Size does mater

The world 'Big' doesn't quite encompass Seoul. Immense is a much more fitting word. Coming from Christchurch, there's something to be said for the enorrmity of the buildings here.

They are so ridiculously big, that it's almost dizzying to look up at them. I discovered this sensation during a walk around City Hall when the sun finally showed itself. Navigating from the subway stations is incredibly easy, and I tend to use them as a base/focual point when exploring, so that I can find my way back. The above picture is City Hall. Interestingly, we arrived at the same time a protest was building up, and could be heard from blocks away.

The view from a skywalk between two young, hip focused department stores. It's surprising what kind of price ranges you can find between the upper and lower tier of shops.

Walking the markets was an exercise in saying "No, Thank you" as we westerners look like easy sells to a lot of the probably professional wares hockers. Alex, an american from the hostel, and myself had a good look around. Gungnam style socks for $1? How can you not endulge.

Temperature hit at least 30 that day, and we called it quits after a couple hours.

Troublesome Travel

It all started with a change in flight times. Instead of leaving at 5:30am, we were now due to leave sometime before 10am. All good, despite only finding out about it the night before.

So we turn up at the airport, and they can't find any record of us for the day. "Are you sure it's the 25th?," asked the check-in assistant when we're at the airport, ready to go. Turns out we were actually suppose to depart on the 26th. My mate (K) immediately offers to let us punch him in the face for the trouble and mistakes.

 Flash forward 12hrs, and we get an extra confirmation of our tickets to make sure there won't be anymore problems. Unfortunately there is a very big problem - my name is spelled incorrectly. Shaye Antony Holmes, ready for departure! Without a correct name on the ticket, it's impossible for me to get on board a plane, and it's proving impossible for expedia to contact each airline to get it changed. We had to cancel the flights before midnight in order to still get a refund, and rebook them again the next day. However, it'd take 3 business days for the refund to through.

We scrounge up another $5k between us to rebook more tickets, while the refund money is still in the air, scheduled to depart on the 27th.

We're at the airport again, and K loses his passport immediately after using the self-check-in kiosks. We spend the next two hours looking for it without success. K heads of to internal affairs to get an expensive new passport minted, but we quickly encounter a new problem - he's not even scheduled to fly that day. Somehow, his ticket has been cancelled, and he's not feeling too good about the whole situation anymore.

Flash forward a few days, and the original refund money has now gone through, and he's set to join us in Seoul a full week after we all intended to leave initially. In the mean time, J and myself have found the hostel (after a $15 40MB data pack to aide us), ventured into the subway system to find one of the big department stores (540 shops contained therein), gone out for dinner a couple times, and explored the university district in preparation for the big nights to come.

Most importantly though, is relaxing with one of these nearby.

The first week's stay

Roughly our first week of stay will be at the Hongdae Kimchee Guesthouse, in a room not unlike the picture. It's ideally located, as the AREX express train will travel to a station 5 minutes walk from the hostel. 60,000w is about $65 NZD, which will be split between the three of us. Certainly interesting getting a quote for 360,000 cash upfront payment!


http://www.kimcheeguesthouse.com

Why am I going back? Well...

Having stayed there for 4 months previously as an exchange student, I told my mates about how great it was time and time again. Now, that's spurred us into taking a boys trip to South Korea again, and then hitting up Japan while we're in the area.

At the end of my previous journey, I slapped some music on a slideshow of pictures I took while there to commemorate the trip. Two years on, I still watch this video to remind myself of the fun I had, the friends I made, and how much I'm looking forward to going back again.