All tofu prior to today now seems good...

After killing some time last night, we hit up the food markets. Everything smelled great, and there were so many people and food stalls in attendance.

Dave and Judy kept going on about something called 'Stinky Tofu' and how we had to try it this time. I'm generally keen to try anything once, but now I'm going to have to rethink that policy. Now I'm not one to pick tofu over any meat alternative so I'm already a little biased, but the name didn't do it justice. I don't even think words can do it justice.

Imagine old cabbage stolen out of the neighbours compost bin.

Imagine bottling the smell of a mattress owned by an old, flatulant man.

Imagine every pair of socks and underwear you've ever worn being left to ferment amid the 30 degree hot, humid weather, and then turning a fan on it to spread the goodness around the whole area. Then put it on a plate. Then put it in your mouth. I'm assured it's because this Stinky Tofu actually was shit, and shouldn't be taken to represent all Stinky Tofu. Apparently we have to try a proper, good place before we go, lest my opinion be left to stand.

After some tirimasu Gelato to wash it down, I was encouraged to just pick some meat on a stick to try. Challenge accepted.

I'm told the local nickname for my mystery meat is 'The 7km smell.' I was assured that's because it tastes so good and the smell can attract people from 7km away. It did taste pretty good, despite the meat itself being chicken butt.

We played some games, and I did particularly well with the BBC guns. Won myself a toy. Proud.

After the night market we headed up the hills for a great view of the city at night. The camera on this phone is pretty sweet, so I got some very good shots. If this app didn't crash when I tired to attack have them, you'd probably agree.

This morning we visited Judy's grandparents in preparation for the wedding tomorrow. They're a lovely old couple who've visited Christchurch 4 times, though not since 2003. Her mum and sister joined us, and we had biscuits and juice to bring up lunch time.

After lunch we had a long walk through the park, and are now resting in preparation for dinner. We'll need to make it an early night this time so we're all fresh for tomorrow's wedding.

Four cities and a sleep

Before crashing for the night, we fed our feet to the fishes. For $3, we had the ticklish pleasure of cleaner fish eating away at the dead skin on our feet. It felt like dozens of mini water jets running across our feet, yet you couldn't shake the feeling you were just about to feel a proper nibble and yank our feet out of the pool.

Waking up early in the jimjilbang wasn't as rude for me as it was Dave's mum. She had chosen a spot too close to the men's toilets, with at least one of the loos  clogged and the door repeatedly being left open by the old korean men visiting it.

We walked up the hill of Chungnam university and took in how much it had changed over the years. Even at dinner the night before, it was evident this wasn't the place I had loved anymore. No time to worry about that though, as we had to get to Taiwan.

From Daejeon we hop the high speed train to Seoul, fly to Taipei, hop another train to Zaoying and finally crash in our airbnb apartment. We all slept far better than the night before.

This morning, I went out for a walk in the 28 degree heat at 7:45am. Big mistake. It dawned on me that no one walks in this city. Everybody instead uses the sidewalks to park their bloody scooters and cars. I was walking on the road half the time, particularly because it was maintained a hell of a lot better as well. So odd seeing 200 scooters fly by all at once like some sort of scooter gang.

After finding my local convenience store and picking up some wine ($23 nzd) and a 200ml bottle of Johnny Walker black ($12) I made my way back to the apartment and got stuck into... a book. It's far too early to drink.

Next we all went to a department store for lunch at a popular restaurant chain and spent up large on clothes. I'm writing this from the local dentist where Dave intends to get some cheap fillings. Wouldn't do that to myself while on holiday.

No idea what's happening later. Stay tuned!

Markets, Daejeon.

Yesterday saw Dave, his mum, and I travel down to Daejeon to looking around some of our old haunts. Perhaps most shocking was the accommodation for the night - a jimjilbang, a communal sauna.

It's cheap, 10k won for the night, and for that you get a thin mat to sleep basically anywhere you want within the building.  We found some empty alcoves and claimed our territory.

After having a beer in the cold room, and warming up again in the 59 degree sauna, we all hit the hay.

The day prior, we navigated the namdaemun markets. There's a few concentrations of kids clothing stores in this area, and we all picked something up for our families - a nephew and neice in my case.

Later on, I met with with Daniel for game of thrones night. Dan is a guy I met at the hostel 3 years ago, and teaches English in Gungnam. A half bottle of rum made for a decent episode, but nothing really happened in it to be honest.

The plan for today is to walk about our university, and get back to Seoul for the flight to Taiwan in the afternoon.

Streets of Seoul

After breakfast, I met up with Dave at Yongsan, which hosts a huge electronics store. Around the area we came across some sort of gaming event, with tents for games such as League of Legends. Managed to score a picture with the lovely  cosplayers, but I get the feeling their working day must suck, what with the need to stand around and pose all day long.

After lunch I headed to the main palace in Insadong, but didn't manage to catch any of the final day of the royal culture festival. I did pickup a traditional hanbok  (clothing) for my 7 year old neice though. Just need to find one for my nephew and myself!

Dinnertime rolled around and into the wine I went. Found some aussie crap at the local convenience store, and shared it with some hostel goers. Dinner itself was with Carter, the hostel manager and his girlfriend. They've been together 1yr and 18 days now. We had a good catchup, and I probably had a little too much soju, given how easily my terrible Korean language skills were flowing.

Some more wine back at the hostel, making new friends, and then suddenly I woke up and wondered what on earth I ended up doing last night. Nothing untoward, mind you. Maybe just too much wine (if there is such a thing).

Today is much livelier than yesterday on the streets of Seoul, and here comes my coffee...

Coming in for landing

While one of my flights was delayed an hour, I'd say travel on the whole was OK getting here. It did make me late for drinks though.

After getting to the hostel, the employee had no idea who I am (yet) and no booking on record. I knew I should have done all the booking myself! A quick call to the manager whom the room was suppose to have been booked through sees me with  bed on the very top floor, with no elevator.

It's time to get over to Nonhyeon, a suburb near Gungnam, to meet with the lads. A dozen train stops and a few transfers get me across town in about 45mins.

I'm directed to down a wonderfully BBQ smelling street to where the group is, and jump right in. We hit a couple bars but keep it pretty light in the end.

I'm up early today and am convinced my phone hasn't updated the time zone, but eventually realise it's 10am in nz so no wonder I feel pretty good at 7am Korea time. I've found a quaint breakfast spot and start my day with a breakfast burrito and coffee.

Onwards!

Have you met Jack?

After Macau, we hit up Sneaker Street and picked up a pair of shoes. It's known as such for the hundreds of branded sneaker shops that line it, formed as a result of the multiple boys schools in the area - a perfect market. Not far away was a massive souvenir market where we spent way too much money, but picked up a couple of memorable items for ourselves.

The next night, we attack Lan Kwai Fong again, getting there about 9pm (early by night out standards) so we could take care of the friend we left there last time - Jack Daniels. The two of us powered our way through the remaining 4/5ths of the bottle over a couple of hours, but for all the drinking it seemed a little lackluster with just the two of us. Queue crying girl.

She had been at the table next to us for a while, and had seemingly been getting entertained by someone performing magic tricks in the bar, but as time went on we could see she wasnt happy, the odd tear visible despite her attempts to look composed. Enter Shayne the Consoler.

It took a couple attempts, but I convince her to join us and forget her troubles with a couple of handsome kiwis. Turns out she'd just been dumped from a 3yr relationship. Queue alcohol.

We harras Josephine and George to come join us, and we party way longer than we should have, given we all had flights the next day. Josephine has too much and she barfs all over the footpath. Another one we've ruined, bringing the total to 9 now.

John and I are rudely awakened by the cleaning staff at 1pm. We were suppose to check out an hour prior. We'd done a bit of packing the day before, but the room was a mess of bottles, cans and paper. We stuff our things haphazardly into our bags and got the hell out of there before they could see the state of the room.

We're at the aiport as I write this, waiting for boarding to begin. Its been a whirlwind trip through Korea, Hong Kong, and Macau, but seriously...

I'm too old for this shit.

And now, Macau

We met up with George and Josephine in the party district of Hong Kong - Lan Kwai Fong. We were actually about to call it a night after shopping in some very hot weather when they contacted us, but never being one to pass up a party, we headed out to find them.

The area is absolutelty filthy. Filthy for the sweating heat, filthy for the rubbish, and filthy for the sea of international tourists looking for a good night out. We joined them.

We bar hopped a bit and as the night went on, a plan was hatched to go to Macau the next day. Unfortunately for John and I,  that was about 4hrs away.  We crashed at their nearby hostel so we'd have a better chance of getting to the ferry with them. We'd be going in full dress in 30° weather, but we had to do something other than drink while we are here, and this was our chance.

As we rush for the ferry, I'm absolutely starving. My looking around for some food at the terminal has the net result of everyone getting on the ferry but me, where it promptly departs. Well fuck. What's worse is that I have John's return ticket. Good luck with that one, John. Bonvoyage!

Luckily, an attendant helps get me on the next boat 30 mins later. The trip itself takes about an hour and a half, where I reconnect with the group. We hire a tour guide and mini van to take us around Macau, and it really made the trip worthwhile for us. We visit the old fortress and museum, as well as the facade of the ruins of St Paul's church. Being a former Portuguese territory, we sampled some very nice food as well.

Gambling is legal in Macau, and with 18 million tourists every year, its easy to see why there are so many casinos. Macau itself only has half a million inhabitants, but the casinos provide the local governement with so much money that they can keep reclaiming land and building new islands for yet more casinos and hotels. We tried our luck at the Venetian Casino, but none of us come out in the black.

Thinking we have time in hand, we board the casino shuttle to head to the ferry terminal. Our bad luck continues when we find its taken us to the wrong one. Well shit. Whats more is that our tickets are for the last ferry of the night. Double shit. We board a taxi that luckily races us over to the correct terminal, and we make our boat.

We're all craving a good nights sleep by this stage but John and I have a quiet drink in our room before calling lights out.