last day in korea!!

my asian adventure is coming to an end! it is very sad for me to go back to reality. here are some highlights from the last days...

yesterday, i went to a korean sauna (also called public baths) - sauna is pretty big here (and cheap) - you can pretty much entertain yourself in a sauna facility all day - typical sauna locations have several sauna rooms, a steam room, jacuzzi, massage facility, relaxation room, tv/dvd room, internet gaming area, beauty salon, gym - HUGE.

sein and i also met our MBA friend, kenny suk, for lunch. we had indian food - korean indian was quite tasty.

ok, off to the airport! i will post more from home...

olympic park and the han river

today i ventured out to the site of the 1988 summer olympics. the olympic area is now simply a park. the area also houses an olympic museum with facts about the seoul and other olympic venues. pictured is hodori, the seoul olympics mascot. sein says that hodori was all the rage during the '80s - everyone had hodori stationary, backpacks, tshirts...

i later went to the han river for a boat cruise and to check out views of the city. as my luck would have it on this trip, it was cloudy and overcast today so my views of the city were slightly obstructed. the han river runs right in the middle of the city, dividing seoul in half. it is considered more desirable to reside south of the han river and often koreans, when you first meet them, will ask you which neighborhood you live in to determine whether you live in a desirable (south of the river) location or an undesirable one (north of the river).

korean folk village and world cup stadium

sein and i went to a korean folk village this weekend to basically check out the old school korean heritage lifestyle replicas - following are pictures of korean acrobatics and a korean traditional dance. really colorful and entertaining.

while sein was hard at work, i ventured out on the subway to the world cup stadium and park. the WC stadium was built on top of an old landfill - the city government regentrified the land and turned it into a functional eco-friendly location. while there are no football games played at the stadium, it is used as a multi-story department store (with a supermarket on the bottom floor)

annyeoung haseio - greetings from seoul

this is my last stop - seoul korea - i will be overstaying my welcome here by parking myself for 10 days. i am here visiting my MBA buddy, sein. sein and her family have been the most gracious hosts, i am having such a great time. the city is similar to other major asian cities (singapore, HK) - has excellent public transport - the people are really friendly and the food is excellent! i am in love with kimchi (pickled cabbage) and dokkbuchi (rice cakes in spicy sauce, real simple peasant food). i dont think korean food gets the credit it deserves next to thai, vietnamese and chinese food - but it is really flavorful and extremely healthy (the rice is my favorite in asia so far).

during my first day i went to 2 of the popular korean palaces to see the changing of the guards and insa-dong - one of seoul's traditional cultural streets (they have one of the only starbucks with non-english signage) and simply hung around.

local sights of beijing

i realized that with a population of billions, you have to bite and claw your way around beijing. after the incident with the cab driver, i think i have learned to play their game...i forgot one little story from yesterday's post of the great wall - i think the stereotype about the driving here is true - when my minibus showed up yesterday to take my group to the great wall, the driver backed into a street sign and broke it in half. though the driving is crazy in every other asian city i have visited (most of india, cambodia, thailand, vietnam), i would characterize the driving in those cities as 'comfortable chaos' - here, i think the drivers are all a few fries short of a happy meal.

anyways, i went out to visit the most popular sights of the city, one of the biggest is pictured, tianaman square and the gateway to the forgotton city. as you can see, mao is

quite popular. i also went to a chinese acrobatics show. highly recommended.

the GREAT wall

the great wall stretches over 6400 km...there are many parts of the great wall that are open to visitors - the most popular with the tourists is badaling - badaling is fully restored and pretty crowded. another popular site (where you can toboggan your way partly down the wall) is called mutianyu - mutianyu is also partially restored. i chose the route to the wall that is slightly less travelled - it starts at a part called jinshaling and you walk (lots of steep upward and some downward climbing) 10 km to another section, simatai. this climb is highly recommended - it has beautiful views from 30 watch towers and is for the most part, totally unrestored. super cool.

beijing welcomes you...

this is the signage i saw getting off the train in beijing - 'beijing welcomes you' (since beijing is the site of the 2008 olympics - slated to start on 8-8-08)...let me tell you, beijing welcomes you by having a cab driver ripping you off on the way in. they are totally ruthless in the lengths they will go to when they price goods and services. beijing also has some of the most aggressive panhandlers i have ever encountered.

this place is also different from all the other asian cities i have been in since it has (in my opinion) the worst public transportation system i have seen. beijing proper is HUGE (i think more than 1.5 hrs to get from one end to the other) and they make it hard to navigate around. on the other hand, the sightseeing here is pretty spectacular - there is TONS to see, dont know if i will have enough time to cover it all. off to the great wall tomorrow...

28 hrs by bus

the bus ride from nanning to beijing was surprisingly quite pleasant. i had a very nice berth in my "hard sleeper" - 2nd class bed, basically. the pics are proof that the bed is actually not so bad - i went for the top berth because 1. it is the cheapest and 2. lower chance of getting your stuff mugged. i made friends with a chinese girl who is a college student (who has stronger engrish skills than rirrian - i still wonder how she graduated...) and helped me read the chinese on the timetable so that i got on the train...the 28 hrs passed by pretty quick - i spent much of it teaching 6 chinese people how to play a cardgame and the rest with a chinese kid who was so excited to see an american.

Ni how! (hello) from Nanning, China

this is my first stop on the way to beijing. i was unable to get a ticket on the direct train, hanoi to beijing so i will have to piece my way over - i took a 9 hour bus ride from hanoi this morning up to this small town in china which is supposedly called the "gateway to southeast asia" (probably since it is one of the major border crossings from china into SE asia, i assume). it looks like i will be on a 28 hr train from nanning over to beijing, eek!

here are some simple pictures of the scenery from the bus and some pics from the town...

last evening in hanoi

a benefit of traveling alone is that you can do what you want when you want to - so i chose to attend the water puppetry for the second time...don't know why, but i love puppet shows.

an added bonus to my trip to hanoi is that i was able to meet up with my good friends, arrin and ela katz! it just so turned out that our traveling paths happened to overlap in hanoi so we met up for dinner. having spent so much time in china, arrin and ela helped me out with some chinese phrases - most important being "i dont eat meat" and "that is too expensive" - we shall see how far that gets me through the country.

i am leaving tomorrow by bus for nanning, china and then onwards to beijing (not exactly sure how i plan to get there...) - so stay tuned!