Im back

back, back from my magical journey. Or something, I am in Taiwan and I’m doing fine anyway. Starting a new week with normal schoolwork soon.

The elusive wall

Today i started by getting my passport and guess what, they did not reject me, I got the visa.

Anyway, i decided that I would follow the old city wall around the city today so I went to the eastern city gate, Dongdaemun and found a trail along the wall. It was a nice  trek along the wall sometimes on top of it, some times on the outside.

Dongdaemun

Beginning of the wall

After a while it broke up and I almost lost it but I soon found it again. It wound up through the mountains until I came to some kind of military installation but luckily I could pass around it. A bit later I was able to go back on to the top of the it again and found this:

A bit hard to see but there soldiers working a cannon here, the Korean military actually seems very active.

I continued along until I found some kind of station where they informed me that the path was closed after three, apparently the great outdoors has opening hours in Korea. I think it might have had something to do with the military again.

Anyhow i decided to try to circumvent the checkpoint, looked at the map and saw I was at the edge of a park so I tried to go through it to find a way around. It turned out that the park was more of a forest and I more or less slipped down a small dirt path so I decided against my original plan. Instead I walked down towards the city trying to reach the wall like that and ended up by the Gyeonbokgung palace.

I continued on what had now become a quest to try to find the wall and went around to the western side of the palace. It turns out that there are rather many police officers around that area. Most of them are just standing around but some of them will tell you that you are not allowed to pass so that was kind of what I  expected when i came up on what looked like a road block. The police man asked me “What is your destination” in a military tone of voice and I feared I would have to turn back but no, he simple pointed out how I should get there. Anyway I walk around in search of the elusive wall for a while longer as it started to rain more and more. In the end I was tired from walking all day and gave up. I guess I will have to retry another time but that will have to wait for my next trip to Korea.

Not the great wall of China but still nice eh?

More Korea

I can start by posting some photos from yesterday.

Entrance of Gyeonbokgung palace

They have traditional looking guards here

A picture with me in it, yay.

This is simply beautiful

Today i woke up late since there was no tour for me to go to. I decided to learn a bit about the Korean war even though I could not go to the DMZ so I went to the Korea war museum. The museum was large, combining a memorial with a museum of both historical wars and the most recent one. The historical exhibition was not very interesting but the memorial was nice and all the exhibits of different tanks and planes and such was pretty cool.

Statue of two brothers fighting on the different sides

The memorial of the Korean war and one Anders

More of the memorial

 

Old cannons

The museum itself

Arg, army Anders is attacking

The massive collection of military vehicles and planes, click for larger pics.

When i left the museum it was already five in the afternoon so other museums and such were probably closing. I decided to go to the Namsan park and take the cable car up to the Seoul tower for a night view of the city. I didnt go in to the tower but it was still nice.

read more about it here: http://photowithoutcamera.wordpress.com/2010/12/09/top-of-namsan-mountain-540-pm/

Up there was a pretty gaudy comercial place with lots of view platforms. All around the fence was covered in padlocks, apparently people lock their love by placing a padlock with a small note up here. I also found a small gym with proper barbells and stuff, I cant imagine who would work out in freezing temperatures but some old men where actually there. I decided to walk down instead of take the cable car and that was a pretty nice walk. That marked the end of my sightseeing for today.

close up of some of the locks

The open air gym, ooh cold

part of the city wall in the dark

Day two in Korea

The day started with the visa debacle. I went all the way to the Taiwanese embassy, started filling out the forms only to discover i forgot to bring my passport. So i had to go back to the hostel, get the passport then return to the embassy to fill everything in. I have to wait until Friday to get it, I just hope i will not be rejected and be stuck here (I might add that I had to go to Korea for a new visa becasue I got confused about the period of my old one, thinking it was 90 days when in fact it was 60 and I ended up overstaying).

Having taken care of that I had about half a day to kill so i visited the two royal palaces. They are both rather similar to the forbidden city in Beijing although they were less colourful which I like,  it looks more genuine some how. Too bad it was cold as hell in my insufficient winter clothes. When the palaces closed i went around to the Nandaemun market to look around a bit and that was the end of the day. I was hoping to get to the DMZ tomorrow but there is too much trouble with north Korea tomorrow so I have no idea what to do.

In Korea

I’m finally in Korea. I had a bit of trouble on the way, going to the wrong terminal at the airport and nearly missing the plane then getting lost on the way to the hostel but I finally made it hear. So far, all I’ve done hear is go to a small, local restaurant; pretty nice food but the price was almost on Swedish level, although that did include about a thousand different side dishes so it was OK. Except for that, Seoul seems pretty similar to any Taiwanese city except that it is bloody cold. Tomorrow I will go to get my visa fixed then off for a bit of tourism. Tell you more then.

Pannkakor och Hello Kitty vin

Idag var en vanlig lugn söndag, med sen brunch och allmänt häng men vi avlsutade dagen med en lite speciell middag, eller, speciell och speciell, vi lagade mat hemma. I Taiwan går man ut och äter så ofta att det blir mer speciellt att laga mat själv tvärt emot Sverige kan man säga. Jag och Reeta, den finska tjejen i min klass, lagade pannkakor till ett litet gäng kompisar. Det är lite klurigt att steka pannkakor på gasspis eftersom värmen mer eller mindre har två lägen, fjös eller svetslåga, men det gick ändå till slut. Efter maten när vi satt och slappade framför tv tyckte jag det kunde vara lagom med ett glas vin så jag lockade fram den här:

Jepp, det är Hello Kitty vin, är inte det coolt så säg? En dryck för vuxna med ett märke för barn, Taiwaneser kan vara lite udda ibland. En trevlig kväll det, snart dags för en ny vecka, men inte det gamla vanliga köret inte. Jag har fått lite problem med mitt visum så jag måste åka utomlands för att fixa ett nytt. Valet på land har fallit på Korea så nästa gång jkag skriver är jag i Seoul.

Misslyckad skridskoåkning

Planen för idag var att vara lite vintrig och åka skridskor och sedan avsluta med middag på IKEA och inköp av glögg. Jag hade hoppats få med mig lite andra svenskar men de fick förhinder hela bunten. Kanske lika bra det för det visade sig att vi borde kollat upp skridskoåkningen bättre, några hockynissar hade nämligen tagit över ishallen för nån form av turnering. Så, vi stod där i arenan utan något att göra. Vi beslutade oss för att helt enkelt göra en längre tur på IKEA. När vi hade provsuttit massa soffor och plockat med porslinet ett tag handlade jag glögg och svenska chips och sen blev det en tidig middag. Efter middagen blev vi uppplockade av Yinis klasskamrater från hennes kurs i svenska. De körde oss till ett märkligt litet cafe i Taoyuan. Tjejerna snackade på i ett par timmar och jag mest bara satt och drack te, lite tråkigt men jag överlevde.

Allt som allt en lite misslyckad men ändå OK dag.