Planes, trains and everything else

Happy New Year all!
I hope you had times that were smashing and splendid wherever you were and whatever you did. I was at the oldest shrine in Japan listening to a gong gonging and being cold and sober. Then I ate hot chips and mushy rice balls with bean paste. As you do. There were many scary ladies in highest heels and mini-skirts. They looked cold.

The day after I wrote last I was to catch the boat to the mainland and from Matsue take and night bus to Tokyo. 10 hours on a bus, then fly fly away. BUT it was not to be. For once the problem was not island-ish. We could have gotten off the island fine but the Matuse-Tokyo bus had been cancelled. So I ended up spending about $400 (more than my ticket to Korea) flying from the island to Osaka, busing from Osaka airport to the train station, bullet training to Tokyo, staying overnight in Tokyo and training to Narita airport in the morning. PPPFFFWWWA

Sooo by the time I arrived in Seoul on Christmas Eve I was feeling all travelled out. Fortunately the pane was on time and my friend Rachel and her mum Raylene were there to meet me at the airport.

The best thing about Korea has to be the heated floors. The are glorious. All countries without chairs ought to heat their floors. I swear I wouldn't have so much trouble getting out of bed in the morning if the floor (and everything else) wasn't so damn cold. Granted, I'd probably start just rolling out of bed and lying on the floor for extended periods, but maybe I wouldn't feel so guilty about staying in bed...

Christmas day was definitely one of my odder Christmases. After a quick chat with the family in NZ and devouring about half of the chocolate my sister sent me, I met the others and we set off across Seoul in search of bubble show. We had missed the early session so we had a much needed lunch before the afternoon session. The bubble show was um... a bubble show. Fun, odd and um bubbly.

Most of the rest of the time was spent shopping and shopping. I went to the biggest fabric market in Asia which was just plain silly. There was so very much of everything and few double-ups of anything. It is difficult to believe that that many fabrics exist let alone come together in 3 five-storey warehouse-sized buildings... I spent a lot.

The food... Koreans are obsessed with leaving food till it goes bad and then making it super spicy to disguise the weird taste. This I believe is the origin of kimchi, the rancid spicy cabbage that is the local speciality. I tried it. Once. I don't really dislike spicy food but it really truly dislikes me so after a few uncomfortable days I tried to stick to the blandest stuff I could find. It was all really cheap though and there was some good stuff. I especially liked the-middle-of-the-table BBQ and the breakfast sushi.

After a day of fast shopping where I spent far too much on a set of grinning pigs and a rather gormless wooden duck, I caught up with Simon in the western area. Korea is so much easier to get around than Japan! Everyone seemed to have a bit of English which was nice. I felt like an evil tourist though, expecting everyone to English at me. I could just be the country/city split though. Anyway, we went to a Chinese restaurant where I accidentally ordered something cold grrrr and then to a local for a few drinks. T'was nice and I ran into Rachel and Raylene on the train home (the last apparently).

I managed to fall asleep at the airport and woke up at boarding time still needing to go through customs and immigration. I just just made the plane, I was thundering along the horizontal escalator things when they were doing the 'all passengers should now be on board' calls, but I got there and back to Shimane without incident.

I hope everyone is rested and recovered from their adventure. Please do email me and keep in touch. Winter is long cold and a silly time to have the Christmas holidays.