South Korea day 6

I took a 4 hour bus to Busan (a big city in the south of South Korea) in the afternoon. Once I arrived it was quite late and I was starving so I ate a hefty abount of "gimbap", which is a Korean food which looks exactly like sushi but tastes very different. I definitely prefer sushi, but then again, I prefer sushi to anything.

It was roughly 7pm and I hadn't booked a hostel, so I decided to catch local public transport to Haeundae which was a place my backpacker sense made me expect to find lots of hostels. (By the way, the trains here are really cool; they play classical music at every stop).  As soon as I walked out of the station I found a place called 'one stop hostel'.

Even though the public transport ride was only 40 minutes long I was still starving by the end of it. Fortunately my roommate was a Korean engineer who hadn't eaten yet. I went out to have some traditional Korean food with him. He told me about his experiences doing 2 years compulsory military service and expressed his anxieties about starting his Engineering job tomorrow. He talked a lot so I only got to mention that I was an engineer as I was climbing into my bottom bunk bed. I was fiddling with my phone adaptor and the power socket as I was telling him that I did some electrical engineering courses at my university. Unfortunately, it was at this moment that i short circuited the whole room by forcing in the adaptor plug... Whoops! I can guess what he thinks about western quality education now :p

South Korea day 2

I woke up at 6:20am to go hiking with the American guy, Nick. The hostel was already quite far north west of Seoul, so it was only a half hour public transport ride to Bukhansan National park. We decided to do the Baegundae peak which was the shortest of the hikes so we could be back at the hostel by 1:00pm. I was quite amazed to see how many elderly people were climbing the mounting with us. Sure, they were slow, and hilariously over equiped; seriously they all had walking poles, and professional hiking clothes, but I got pretty inspired by it none the less, mainly because most Australian elderly people I meet typically waste away watching TV and drinking beer all day. Go Korea! 

The hike itself was easy and short, although some icy bits made it a bit tough at times. The peak itself was amazing though. I got an epic panorama shot which I'll share on Facebook soon.

For the hike I had repurposed a plastic beer bottle from last night by filling it with water. Funnily enough, the beer flavored water tasted identical to the actual Cass beer I drank last night. Drinking from the bottle with powerful, desperate gulps in the early morning on the public bus on the way back might have given the other Koreans a very concrete stereotype of white westerners.

When we got back, the Koreans had made a huge lunch and invited us to eat with them. It was a broth filled with vegetables, clams and a few spices. Delicious.

After I had rested up I decided to go to IPark mall to see the world famous esports stadium. It's an arena littered with seats, plasma screens and 10 computers. Sadly the famous Dota 2 international tournament had ended 2 days before I arrived, so the stadium was empty. The cleaner there still allowed me to look around after I begged him for 5 minutes. The next big computer game being played there was "heartstone" on Friday. Even I was not nerdy enough to see that.

From there I decided to walk to Iteawan, a 30 min walk. On the way I visited the Korean National Museum and passed an American Army base. Once I hit Iteawan ibwas blown away at how western it was. There were Americans everywhere and every street was littered with pubs, food outlets, and clubs.

It was getting quite late at this point so I decided to buy some more rice cake with spicy sauce and head back to the hostel.

South Korea day 5

The collective hangover of 2 consecutive days of heavy drinking was bad. What made it worse was honoring our plans to visit the DMZ at 7:00am.

Because my liver at this point could best be personified as a baby being force fed brussle sprouts, I ended up sleeping for small parts of the tour. Fortunately I was still awake for the important parts; including the tunnels and the lookout.

The tunnels were awesome. Apparently the North had tried building dozens of tunnels that were obviously directed towards Seoul. Once the South discovered them accidbetly through an excavation, the North reportedly painted the walls black and claimed they were searching for coal. We got to walk down the 3rd tunnel up until the 1st blockade. It was such a steel incline / decline that I'm sure that even if the North had constructed the tunnel, their troops would have been too exhausted to fight anyway.

The lookout was awesome. I researched the North had constructed such a large flag that it couldn't even wave in the wind. This is a lie, I saw it blowing around like crazy.

Tim and I made friends with a french girl, Julie, while doing the tour by offering her some of our hangover food; jollypong - a sweet Korean snackfood.

Tim went to bed as soon as we got back at 5pm. I forced myself to have drinks with Julie. It wasn't easy, but I didn't vomit from the 3rd night of drinking Soju.

South Korea day 3

It was time to say goodbye to my old hostel and head to Iteawan. I took a train there, placed down my bags and immediately made my way to Gangnam. No matter how long I walked around, or how many times I listened to Gangnam Style, I still couldn't find Psy...

I was a little disappointed walking around Gangnam to be honest. There were just apartment buildings and giant booming offices. I was expecting a Tokyo feel, but instead it was quite seouless.

I left close to 5pm and made my way back to my hostel. Rush hour is crazy here! I've seen stacked trains in Sydney before, but this was something else. I think it's because Koreans are so much thinner on average compared to Australians that they were able to get way more people per square meter on the train. Also because I was genuinely about a foot taller than everyone else on the train, I had to actively fight my desire to crowed surf from carrage to carrage.

While having my organs compacted by other Koreans, I had the chance to watch the korean television in the train. For the most part it was exactly what I expected it to be like; quirky cartoon characters selling toothpaste was a big part. What I wasn't expecting so much was just how many female actors were selling beauty products. The models were very artificial and used an array of feminine hand flicks, cute laughs and pouting to sell a tub of moisturizer. Sure, this form of marketing happens everywhere in the world, but its overwhelmingly abundant in Korea. The inner feminist in me was furious; there must be thousands of woman out there battling their insecurities becasie they don't confirm to an arbitrary notion of beauty.

When i got back I met a bloke called Tim from Utah at the hostel and decided to go out drinking with him. Tim was nothing short of a redneck. He was a 21 year old, Donald Trump supporting, gun wielding cowboy. He even supported Trumps ban all Muslims policy because "its like a tap that's leaking dirty water. You gotta stop the flow and figure out the problem so ya dont risk contamination".

Even though I strongly disagreed with Tims conservative outlook, if didn't stop me from enjoying the night out. We went to a whole bunch of different bars and got drunk. We met a few Korean guys and went drinking with them. They were super hospitable and friendly and bought us a few rounds of beer and vodka shots. Despite their broken English, one of them managed to communicate that he had visited Australia and been subject to crippling racism in Brisbane. I tried to console him by telling him that he was simply unlucky in his experience and that most Australians are kind welcoming people. None the less, I'd never felt so embarrassed and ashamed to be Australian. We bought rounds of alcohol back to the Korean guys and went our separate ways.

Almost immediately afterwards we somehow managed to run into 2 Korean girls we had met earlier in the night. They were heading to a club and invited us along. Even though I was drunk, its still very unusual of me to agree to go to a club; I must have misheard them say 'pub'.  I didn't need to worry though because the entire club was so packed that it was physically impossible to dance!

I noticed more than any other club I'd ever been to, how much of a divide there was between male and female behavior. It was disturbing to see just how much everyone tried to live up to 1950's gender stereotypes. There were small pockets of Asian girls everywhere trying to dance and laugh just like in the TV commercials, and giant hordes of western men around them pumping their chest out like roosters. This type of thing exists in Australia too, but once again its overwhelmingy prevalent in Seoul. Despite this, I still had a good night.

South Korea day 4

The hangover in the morning was awful. It was made worse once I realized young Tim barely had one at all.

Today was a day dedicated to recovery. I walked a lot around Iteawan and enjoyed a few good cultural dishes including Ox rice soup from a bistro and a chicken sandwich from 7/11.

At some point I managed to fit in the Korea war museum. I got there only 15 minutes before it closed so I'll have to go back there again to get a proper look.

Tim may have been a gun crazy hillbilly, but supposedly he also played StarCraft. We went to the nearest PC bang (internet cafe) and played a game. I crushed him. My life goal of winning a game of StarCraft in Korea was finally accomplished.

We got back to the hostel and ran into a British guy and a Canadian girl who actually lived in the south teaching English, but had travelled up to Seoul for the weekend. We decided to go out drinking with them. We forgot where all the pubs were that we visited last night, but once we got a few bottles of soju down from 7/11 as predrinking it became a lot easier to remember. It was another sloppy drunk night.

South Korea day 1

FUCK ITS COLD! It's called south Korea, why is it so far up North?!

South Korea is such an organized, clean and beautiful country. I took the KTX express to Seoul center and then took a bus to my hostel called "pencil 5". The streets are wonderfully kept, and all the buildings are pimped with technology. Even the pedestrian crossings have speakers attached to them when you press the button which blast put some 10 second Korean message - I thought I'd activated a silent alarm when I first pushed it. Perhaps I'm just in shock after spending a month in South East Asia, but either way its a refreshing change. It was definitely relaxing not needing to be constantly vigalent about avoiding motorbikes.

I met a few international people at my hostel including; an American, a Canadian and 3 Malaysians. They're all really friendly, but nothing compared to how friendly the other Korean guests are. I kid you not, Koreans are literally the nicest and welcoming people I have ever met. The Koreans found out it was my first day and insisted on making a late Korean lunch with soju for the whole hostel to enjoy. I tried paying them for my share but they wouldn't take it.

For dinner I tried some street food. I am now addicted to Tteokbokki; a rice cake with spicy sauce. I wish I could be as positive about kimchee though, that stuff is downright awful. I don't know why everyone likes it so much.

Oh yeah, other than the 1 American I met, I literally think that I am the only white person here. :)

Vietnam day 7

Today I reunited with two Swiss girls I met earlier in Cambodia. They were new to Hanoi so the swirling deathball of traffic was quite intimidating for them. Reinacting a scene from Aladin I asked Monika to trust me by closing her eyes and walking confidently into the traffic. At first it worked brilliantly, but towards the end I had to yank her back to stop a lone motorbike from splattering her. She wasn't too happy after that.

Regardless, we all had an epic Vietnamese BBQ lunch where we; enjoyed good food, drank a few beers and met an American called Dan.

Sadly the Swiss girls had to leave to Sa Pa by 9pm so that left Dan and I alone in a pub. We got plastered drunk, joined a pub crawl and somehow ended up at the Mafia owned nightclub; the lighthouse.

At roughly 4 I stumbled my way home through the deserted and eerily quiet streets of Hanoi. I slipped and fell over more times than I can remember. Amazingly there was one woman who was still selling sugary pastry near my hostel. I decided to award my bad athleticism with a donut and crawl my way to my bed.

The hangover the next day was very real. I spent half the next day sleeping and the other half hating myself for drinking so much. You might say I was quite "hanoid"!!!