Osaka Part II

For the rest of the trip, I'm just over the moon. Making the trip even more special was that we booked our last two nights in Osaka at the Ritz Carlton hotel. It was so posh and fancy and it made our trip that much more celebratory! We also spent the last two days at Universal Studios, one of which was at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. It was the best trip!

At the Ritz Carlton, we got a room on the 37th floor and they have this corner in the room where the window meets so you can overlook the city with nothing but glass. It had a great view. The room had a really old-school charm and sophistication. The bed was large and one of the most comfortable one I've been on. The washroom was 1/3 the size of the room with a bathtub, separate shower and toilet. They have a turn down service where someone comes to remove all the decorative pillows on your bed, pull down the corners of the cover, put bottles of water on the bedside table, fill the ice bucket and refill all the tea and coffee packets. It was really nice. We did a video of a tour of the room :)

Universal Studios

We spent the first day walking around the park and going on various rides. It was super hot and there's not much shade so Neil had to get this cape-like towel to put over his shoulders and head. Almost everyone in the park was sporting one of these in various characters. Neil had a spiderman one. It was great because it's a towel you can use to wipe your sweat. The bad thing about theme parks are the lines. There are lines everywhere for everything and you really need to pick and choose what you want to do or you'll spend 60% (20% walking around) of your time just lining up. We only did a few rides including Back to the Future, Spiderman, Jaws and watched a musical show about monsters. Most of the narrative in these rides were in Japanese so it was quite funny since we couldn't understand at all. While in the BTTF ride, Neil hit his head several times while in the Delorean. Good thing the musical was in English so we could understand it. With the heat we were quite exhausted so we picked up some dumplings and takoyaki and brought it back to the hotel. Then we relaxed for the rest of the night because the next we're going to be early to see the Harry Potter theme park.

Wizarding World of Harry Potter

I still remember how excited I was when I heard that a HP theme park was opening in Orlando. I wanted so bad to go there but never had the time and money. Then I found out they had one in Osaka (opened last year) I had to go! I've been waiting for this day for a very long time. We got there bright and early so we could line up and get our entrance tickets. We arrived at about 9:30am and lined up for about half an hour and finally got a ticket to enter at 10:40am. We sat down at a cafe had a small bite and waited to enter. Since we were quite early there wasn't that many people, which was awesome. The path into the theme park was everything I hoped for. The decor inside was amazing. It looked soooo good. We went to have some food right away because it was definitely going to get busy later. My first taste of the iced butter beer was magical! It was so creamy, caramel-y and delicious! I was just so enamored the whole day. To make our experience even more special we both got a wizard/witch robe. Neil with his Sythlerian and I with Hufflepuff. We got our fill of seeing everything but there was only a few rides in there. And each ride had very long line ups. We decided on the ride that takes us into Hogwarts Castle. We lined up for 3 hours! But even so, the ride was super awesome so it was at least worth it. But by then we were both exhausted and didn't want to be stuck in anymore lineups. We headed. I know that it would look really amazing at night but unfortunately we're too tired, so we headed home. We had some Bubba Gump before getting back to the hotel. It was everything I wanted and more!

This trip will go down in history as one of the best :) A trip that changed our lives!

Suncheon

So our friend and past colleague had moved to Suncheon at the end of last year. He's invited us out to visit whenever we're free. The last couple of months have been busy but finally we decided to take him up on the offer and take the 2.5 hour bus trip there.

We woke up a little later than we intended to and ended up getting there around dinner time. Ashley and his wife Amy picked us up at the bus terminal and then we all took the bus to a buffet restaurant. I can't quite recall the name but it was popular so we had to wait a little bit. After a nice buffet dinner, we decided to go for karaoke. 

At first we entered an establishment that reminded me of those 80s karaoke lounge from Chinese shows. There's a huge stench of old ladies' perfume and there were booths covered with purple velvet. Most of the patrons were well into their 50s? After stepping into this place, we quickly realized this was not what we were looking for so we said our goodbyes and hightailed out of there. 

The next place is very much the typical karaoke place so we planted ourselves down for the next two hours and belted ballads, rock songs, etc. It was  a great way to spend a Saturday night! After sufficiently wrecking our vocal cords, we headed back to A&A's abode. Their apartment is in a newly developed complex - even area. Everywhere around that area looked so new and clean! And their apartment was gorgeous! It was a three bedroom, with 1 bathroom and an ensuite, an open floor plan of the living and dining/kitchen space. Amy told me that she bought a lot of her future online - I wish I could do the same but alas she is Korean so it's a lot easier for her. 

After a night's rest, we spent the next morning walking around their area. It's very spacious with very tall buildings. There's not much traffic or people walking around because it's still new and people are slowly moving in the area. But because it's so far from the city center (very much a suburb), most people would need to have cars as the buses don't run that frequently. After walking around the area and having some lunch, Ashley decided to take us to the Suncheon Bay Gardens. It took us a long time to find a cab, reminded me a bit like Vancouver (lol). Amy almost had to call a cab for us but eventually we found one and started off on our adventure. 

This garden is not little, it was massive! We were too early for many of the flowers to be in bloom but I bet it would be so beautiful come spring and summer. There were lots of people there and we spent a good few hours and still couldn't walk around the whole place. One very interesting thing we did here was ride the SkyCube. It's a compact unmanned streetcar. It sits on tracks above ground (like a skytrain!). It takes about 12 minutes to get from the garden to the next stop. It fits about 8 people and costs $5 for a round trip. According to the brochure because it's run on electricity, it's suppose to protect the Suncheon Bay (world top 5 wetland) from exhaust and traffic congestion. From this experience, we also learned that Suncheon wants to be known as one of the most green cities in the world. As we were walking through an exhibition hall, I saw Vancouver named as one of the top green cities in the world. Made me miss Vancouver a little bit and feel a bit proud of my hometown. (both pic on the bottom if found via google)

After we got back to their apartment, Amy had make a wonderful roast chicken dinner for us! By the way, she has a full size oven that I am completely envious of! After thanking our hosts, we headed to the train station to head home. Unlike Gwangju, after buying our tickets we had to line up to get a seat on the bus rather than having it assigned. Needles to say, the station was super busy! Never knew so many would head back to Gwangju on the same night. 

Lunar New Year - Seoul Getaway

For Lunar New Year we got five days off and decided to head to Seoul. We booked our hostel in the Jong-no area called Fortune Hostel. It was great! Very convenient and close to the subway station. Only one train from the bus station.

We kept hearing about how it would be really busy to travel on this day but our trip was really smooth. We got there in 3.5 hours and no big traffic jams. After getting to the hostel, we decided to head out the Itaewon to grab dinner. We originally wanted to eat at a Thai restaurant but changed our minds and headed to Boiling Crab instead. BEST decision! It was delicious! 

After dinner we went to Tony's Bar for their stand-up comedy night. It was also very good. We'll definitely go back there the next time we're in Seoul. 

The next day (Thursday) we went to Gyeonbokgung Palace. It was a 20-minute walk from our hostel. Being as it's LNY, we got free entrance to the palace and there was also a festival going on as well. Too bad, the tour wasn't going on so that's another place I want to read up on or go again. I bought some treats at the various food tents. Next we went to find the dim sum restaurant Mong Jung Heon. It was nice and super fancy. The dishes were very expensive. The shrimp dumplings were delicious but the pork dumplings did not taste homemade at all. It looked and tasted like the ones I could buy at T&T in Vancouver.

Afterwards we headed to Seoul Grand Park Children's Zoo. It has been a long time since I was at a zoo and this one was pretty cool. During this holiday, it seems half of Seoul was empty and it's been remarked on by some comedians the night before. It was great because that meant we could sit down on the subway and the lines were not long to all the attractions, including the zoo. The zoo was huge! In fact, the whole park was huge! We spent at least two to three hours and there was a whole avian area we skipped (due to the avian flu warnings). We went back to the hostel to rest a bit before heading out for dinner.  We were going for Thai food (again, tried) but it was closed so we ended up across the street at an Irish Bar. Neil had some bangers and mash and I had fish and chips. It was okay.

On Friday, we visited the Seodaemun Prison and learned quite a bit about the Korean/Japan war/colonization. It reminded me a bit of the Alcatraz but less scary. It was definitely more educational. Next we went to the Coex Aquarium in the Coex Mall. Before the aquarium, we had some pho in the mall. The mall was beautiful! There's so much to see and it's just very pretty. The last time we were there, the renovations wasn't complete so we didn't see how beautiful it was. The ticket for the aquarium was pricey but we went anyways. It was interesting. There was a section where there were fish tanks in every day items like a fridge and a washing machine.

After the aquarium, we saw another Chinese restaurant so we went there to try their dim sum. It seems like this was another fancy restaurant too. The pork dumplings were much much better but the spring rolls were super tiny and meh. 

On Saturday, we had booked a DMZ-tour and the guide came to pick us up at our hotel at 7am. There were five other people in the tour with us. I really liked the tour, the guide was very thorough and gave a lot of explanation and history. She really took care of us. We took a van ride to a city near the DMZ (de-militarized zone) called Paju to meet up with other tourists with their own tour guides (mostly Chinese and western) to travel on a bus to the Third Tunnel. As this is not a UN tour, we couldn't go into the actual DMZ. That tour needs to be booked months in advance and cost slightly more. We did enter the DMZ through the third tunnel which went under this area. We gained a lot insightful information about South and North Korea. This tour was worth it and I would go on the UN tour to see more of the DMZ. 

After getting dropped off in Hongdae (after a gingseng store tour...) we went to find this sushi place my co-worker Rami told us about. The thing about Seoul is that there are tons of little and side streets that don't have names so it's a real challenge finidng anything! We walked around the area for at least 20 minutes before we finally found it! At one point I was going to give up but it was definitely worth it. We finally had salmon sashimi and it was sooooo good! We also got some "service" (=free) items such as a shrimp sashimi (I ate both and they were so sweet!) and a seared salmon.

That night after resting at our hostel, we headed to Itaewon again to do a bit of foreign grocery shopping. We also finally had some Thai food. It was a super pretty place (all purple!). The food was good but it wasn't excellent. It's too bad. We also dropped by a place called Ben's Cookies and bought half a dozen. We had them for dessert back at our hostel. It was delicious! One cookie was really filling.

By Sunday, we decided to do a little bit of shopping and then head home. However, we didn't find anything we wanted and just took the bus home. It was a very productive trip and there's only a few things we still have to do (i.e. rainbow bridge, fish market, etc.) Until next time Seoul!

Third Apartment Video Tour

This is a video tour we did shortly after we moved into our third apartment.

MAN - ABD - SEO

This entire trip to get to Gwangju took over 24 hours.

We got to the Manchester airport by 6:30am. We found our airline counter (Etihad) and proceeded to check in. Good thing my bags were just on the limit! For some reason there was a massive line up to go through security that day. the line up went out all the way outside and even snaked around! It took us almost 2 hours to get to the security check! There was a bunch of people who didn't arrive 3 hours before their flight that had to be fast tracked to the front to not miss their flights. Crazy!

We still had a little less than an hour before our flight so we stopped to get some food. Pasty was open so I eventually got to try the Steak Cornish pasty and it was delicious. It was a bit big so I could only eat half of it. Neil picked up some more tea at the duty free. Surprise surprise.

The first plane ride to Abu Dhabi took about 7.5 hours. It was a very nice flight! We even got real forks, knives and spoons to use! No plastics. We were surrounded by children on this flight, many were toddlers. i didn't get much sleep at all. But at least this flight had a good free entertainment selection. I watched a couple of movies on this flight. I even watched a Chinese movie. This flight included a lunch meal and a snack wrap. I had the chicken and rice and Neil had the fish. His was much tastier, but they were both great. the snack wrap was delicious!

When we arrived in Abu Dhabi, it was super hot and humid. Neil's glasses fogged up right when we stepped out. We had to take the stairs out of the train and onto a bus to get to the arrival terminal. Our layover time was about 3 hours and I was able to convince Neil to visit the McDonald's. I was curious to see whether they had anything different and specific to this country. He ordered a McChicken meal (boring!) and I had the Classic Deluxe Chicken meal. This burger was huge! And much like a McChicken it also had a slice of Swiss cheese and a slice of tomato in it. It was very yummy.

The next flight took about 8 hours. This airline is very on point with their meals. Right away we got a cup noodle and a bun. Then they turned down the lights so we could get some sleep. I think I was able to get about an hour or so. Neil got a bit more. I ended up watching a few movies and TV shows. I watched Divergent which I thought was very good. I also watched 3 episodes of a show about the Silcon Valley. It was interesting. For breakfast I got beef congee and Neil got eggs and chicken sausage. It was very yummy.

The plane arrived about 25 minutes later than it's suppose to. It took us a while to get through immigration, there was a lot of foreigners. We eventually got our luggage and a Mr. Kim met us at the arrival terminal. He brought us to the bus station terminal and helped us with purchasing our tickets to Gwangju. The bus was to take off at 1:20pm. It was a 4 hour bus ride with a break stop at the 2 hour mark. Surprisingly this bus was very comfortable. Big comfy seats that recline back and the A/C was on. Many people were able to sleep including us. I had about a 1 hour nap. Neil even read his book on the bus.

By the time we finally arrived at Gwangju (U-Square) it was about five. Mr. Lee picked us up at the bus station and took us to the school right away to meet with the director, vice directors and some teachers.

UK Part IV

After meeting Neil's family and friends, it's time to meet up with my family in Liverpool. We caught 10:40am train which took about 2 hours. At this point I realized that my "train pictures" all look the same. I wanted to pick up some pastries at Pasty but it wasn't opened :(

Phi picked us at the station and we headed to my aunt's straight away. This is the gathering place where eventually all my relatives would arrive. Right away we were served food. And then the barbeque started and then the food became endless. We tried our very best to eat as much as we can and everything was so delicious! I wish I could've ate more. I even wore my loose clothes. After everyone's arrived, we did some photos in the backyard. There was quite a bit of people and it took quite a while. Everyone had their smart phones out and I had my ipad.

After the photos, we said our goodbyes. I think Neil might have received some thinly veiled threats to take care of me. We stopped by to visit my uncle Sing's grave before the train station. It had been seven years since my first time in Liverpool.

When we got back to the house, we quickly packed up our stuff and set off to Manchester airport where we had a room booked. This way we could get to the airport quickly in the morning to catch our 9:20am flight. Both Neil and I fell asleep in the car ride to Manchester. It was dark by the time we arrived. Neil's parents have been so sweet and amazing this whole trip, we couldn't thank them enough.

We stayed at the Crowne Plaza and for some reason we got a handicap room. The washroom was massive! The sink was low but for some reason, the toilet is very high. They also added an extra cot in our room. We requested a 5am wake up call and tried to get as much sleep as we can before our long journey.

UK Part I

One word to describe my trip in the UK: whirlwind.

My first day consisted of arriving at Manchester Airport after a 14+ flight + travel. Then a a1+ hour long ride to Sheffield. I was quite tired to say the least. My first fish and chips experience was delicious! My favourite by far :D Britain - you do deep fried fish very well.

When i got to Neil's parent's place I was greeted by a very enthusiastic German Shepard named Ella. After eating and drinking, there was only one thing left to do: sleep.