동해 | Donghae

Bright and early, first thing, we all got up and had a great little breakfast together. Fresh fruit and lightly toasted bread with cream cheese and a bit of bacon. It was really simple but delicious and relaxing, especially with all that sun coming through the window.

We went to a nearby airfield where an Aerobatics Drill was going to be performed. We took an exciting shortcut through some farmland, bypassing huge queues of traffic, parked up and joined the steady flow of foot traffic heading towards the runway.

The show had just started by the time we got there, and the crowd was pretty big. Thankfully, the show is in the sky, so no worries about not being able to see anything ;p

I always find air shows really impressive. It's impossible enough that we as humans are able to fly around, let alone at those kinds of speeds, in such a tight formation.

The sounds these planes make when they whizz past is more than a little terrifying (you don't so much hear them as you do FEEL them. In your chest.) and makes me wonder how scary it must be to live in one of these countries where fighter jets are soaring around on a regular basis, and they're not just there to make pretty patterns.

But I digress.

東京 | Tokyo (4) - Mt Fuji and Squeenix

The early night beforehand had been because of our planned activity for day 4: Visiting Mt Fuji. We got up bright and early (ish) to head down to Shinjuku Bus Terminal, where the internet had assured me we could hop onto a bus to the Fujisan area, no reservations needed.

Thankfully, while the bus terminal itself was a little hard to find, the internet delivered, and we managed to secure tickets and comfortably doze our way through the couple of hours it took to get there. Ann-Marie and I were given designated seats in the "Woman Only" section of the coach. Interesting.

We were so lucky with the weather, the sky was as clear and sunny as anything.

 After a few attempts at trying to focus on the time-wasters we'd brought with us (alas, for some reason no book or games console could hold my attention or consciousness for more than maybe 10 mins) I nodded awake, looked out the window and saw:

Monstrous

It was so big. Far bigger than I'd imagined it would be. It almost looked like the backdrop to a stage production. The curtains that a group of tourists had gone around closing earlier because of the sun were now being anxiously flung open lest they lose a chance to snap a few pics. Ta, loves.

It's almost comically large.

혜화 와 낙산 | Naksan (again) & Filipino Market

A while ago, I'd read about a Filipino market that happens every Sunday in Hyehwa, selling food and sundries. I've been meaning to go for a while now, because I miss hearing Filipino being spoken on a regular basis, and I've been meaning to get some things like patis and sinigang sa sampalok mix so that I can a) spice up my cooking a bit, and b) let Nick try a few more Filipino foods considering he can't try my mum's cooking for quite a while.

So when our new (at the time, again I'm really behind on these posts) friend Ziggy offered to take us around, I was pretty stoked.

I will say, this has become a 'thing' now. Never expect to see a photo of Nick smiling while eating on this blog.

We settled at a stall selling hot food, very reminiscent of a Barrio Fiesta setup (i.e. I feel like I'm eating in my Tita's back garden under the table umbrella) and ordered a set meal of rice, ulam, and a spring roll. We also grabbed some bbq because oh my goodness.

Nick had menudo and I had pancit, and I think Ziggy had binagoongan but I'm not sure because I heard dinuguan so now that's all I can remember. Regardless, it was all really tasty and I'm pretty darn happy I went.

I was way too excited and ate too fast, so despite wanting both biko and banana Q, we ended up all just getting the banana (which was excellent, just the right amount of salty and sweet, but it's nothing compared to eating it with vanilla ice cream). While browsing the shops we all bought a big cup of iced coconut milk drink for about 1000 won each. Normally I'm not a huge coconut person, but this was SO GOOD. Now all I need to find is some gulaman. That green, green goodness.

I picked up a packet of bayleaves and peppercorns, to fill the gap that my adobo has been so sorely missing, and a sampalok mix packet, as well as some little bags of Mang Tomas. I wanted a bottle but nowhere seemed to have one, so I'll have to make do for now.

We moved on to a lovely cafe where we talked about films and a project we're currently working on (which I won't mention properly until it's left infancy and we've actually done something) and all sorts of things, before going to Baskin Robbins (when DON'T we go to BR?) because apparently it was Day 31 which is a regular special event whereupon when you make a purchase they upgrade you to the next size. Whaaaaat?! Turns out it's only for the large family packs, not your standard cones, but we were there so we bought ice cream anyway. Puss in Boots is EXCELLENT.

Then, what do you do when it's a nice day in Seoul and you're full to bursting with food? Of course, you climb a mountain. Of course. It was meant to be a nice tour around all the street art in Naksan but we turned it into location scouting mission and general hike of "how high can we climb?" with a directional sign promising us "amusement".

Turns out "amusement" leads us to a large open space, one of the many free outdoor gyms available all over Korea, and a great view of Seoul. Not bad, but not what I expected.

As appears to be quite common in SK, all of these high vantage points are great date spots, so I ended up with all my landscape photos looking like dramatic romance shots from k-dramas.

After a great sunset, we decided to go back down to the station, taking a route that we thought would be more scenic. It was, however it turned out to be the biggest detour, as we were blocked all along one side by what I can only assume was one of the big walls of Ye Olde Korea. The next opening would presumably be something ridiculous like Dongdaemun.

It wasn't, because it's big, old, and there's not enough room in Korea to be hemmed in by such arbitrary things as walls, so eventually a main road punched through, which we followed to a subway station.

We played around and took some photos of my new Aladdin leggings c/o Black Milk

FOR SOME UNKNOWN REASON we really, really wanted McDonalds. Why. Why does anyone EVER want McDonalds. I promised myself I'd already eaten a load, so I'd just buy a pack of fries, so of course I ordered a McNuggets meal. OF COURSE.

Presumably that wasn't enough, because we then went to Cold Stone Creamery for dessert. I've heard about this franchise before, mainly just through people praising it, so I've been wanting to go for a while now. My bucket list of unhealthy eateries is now longer than my presumed lifespan if I visit them all.

Oh well. I'd rather live a short, happy life full of good food than a long, dreary life of celery.

Cold Stone Creamery is interesting in that, you choose your cone, you choose your ice cream flavour, and then a topping (or more if you want to pay extra) and they kind of...teppanyaki it up. That's an obscure analogy. They kind of scoop your super soft, gelato-esque ice cream onto a metal work surface, then add your toppings, and use two spatulas to combine it all, almost like making your own personalised flavour. It's so good, because this way you don't end up eating all of your toppings right at the start. By far, it's my favourite ice cream I've had since coming here.

Anyway, after all that, it was getting late, so I guess we decided to go home before we got stuck in the station with no choice but to eat even more food. Man, I love food.

낙산 | Naksan Art Village

Continuing on from my previous post, we took a bit of a hike up to Naksan. I'm partial to a bit of street art, so this seemed ideal, mixed in with a bit of much-needed exercise.

The walk started off innocuously enough, with a lovely long mural next to an intriguing looking building in the ever pervasive trend of "industrial chic", egh. (Also, it was a lock museum. As in, a museum...about locks. Padlocks, door locks, safes...really?)

However, it wasn't long before we reached this:

Despite my laboured wheezing, I had enough time to appreciate the view, which just kept getting better. I have to say, the people that live here must be REALLY healthy. There's only one road up the whole hill as far as I can tell. Anywhere not directly on that road? Better walk, kid.

Fukuoka Visa Run: Day 6

Day 6 started by moving hotel again, due to the fact most hotels (including the one we were in) were all booked up. After having a bit of a panic that we'd be homeless for the next couple of days, we found the Court Hotel Fukuoka Hakata. It's been slightly advantageous, having all these accommodation hops, as we've now experienced three quite different hotels.

The Fukuoka Hana was advertised as both a hotel and hostel, mainly for young people, backpackers, and those on a tight budget. The service was very personal and attentive, and overall great value for such a low price per night.

The Heiwadai Hotel 5 seemed to be more of a short-stay hotel, nicely sized rooms with friendly, attentive service, and the added bonus of it being a larger, newer building so there was a lift ;)

Finally, this new hotel which seemed to be more geared towards businessmen. It looked a lot more expensive and professional than the others, and there were a lot more reception staff.

The move itself was very simple, other than being tiring nothing bad happened. The Fukuoka subway is very easy to navigate and runs efficiently. We've also found out, after lugging all our enormous suitcases up a huge flight of stairs on the first night, that most (if not all) of the subway stations have elevator access to the surface. Sigh.

Once again, we'd overestimated how much time we would need (always a good thing to do) and could only check our bags in, leaving us with 3 hours exploration time in the Hakata area. In our ever-helpful map of Fukuoka there was another walking route marked down, starting at Hakata Station, which was where we'd just come from.

It's absolutely HUGE and I've now realised that I didn't take any pictures of it. The first floor and some below are all dedicated to the transport aspect of the station, and are very spacious but busy. The other 9 or 10 floors above, however, were filled with a shopping mall.

Our first stop was Starbucks, for a quick drink that we knew how to order without holding anyone up. There were some clothes shops around it, but more interestingly, as we explored, was a cooking school that looked like something straight out of an episode of Cardcaptor Sakura. There was a big "NO PHOTOS" sign, so I'll just say it looked something like this:

There was also a huge bookstore with more Attack On Titan stuff proudly displayed at the front of the shop, which distracted me long enough, until I saw this:

what?!

A POKEMON CENTRE.

Fukuoka Visa Run: Day 5

Today we went to the other side of where we were staying, and explored the Momochi area! It looks like a pretty touristy area, with lots of big, expensive hotels (including an absolutely ridiculous-looking Hilton). Unsurprising considering it's right next to the seaside and two of Fukuoka's big tourist traps: the Yahoo! Stadium and Fukuoka Tower.

Again, it was only about a 15 minute walk from our hotel. The weather was gorgeous, and as we got closer to the beach, it all suddenly got very... Mediterranean?

Having skipped breakfast, our main prerogative was to find food. After circling the small shopping area, utilising our usual trick of "can we see any romaji?", we settled on a little restaurant-cum-grocery store, where we were drawn in by two salesmen with calls of "IRASSHAI" and "JAPANESE DONATSU!"

The lady inside, whom I assume was the owner, was very lovely despite claiming to not know much English, calling over one of her younger assistants when my stumbling Japanese proved to be less than useful for ordering food.

Being by the seaside, I started channelling my Iwatobi feels and ordered a mackerel meal set, while Nick went for Miso Buta. Mm, buta.

[More after the jump!]