Day 11

The alarm shattered a beautiful sleep at 4:30 and we both jumped out of bed

Some might say it was the adrenaline for the day’s journey but it was in fact mostly to get into the magnificent shower / wet room for one last time

We’d packed the room by 5, packed the kids’ room by 5:10 and was checked out and waiting in the lobby by 5:20 - perfect

The taxi driver was on time and although he did struggle to get the bags in the car we left on time

It took us over 90 minutes to get from the airport to the hotel - he did the reverse journey in 45 - well, we have missed rush hour I guess

We breakfasted at the airport waiting for the baggage drop off zone to enter and then made it successfully through passport control / security

We looked at the shops for a while then settled down to wait for the plane to board

That happened on time and yet again my seat did not line up with everyone else’s but the bonus was no one was sitting next to me so I could spread out a bit

The journey was fine for me but joss was left rather distressed after not once but twice walking in on a Korean man, cock out, in the loos after they had failed to recognise the importance of locking the door

I had no such “luck” with the Korean women

Another Burger King at Helsinki killed the waiting time for the next flight and we were off to Blighty - but not before joss had phoned ahead to book a taxi to take us back to where the car was parked

We paid the extra to get someone waiting for us with our name in lights as we arrived

Our only tense moment was that our 4th bag took so long to come out - a time made more tense by the fact it contained all of Hattie’s books and dvds- gulp 

By now I was starting to feel tired so was almost grateful that the m25 and the start of the m3 was so busy but that soon cleared up so I resorted to singing really loudly to my playlist to keep me awake

Joss joined in but both Hattie and Kieren passed out in the back of the car - I can’t remember the last time that had happened

Via the chippy, we got home about 20:15 - having been up for 24 hours

It was a brilliant holiday - but now it’s time to catch up on some sleep 💤 

Day 10

This morning was our biggest lie in of the week - we weren’t meeting up until 10

That should have set me up perfectly for the day and it really would have, had I not spent until 2am sampling orange soju whilst writing the blog

I’m an idiot

So it was good that when we met up for the last time in our favourite coffee shop - the crushed orange was ice cold and plentiful 

We had decided to go to the Gangnam district and worked out a complicated subway journey

So complicated in fact, that we were charged an extra 7p - the bloody cheek of it

One thing I don’t think I’ve mentioned is that just before the tube arrives, a jaunty fanfare is played and joss was brilliant enough to capture it - as you can tell by my excited voice at the end

https://youtu.be/LGGMD49tyio

While I’m at it - here are a few other things I’ve noticed about living in Seoul

Men seem to carry handbags a lot. Now I’m all for a man bag over the shoulder, but carrying the bag in the crook of your elbow just looks bizarre

This is probably the country with the nicest, warmest most helpful people I have met - but they do have a vain side. Every other shop is a cosmetics’ shop and purely by being in the country I have doubled its population of people with grey hair

Everyone drinks lager - pints of it - I’ve not seen a woman with a glass of wine? And when you drink lager, you have to often clink glasses together, whether you are with male or female friends - joss and I tried so hard not to be outdone, I think we both have rsi....

Cola seems to be almost unheard of over here - and Diet Coke is like hens’ teeth

At the sports’ bar we frequented it often showed Korean sports - but they only showed the games in which they win, no matter what the sport

Son has his own show where they just show all his best bits - I even saw him against AFCB and wondered how they’d paper over the sending off - easy - they didn’t show that game

And lastly, that trying to speak the language gets easier the more you try, and they really appreciate the effort - I guess that’s the same everywhere but seems even more so here

Anyway, back to today. We got off at Gangnam and found it was the office area - we needed to get off 2 stops earlier - d’oh

So we did that - did we make it I hear you ask

Yes we did

We then went into a massive shopping complex and had something very Korean

Well,ok, not strictly Korean

We explored the place and had a spot of lunch before we decided to reinforce our reputations as culture vultures by going to Bongeunsa Temple

It was gorgeous and we gave it the respect it deserved as a working temple

And here’s a big bell

Then we went back to Myeongdong and to the place that Hattie worships - the BTS shop

People queued for ages to have their picture take with this

And here’s Hattie in her natural habitat 

We did have an opportunity for a couple of beers of course

Before heading back to the hotel to start packing - it had started to rain so I bought an umbrella- but for some reason I was still getting wet

For the evening meal, Kieren had a McDonald’s whereas we opted for street food

We started with noodles

Harry Hill has a show in which he’d sing “highlight of the week “ - we changed the words to be “something on a stick”

But this time, we could legitimately sing it twice

A great end to the day - now back at the hotel early, ready for a 4:30am alarm and it’s back to Blighty 

Day 9

Today’s alarm was set for 05:45 - yes you read that correctly 

We planned to meet up at 06:30 as we had a Korean DMZ / war memorial tour pick up at 07:30

Unfortunately I was still feeling well below par so Joss, Kieren and Hattie went on their own to the hotel buffet

Kudos to them - from the long long list of things they ate - they kept the family name flying high

We were due to be picked up by Mr Sam and his van ( no joke)

He arrived on time and led us to what I thought was literally a van as the transit looked like it had no windows - was this a possible hostage situation??

Once in, I realised that there were windows, but of course, they were all tinted black - I don’t think I’ve seen a car without tinted windows, including the windscreen 

Once in we drove around to pick up a few then stopped to drop 2 guys off

We were then all ushered out of the van and onto a bus - and we were a little perturbed by the fact everyone was speaking in different languages

By far the most annoying of these were the Swedish family of four - well, just the mother

She decided that she didn’t want to sit with her family behind us, but in the empty seat in front of us

This didn’t stop her constantly talking to her family, over / through us

I hate coach travel - full of absolute cocks - and as this one had seemingly no suspension - I had no reason to change my mind

I felt sorry for the guys that had left though, as the tour operator kept asking if they were on the bus, despite him being the one to send them off.....

Our first stop was to Imjingak Park - which is where thousands of POWs were exchanged at the end of the Korean War - it was powerful stuff

This was the entrance to the bridge on which the  POW exchange happened 

And this was the remains of the last train that crossed the bridge - destroyed by the Russians

We liked the train

We enjoyed other stuff too

The only slightly niggly thing was that we didn’t have much time to look around before we were off to Dorasan train station - the only station in the Demilitarised Zone - or DMZ

Before we got there though, we were stopped and had all our passports checked by a military policeman who looked about 12

I would have laughed but the tour guide went to great lengths to say “no pissing about and no photo’s” (I paraphrased) so I kept my mirth to myself...

As you can see - there’s a train scheduled to the capital of North Korea - but until the accords are signed - this train will never run

Next we went to the Dora observatory from which you could see both North and South Korea

Not a great picture I’ll admit but you can see both North and South Korean flags flying

Apparently when North Korea found out the other flag was taller, they added 10 feet to their own, and then South Korea reciprocated 

Right now, North is winning after multiple improvements on both sides

It’s that kind of pettiness I can really get behind

The next stop was the 3rd infiltration tunnel dug by North Korea to invade the south

We we handed hard hats and the tunnel went 350m down at an 11 degree angle 

I couldn’t work out what the hats were for as the tunnel was high and smooth - turns out this was recently built just to access the real tunnel - which was running in water and 1m 60 high tops

This went on for about 250m until you reach the end , where you can see through a window into a further tunnel

The absolute best part was seeing a guy from our coach who stood at over 6 feet, constantly smack his head on the ceiling- at some points his head looked like a pinball, ricocheting everywhere - joss couldn’t have laughed any louder so he must have known it was  at his expense 

The pain in the arse though, apart from the walk up, was that no photos were allowed

I did, however, take some pictures OUTSIDE the tunnel an am especially pleased with this one the shows how the two sides of Korea are trying to come together:

Although as far as authenticity goes, I think this one is hard to beat 😂

And there was still time for this

We then did an unscheduled stop at a ginseng place, where the local tour guide spoke so quickly even we as one of the few native English speakers couldn’t understand her

God knows what the rest made of her

Hattie and I just couldn’t stop laughing

After this it was time for lunch which was a soup in keeping with today as it was nicknamed “US Army” soup, as originally it was made from the US leftovers

Again, Kieren knocked it out of the park - and it was delicious - good job we’d bought him a cutlery set

After lunch we went to the Korean War memorial 

Here are a few pictures - another quite moving place

The mood was lightened however, by the tour guide speaking to me one on one as we walked through the corridors- with him forgetting that his microphone was on  - just as well the conversation didn’t get too personal....

That was the end of the tour and we were dropped off at City Hall

From there we walked to Myeongdong and came across this

Before we found our way back to Hattie’s favourite pub

We then dropped Hattie and Kieren off and has a couple of “sharpeners”

We still made it for our pick up time and we all went to a German bar for chicken, sausages and fries - I’ve no pictures of that, but do have one of Hattie with her first beer

The food / drink / place was excellent

So excellent in fact that we got lost going home - but we did find this

Just goes to show - you can’t always be wrong :-)