my sentences are very short.

A random lit up building, might be an art gallery.

And as a final photo for the evening, the main food cart street in Myeongdong, at night. It gets dark here later than I thought, its still kind of light at 7:00pm. Very unexpected. Now, bed time.

This is near my hotel. People do not seem to get to work early, still quiet at 8AM, subway was still empty. I wont mention the weather because to do so is boring, repetitive and redundant and makes me seem as old as I am.

I stayed on the train to the last stop, Danggogae. Korean names are not easy to remember. This area is clearly for poor people, although its still in Seoul on the subway. I noticed on my long walk back that they were adding sewers and drainage. Modernity comes to Danggogae!

Walking to the start of the trail from the station meant passing lots of houses busy collecting rubbish and storing it in their yards in case theres ever a shortage of discarded plastic, then we profit! There was rubbish everywhere. I dont think they were collecting it because they are getting paid to recycle it, it would appear to have been here for about 1000 years. Many sets of eyes were watching me closely to make sure I didnt run off with an old plastic bucket with a hole in it. Meanwhile everyones identical looking dog attached to a rusty chain was desperately trying to break the chain to kill me.

I think it is actually too early for cherry blossoms, if thats your thing. Instead there are these yellow and purple flowers everywhere. In this photo I have managed to capture both, to save on having to post 2 photos. It also features a clump of dead brown leaves, which is the defining feature of Korean mountains in March.

The start of the trail has these notice boards filled with posters for hiking groups? Transport options from the other end of the trail? Insurance? I have no idea what all this is here for. I noticed a nearly identical display at the bottom of the other side of the mountain when I got back to a road.

There are a few temples as you set off. This is the main one. I found it very annoying because the Buddha is offset on the stairs, and the whole building is on a lean and offset from the path. The Soju must have been bad.

Oh look, its another mountain as seen from this mountain. I fear the sky is too blue, I tried to make it less blue.

Today featured every kind of mountain trail. I enjoyed the variety. Here is a scramble up some steep rocks section, one of my favorites.

I think I went all the way around to that peak. It was not really very far but lots of it was quite technical with ropes and chains. I never felt the need to put my gloves on though.

Here is an easier section of the trail. I dont really understand why some parts had barriers like this despite not being dangerous, then other parts had a frayed rope attached to a questionable branch as you stare over the edge of a 300 foot drop.

There is Seoul. A bit of it anyway. Over 20 million people live in the greater metro area.

A bit more Seoul. I have climbed all those mountains on the horizon on previous trips, they are all in the Bukhansan national park, which has a lot of really challenging dangerous trails.

Clearly I was enjoying taking photos of rocks contrasting against pine trees with the city in the background PUNCTUATED by an overly blue sky.

Mountains in every direction, tomorrow perhaps?

I think this is elephant rock. Taipei also has an elephant rock and possibly Hong Kong? Wait thats lion rock. OK so now I have been to Elephant rock in Seoul and Taipei and Lion rock in Hong Kong. How many animal rocks have you been to?

Nice texture in those rocks, great for removing skin when you fall over. Actually the rocks are not the problem, the fine gravel is. I guess the fine gravel used to be rocks, its razor sharp, slippery, and unpleasant feeling on your ass when you slide down a hill.

Perhaps this is photo of the day?

The lines on my face look particularly deep today. I am starting to look like 90 year old Clint Eastwood. Here you can see my running backpack. I have a new setup for this trip, first I put on my over the shoulder tiny camera pouch for my giant camera. Then I put my running backpack on over that, and put the waist strap through the belt loop on the camera bag thing. This way I look like I need a helmet and an emotional support dog / pig / peacock, but it stops anything from moving about, keeps both hands free and I can run. FUNCTION OVER FORM.

Now its time to get lost and follow a random trail down the wrong side of the mountain! Down to a location with no train!

This side has some rocks and green and blue of its own. Just like the other side!

After successfully negotiating this perilous precipice, I took a photo back from where I had come.

I kind of hoped the trail I had selected would loop back around to where I started, at about this point I realised that would not be the case. The only question now, how far would I need to walk along a road to get back to a station? About 6.5km as it turns out.

Once I reached a road, this was the first thing I saw. It was making a terrible buzzing and humming sound and every now and then a puff of smoke would come out of it.

Solar powered creepy plastic light up child. Why though?

The road back to the station through the military base followed this huge open drain / sewer project for miles. To greet the construction workers the locals have lined the site with many miles of piled up rubbish, ready to push it in as soon as it rains.

I took an alternate route to the top of the tower, through this place known as Hanok village. I originally thought it said Hanbok village, Hanbok being the traditional Korean dress, their version of the kimono, except it looks more like something the pilgrims might wear when milking a cow. But no, it is Hanok not Hanbok. I googled what Hanok village is, and it said 'A place to take photos for instagram'.

Hanok village does indeed have a lot of places you can take photos for instagram.

Last photo of Hanok village, taken from the top of the path, I noticed a lot of wooden cutouts you can stick your head in for photos to make you look like a cartoon character wearing a Hanbok, so there you go, you can do Hanbok in Hanok and put both on instagram.

There is the tower. The light was great at this point, I was excited to go enjoy the sunset. Note the dead grass looking stuff, snow kills everything.

Then I was ATTACKED! I am lucky to still be here. This cat pretended to be all nice and happy and friendly, but no, he was vicious and tried to kill me. I noticed as I tried to get away a small army of cats had suddenly appeared!

The yellow flowers are particularly fetching during a golden sunset.

I tried to get a sunstar around the cable car by lining it up and hitting the shutter at the right time. I kind of lined it up but did not get the effect I wanted, I needed a zoom lense.

I think this is just a cafe, which does not explain why they have a giant pink orb alongside the traditional building.

The pollution and a bit of cloud on the horizon made for a rather dim sunset, probably making the photo more interesting.

Look at all those mountains behind the city! I think I have already climbed all of them except one. Possibly the least polluted sky I can ever remember seeing in Seoul, people have actually been complaining it has been very polluted in the last couple of weeks, I guess it blew away as I blew in.

The love locks are still at the top of the tower hill. I think they all get removed and thrown out once a week. Theres millions of them.

I waited for ages to get a photo of the rubber duck unobscured by selfie sticks. Was it worth it? Obviously yes. My main regret is that I couldn't get one of me with the duck....because I dont have a selfie stick. Anyway, here he is, Mr B.Duck. Whatever that is.

Here is the tower. I find tower shots to be quite boring. But you cant climb up to where the tower is and not take a photo of the tower, so here it is. Looking all towery, and phallic. I bet I could get an article published as an opinion piece on the ABC (Australian News) website declaring that towers are a phallic symbol of male dominance over women placed in prominent positions in every city as a constant reminder that women must accept their fate as servants to all men.

Bonus tower.

Starting to get dark now, and damn cold in the wind, my hands were struggling to operate the camera effectively, but I pushed through the pain.

The last bit of orange glow, this is still a handheld shot.

Here is a long exposure, well medium long anyway, still not quite fully dark.

There are lots of places to enjoy the view, I got asked 3 times to take peoples photos, each time I ran off with their camera and added it to my collection. Now I have to lug around 4 cameras.

Random colorful rain shelter.

Another long exposure. Remember thats not the main business district of Seoul, its just one of the suburbs. My fingers had basically stopped working at this point.

And here it is, poor person kimchi stew, with all the accompaniments. I chose a place that looked reasonably busy, striking the right balance between 'why the hell is no one at all here?' and 'why the hell would a busy place like this want to use up an entire table for my party of one?'. Anyway after I sat down it became clear that the 3 other tables were the children of the owners and waitresses doing their homework. In between serving me they went and sat down and explained to their 3 year olds that their entire life is hinging on the score they get on their test on naming the shapes correctly.