Heading back to Seoul on the KTX to stay at Dormy inn Gangnam
Now I am back in Seoul and as the title suggests, that is the first of 2 loops or the second of 4 loops completed. Actually lets go with second of 4, but I am not changing the title. Loop 1 remains open, Melbourne to Hong Kong to Melbourne. Loop 2 also remains open, Hong Kong to Seoul to Hong Kong. Loop 3 is completed, Seoul to Daejeon to Seoul. Loop 4 will come soon, Hong Kong to Guangzhou to Hong Kong. Very complex, if you go to the news section of this website, there is a handy map. Geography, cool?
Before leaving Daejeon I had time to do another loop around the creeks / drains / sewers in the dawn sunlight, this is the loopiest update I ever typed. Very nice weather, good scenery. It was then time to check out of my hotel, and if you recall the check in, I did not have to pay, and despite insisting that I pay as I left, they told me there was no need. I presume they have the details from my booking via booking.com but they are yet to charge my card that I can see. Maybe they just like me a lot and want to give me the room for free?
The trip to the Daejeon station on the subway with my bag was very easy, and then it was time for a cake and coffee before boarding my bullet train to Seoul, this is all very procedural.
The train ride lasted all of an hour, and thankfully today, no one was losing a lung. There was no view though, all blinds down, just like Japan! Whatever you do, do not try to open a blind, a grandma will slap you.
My hotel in Seoul is far away from where I was staying last week, in fact it is in Gangnam, a stylish place apparently. It is also a Dormy Inn, and in all ways its identical to the Dormy Inns in Japn, which means it has a free laundry, so that is what I am doing right now, fascinating!
Here is one last view of the huge apartment suburbs in Daejeon, along with one of the many running tracks that runs along one of the many rivers to one of the many mountains.
If you have been to a Korean BBQ restaurant, you will know they fill up with smoke and have the exhaust fan things. here is what that looks like on the outside, such a terrible carbon footprint!
Look! A glasses bridge, just like Nagasaki in Japan!
And look! Its a bullet train! Also like Japan.
Oh wait, its a Dormy inn, like, yeah you know. My room has a very long entry with a wash basin and a bathroom running off the side.
Here is the bedroom area. It is quite roomy, not that this shot shows it well. There is a little couch running along the left wall not seen here. Well you can see my red suitcase on it.
My room even has a view, behold, the view! My window opens, but the gap was very tight to get my camera out, I contorted it 5 different ways to get it out the gap to take this shot, so you better appreciate it!
Exploring the busy streets of Gangnam for a hamburg steak
Somehow on my previous 2 trips I seem to have missed the main part of Gangnam. I am sure I have walked down the main roads before, but most of what there is to see is between those roads, on a giant slope. Very very steep in places, hard to walk up, a very strange place to build a very popular retail area.
I must also apologise that todays photos are all crap and uninteresting, that sometimes happens on travel days, even when travel was only an hour. But I guess I did combine travel with washing day, which takes a couple of hours. So today was probably the most boring day of my holiday. So now I will talk about penises. Lots of penises.
The washing machine in the Dormy Inn is in their spa / sauna / communal bath area, just like Japan. There is a big changeroom with stools to wash yourself and mirrors etc, and yeah theres normally a few fat old nude men hanging out there (literally).
Today there was what appeared to be an entire work group, on some kind of trip, all in there at once, making jokes about each others penises. There were so many penises swinging about with general penis frivolity, that some of the guys were sitting ON the washing machines that I was trying to use. Even as I was in there loading the machine or transferring the clothes from the washer to the dryer, they stayed in the washing machine room, telling stories about how big the fish they caught was.
The really strange thing about this was, it was a 38 minute wash cycle, and a 75 minute dryer cycle, I left the bath area each time, and when I came back, all these dudes were still hanging out in their with their scrotums swinging about.
Hopefully tomorrow I can step up my photo game, although rain is forecast, which is the great stifler! Is stifler a word? Internet says yes!
Here is one of the main streets through Gangnam, that I have walked down before. It looks just like an Australian city.
Just as I forecast, peak cherry blossom has now arrived in Seoul.
Also, just like in Australia, Chinese hot pot restaurants are the current hot thing in Korea. Lines down the street for all of them. Currently every single restaurant in central Melbourne is either hot pot or converting to hot pot, and they all have giant lines.
Is Psy dead?
Heres some nice buildings, and a bus.
A photo for my mother, here in Seoul, or in this part of Seoul, Dunkin donuts has gone up market. Note: I know you like mister donut, but this is the same damn thing, only the upmarket ones have nitro cold brew and donuts with ganache and creme fraiche.
The back streets through Gangnam are basically like the busy colorful back streets in the other parts of Seoul, but there is much more variety in the food on offer... despite my poor choice below.
It does not really look like it here, but this is one of the up hill streets.
And now my dinner. I saw a sign with this salad like arrangement with dumplings and some bulgogi, so I wanted that, it was a basement place so down the stairs I go, sit at the table, ring the doorbell thing. Unfortunately the meal I wanted was a lunch time special only, damnit! Oh well, curry hamburg steak it is!