We already knew Seoul was rad but we were sweetly surprised by this little river that runs through the center of the city. Cristal clear and perfect for a sunny afternoon stroll that we shared with young lovers and older couples galore - sigh-
How awesome is this!? PS Auckland take note :)
We stayed in Jogno 3, which is in central Seoul. The thing we loved was not only did it have huge departments stores, parks and fancy restaurants, it was also filled with tiny restaurants that specialises usually in a few dishes that they were happy to stamp their name on.
Because there is so much competition literally EVERY SINGLE restaurant or street stall we visited was beyond delicious. The other thing is Korea has personal but not intrusive service down to a fine art. Here is our first lunch, pork with rice and yummy scrummy banchan.
The fact that Kimchi (fermented cabbage and a Korean national dish) is in the top five healthiest foods in the world meant we could gorge on the stuff and still feel fab. Thank sweet baby Jesus that Korean food is not only brimming with flavour but also generally healthy!
Seoul is a bustling but traditional capital with roughly 12 million people in it’s metropolitan area. Both Andy and I have had a love affair with Korea well before we had even set foot there.
But we were afraid that we had built up the idea of Korea so much in our minds that it might fall flat when we arrived. But it exceeded our expectations in all ways.
Seoul is huge and lively but still green and lush. The people are characters and quite possibly the best looking people I have ever seen. Our love affair quite rightly just continued.
On of our most exciting and well-loved food destinations was Korea without a doubt. AND WE WERE FINALLY THERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! KOREAAAAAA!
First meal on our stay in Seoul was dinner at a cute family-owned restaurant who specialised in Bi Bim Bap. It was to die for… seriously. What a great start to such a fantastic country.
We gladly made our way back to Shanghai for a day until our flight to Korea. Xian airport was made very exciting with a strange meal we were sure would pay us a bad visit later, nearly buying a $30 coffee and queues like we have never seen (but we still got through quickly, A+ to China for awesome crowd control!)
For our one night we decided to splurge and go glamorous. Here is our awesome hotel complete with TV for the bath and a huge desk for Andy to pretend he was THE BOSS.
We did go and see the Terra-cotta Warriors which was cool.
Instead of throwing stacks of money away to our scammy hotel owner to go on a tour there we took a public bus and did our own thing, which is what we recommend all people should do.
The Warriors themselves are fantastic just be ready to glimpse them through hoards of people, but they are definitely a must-see. Oh yeah, and I bought a Panda hat which somehow endeared us to all Chinese people which was fab, so buy one too!
Xian is one place we have, lets say, mixed feelings about.
This is the view from our apartment, an oily street food snack from the Muslim Quarter and arguably the worst meal we have had this entire trip (fancy malls do not equal fancy food). Hmmm, not the best of times but surely to be expected on such a long trip.
It was soon time for us to leave Beijing and get the overnight train to Xian.
First of all this photo does no justice to the mammoth size of the train station - is was a monster. Then as we waited to board our train we made friends with a rowdy guy from South China who chatted with us through a girl studying english - he was shaking our hands, dancing for us, doing kung fu, showing us his phone and just generally being blimmen awesome. In fact our weird conversation attracted quite the crowd!
Once on the train we had our best night sleep and woke the next morning to wave to rail workers out the window.
