www.duncstewart.co.uk

Letter to Santa

2009-12-20T16:47:00.003Z

Its Christmas Day in less than a week and I haven't written my letter to Santa yet. As its a modern age I am pretty sure he has a decent broadband connection up there in the North Pole so surely he must read my website so I'll just post my letter on here...

Dear Santa

I am pretty sure I have been a good boy this year (but just to be on the safe side don't check my Internet history) and I would like the following this Christmas

Sony Playstation 3 (preferably the 250gb version)
Some new walking boots
Crampons to go with the boots as it gets icy up here
Some thick socks (see the ice comment above)
As much decent Anime and Manga as one jolly guy in red can fit into his sack
The confidence to talk to women

and finally...

That everybody I know gets to have their Christmas wishes come true

Many thanks

Dunc

Snow!

2009-12-20T16:22:00.003Z

The recent cold snap in the UK hasn't escaped my notice with temperatures being not much above freezing during the day and biting frosts at night. We've even had a few light snow flurries, above is my car outside my flat on Saturday, presumably pining for the Catalan factory it was made in! The freezing weather and a pretty big hangover after two fun nights with my work colleagues celebrating another year of spending tax dollars ensuring Scotland's environment is in its usual tip-top shape meant I barely left the house yesterday, my sofa is developing a very large butt imprint. However, as its now Sunday and I had a night in last night to ensure a good nights sleep, I decided to head into the hills and see how good the snow is in the Pentlands.As you can see the Pentland Hills looked pretty bloody spectacular with a deeper covering of snow than in the coastal city of Edinburgh. I did a pretty standard hike from the Flotterstone car park which was extremely icy, and yet I managed not to hit anything whilst parking despite not owning some ridiculous four-wheel drive vehicle. I wrapped myself up (the long-johns I bought in New Zealand are the best hiking gear ever!) and headed into the hills. It was pretty hard going as the paths in places were fairly compacted and my old boots have zero tread on them left these days. As I got higher though there was more snow and things got easier, I still desperately need new boots though.
Coming over the tops of Turnhouse and Carnethy Hills though the wind was just bitter, by the time I came down to head to Loganlea Reservior (below) the tube from my CamelBak water pouch had frozen! Walking through the glen was really pretty though and it was nice to get off my sofa and grab some exercise in some amazing scenery, you should all come visit sometime!

Guardian's awful guide to Akihabara

2009-12-08T19:54:00.004Z

I don't know where to start on the Guardian "article". Like their opinions on climate change full of inaccuracies and in places downright incorrect.
Otaku doesn't mean geek, it means obsessive fan primarily of anime, manga and video games. In the western world that may be seen as geekish, but in Japan its fairly common, especially with Manga. Also Akiba isn't the district in Tokyo where you would find the majority of Cosplayers, they gather at Harajuku's Jingu-bashi, cosplayers only really gather in Akiba when there is a major event such as a large video-game or anime DVD launch.
Akiba has never been a den of perversion ever, its the electronics district, for the red light district of Tokyo head to Shinjuku's Kabukicho. The fact that the murderer had been to Akiba as he was an Otaku doesn't instantly mean the area is full of perverts reading Dojinshi manga ready to pounce on innocent foreign travellers and bury them in a bath of sand.
Moe is described in the article (using reference to Goku from Dragonball) as "exaggerated intensity that drives Akiba culture". This is so unimaginably incorrect I almost don't know where to start. For a more accurate definition of the Moe genre head to the Anime News Network who describe it as "a Japanese term used in connection with manga or anime (note nothing to do with Akiba) to describe something precious, usually the ideal of youthful and innocent femininity". Slightly different I think you'll agree, often it applies to cute girls in manga and anime.
Maid culture isn't directly related to Moe culture with Moe being a more recent movement, while maid cafe's have been on the streets of Akiba since the late 90's and relate more to cosplay. So therefore not the place to "experience Moe first hand" as written in this appalling article.
"Police cruise along back roads stopping and searching people in costume". When I visited apart from not seeing anyone in costume I certainly didn't see the police stopping and searching anyone. Japan has one of the lowest crime rates in the world, and although not crime free I certainly would rather walk along a back street in Tokyo than in London or many other major cities across the world.
Former Prime Minister Taro Aso was indeed a huge manga fan and invested millions of yen in the now cancelled International Anime and Manga Centre, dubbed by critics as the worlds biggest "manga kissa" (manga cafe) and just a huge folly for Aso. But he didn't have any hand in the development of the UDX centre which houses the Tokyo Anime Centre as it opened in 2001, seven years before Aso was elected Japanese Prime Minister and subsequently absolutely nothing to do with him.
"Animation popular in Akihabara is made by and for Otaku", hmmm, last time I checked BandaiNamco were a massive multinational company based in Japan with animation, video games and toy departments amongst other interests, not a tiny company based around the corner from the Abiba train station whose only employees are all Moe obsessed cosplayers. But what do I know, oh yes, apparently a lot more than the writer of this piece Chris Michael.
One final point that pissed me off, the picture of the "manga store" is even wrong, its advertising Shining Wind, a Sega video game for the PS2, indicating a good chance that inside instead of manga you might just find video games.

Thanks to Wikipedia for much of the information, not always accurate I admit, but I trust it a damn sight more than the bloody Guardian newspaper. Also thanks to Lonely Planet's Japan Guide, an essential book when I was travelling in Japan last March.

Bookcase

2009-11-04T22:01:00.002Z

I went to Ikea after work tonight and grabbed a couple of cheap bookcases (Kilby, £19.99 each). I toyed with getting a Billy for £55 or even a Leksvig for £69, but in the end economics was more important! I have managed to get one built and it brings some much needed character to my hallway. I couldn't build the other one as you have to nail in the back with a hammer and I can only upset my neighbours for a short period each night.
This one above is reserved for my blossoming manga collection, with a few DS and PSP games that will need to be rehoused soon, and some little Lego sets that people have given me over the years! I am glad I went for the cheaper option and that I got two of them as I am not too sure the remaining non-Japanese comic books will even fit on the other one I bought. I may have go back and grab a third one. Nothing beats a trip to Ikea! Where is the catalogue, I also need a shoe rack....
In other less shopping type news, the job is going OK, but the commute every day is beginning to annoy me now, far too much traffic and too many annoying bus lanes in Edinburgh. I was also annoyed at the £230 bill at the garage on Saturday to replace a coil spring on my car's suspension. Quite important though as the guy at the garage did say the car was dangerous, perhaps I shouldn't have driven it into work for the three days before I got it fixed.
Oh, and the Christmas adverts that are already beginning to be run on television are already beginning to piss me off, bah humbug.

Football and city exploration

2009-10-25T17:45:00.002Z

Since I have started work up here with SEPA I have come back out of retirement and play football every Thursday with some people from work. They are a good bunch of lads, a couple from my department and then others from all over the office. On the plus side it means I am getting some excellent and much needed physical exercise, on the negative side it usually takes me until Sunday to recover! Its a real mix of abilities and ages so I don't feel out of my depth, it doesn't stop me getting frustrated when my inability to actually play football leads to losing possession though. I played pretty well this week though, improving as the game went on and putting in an excellent cross for an awesomely taken goal!
I also had to buy some new boots, Nike T-1's, very comfy and perfect for the surface we play on. The pitch is an astroturf surface in the nearby to work Heriot Watt University. The complex is used by Hearts FC for training and also has an indoor astroturf pitch and a full size grass pitch. Its by far the best surface I have ever trained on!
Away from work I have been using my time to explore the city a bit more, today I walked into the centre and along George Street before heading up Calton Hill for a view of the city. On top of the hill there are excellent views north of the Firth of Forth and Fife beyond:

There are also excellent views over the city and the Pentlands to the south:
Sadly due to the weather being rubbish I haven't made it into the hills this weekend for a decent hike, but the stroll into town and up Calton to see the views made up for it in a small way. I wandered back through Princes Street Gardens which offer a refreshing area of peace right in the middle of the city.
I've also been catching up with some of my anime DVD's I bought whilst I was on my travels. I know now what everyone on the internet was going on about with The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, and the dance routine that takes place during he end credits.
Good series, but I hope the second season answers some of the questions posed in season 1. I also watched the film of The Girl Who Leapt Through Time. Really good light-hearted time travelling story that doesn't get bogged down in paradoxes, highly recommended.
Other than this I haven't been up to much, its tricky when you move to a new city to build a new life and I need to spark up my social life somehow! Maybe I should join a club or something. Any ideas please let me know!

Reality TV

2009-10-18T20:33:00.002+01:00

Just a quick addition to mention this years big Saturday night reality TV face off on the two boring mainstream UK channels.
I try to watch X-factor from season to season, occasionally sticking it through right to the bitter and protracted end point sometime around the new year. Some years its OK as there are actually some talented people on there to keep it interesting, but this year its just one poor act after another performing lifeless karaoke versions of boring pop songs with extremely flat atonal voices. Sorry X-factor, I made it about a month in, but last night I knew I had to stop watching when I realised I actually wanted those annoying Irish twins to stay in, as even though they know they cannot sing, at least they offer some spectacle above the other forgettable entries.
Still X-factor will always have at least one thing above its challenger on BBC1 - Strictly Come Dancing is quite possibly the dullest programme ever conceived, aimed squarely at boring white middle class people, specifically the elderly and flamboyant.

Edinburgh

2009-10-18T19:50:00.005+01:00

My poor beleaguered blog. Left pretty much fallow after coming back from travelling and my life suddenly becoming a lot less interesting. I didn't spend those five months out of work doing nothing though, other than my trip to Bali for a friends wedding I also managed to visit people up and down the land and spent pretty much every day looking for work. Finally after those five months out of work and depressingly claiming dole, I managed to get a job. The scarcity of work in the UK meant that I have had to move up to Edinburgh and take up a post with SEPA as a Senior Specialist Scientist in the Air Quality section of Field Chemistry. Its been a week and I've enjoyed it so far. People seem keen to ask me for advice and opinions and its still novel going from a test house to a regulator!
I like living up here in Edinburgh and have got myself a nice little flat in the Polwarth area close to Merchiston and the Meadows, and still only about fifteen minutes walk from Princes Street and the centre of the city. The flat is a decent size and the lounge is pretty comfy and a good place to relax of an evening.
The kitchen is very smart, I especially like the built in dishwasher!
One of the best things about moving to Scotland though is the sheer amount of excellent hill and mountain ranges so close to Edinburgh. The Pentland Hills are only about a 15 minute drive away and I have loved going up there of a weekend and getting a good three to four hour hike. The views from the hills are spectacular with Allermuir Hill providing an excellent 360° view of Edinburgh below and the Pentlands streaming away to the south.

The majority of Edinburgh's drinking water is supplied from the reserviors in the hills and Loganlea Reservior is in an amazing location.

As you may have noticed my blog will hopefully be a bit more light on text and hopefully add a few more pictures of the scenery that surrounds me in this pretty special city. I'll try to make a bit more of an effort to keep it up to date and as ever add links to my photo albums on Picasa on the photos page. I'll also try to have a word with my website administrator to get the name changed. The travelling blog no longer applies sadly!

Apple - An apology

2009-08-10T12:28:00.002+01:00

Apparently I may have upset some people in my last post where I was slightly impolite towards Apple products and Apple users. I apologise for any offence, but after the annoying ad campaigns launched by Apple I just felt they needed taking down a peg or two. Owning an Apple product does not make you better than someone who doesn't own any (as depicted in the adverts, not just my opinion), but to be honest I think Charlie Brooker, the Guardian columnist, expresses my feelings towards Apple products in a much more intelligent and funny way than I ever could and that be found here and here.
In short, apologies for any offence, but don't expect me to walk into an Apple store anytime soon.

Windows 7

2009-07-21T12:57:00.003+01:00

I don't usually write about matters of a technical nature, for this I usually leave to my friend Ed and his tech blog, but after having Windows 7 installed for a while now I felt compelled to write a little piece about my time with Microsoft's newest operating system.
A lot of people out there have been reluctant to move away from Windows XP and on to Vista citing various (and usually unfounded) reasons. I was always an early adopter to Vista and loved the quick boot times and the graphical overhaul and features, I didn't much like the over enthusiastic User Access Control, but overall I couldn't see why more people weren't keen to move on. After a year spent back on XP as my good old netbook wouldn't run Vista even if I shoved a bucketload of plutonium up its butt, I realised just how dated XP had now become - get over it XP users, its old and needs replacing! However, when I returned from the faraway lands it turns out Microsoft didn't rate Vista either and had sent out its replacement into the IT wilds - Windows 7. The best thing about this is that it was given away free, well until next March when apparently the version I have (Release Candidate 7100) will start to shut down every two hours - might make overnight torrenting a bit tricky!
Windows 7 is basically the Windows Vista should have been, with all the good features from Vista having been enhanced and all its not so popular features having been made workable (UAC is no a minor niggle as opposed to an annoyance). Having installed it onto my laptop for several months now I can report that it is extremely easy to use, looks much better than XP and has enough new features installed to keep the dedicated IT user happy until their drives defrag.
My favourite feature I've been playing with recently is the wallpaper. No longer do you have to suffer the indignity of just one picture all the time, Windows 7 offers the option to have a slideshow! At first I just used the pre-installed themes (the UK and Canada scenes were pretty cool), but now I have been experimenting with my own. As a huge anime fan I went through all the wallpapers available for my favourite series and copied them to my hard drive. Then it was just a case of saving them in the Wallpapers folder and selecting them. I have 19 different pictures all changing every 30 minutes. Pointless and fun. Just like Windows should be.I appreciate that this post serves no real purpose other than to promote the new offering from Bill Gates' IT loins, but I hope that people still stuck in their XP ways may hopefully decide to upgrade to the new version. Oh and that people with Apple Mac's will have all their waste of cash, stupid over-rated, style before function "PC's" contract horrid viruses (and don't use the tired argument that Apple's don't get viruses - we all know that's not true) and realise that they could save money and not look like dicks by buying Windows PC's. Amen.

Bali Nyuh Gading Villas

2009-07-15T17:35:00.002+01:00

I was so impressed with my villa in Bali that I took a little video clip of the place and uploaded it to YouTube. The place was an absolute bargain too, recommended.

Bali

2009-07-14T20:51:00.005+01:00

Argh! Its been ages since I last posted on here so apologies for the three people still checking the website, even though one of those three people is Ed, the guy who maintains my website and HAS to look at it!
Sadly since my last post I still haven't managed to find gainful employment yet. I've had one interview in Leicester, but annoyingly I stuffed that up and I am still busy applying and searching for work day in and day out and getting more and more disillusioned with the fragile state of the UK economy.
In between the job search I have caught up with pretty much all of my friends (apologies for the few I've yet to see, I'll see you all soon I promise!) and even managed to squeeze in a stag do and wedding of my friend Ian, for which I was honoured to be the Best Man.
Due to my travels I was unable to organise the stag do, the job of which fell to Matt. To be honest he did a better job than me, I would have just gone to the pub and had a curry followed by video game session, he managed to organise tickets to Sandown Park horse racing, followed by a pub crawl in the Old Street district of London and taking in a delicious Mexican meal. It was a really good night and a rotten hangover the following day to boot! Thanks to Matt to organising the day in my absence and to everyone who came to London for the day.
Following the stag do a couple of weeks later the wedding rolled around. For the wedding I had to pick up my travelling boots again and head off the other side of the world one last time. Ian and Amanda had decided to hold the wedding in the Indonesian island of Bali, this meant a 14 hour flight to Kuala Lumpur and then a three hour one to Denpasar, Bali. As I am slightly bereft of cash at the minute I opted to travel with the low cost carrier AirAsia, think easyJet, but for 14 hours. No legroom, no food and no in-flight entertainment and did I mention the 14 hours? By the time I finally arrived in Malaysia I was tired and irritable and not impressed when my plane to Bali was over an hour late, and with very little explanation. Just like Easyjet then! I finally got a taxi after landing and arrived at my villa just to the north of Seminyak at 10:30pm after over 24 hours travel and I was shattered and grubby. Thankfully the villa was really amazing and the outside shower really relaxed me, before I fell asleep in the massive four poster bed.
When I awoke I checked out my villa properly, I loved the private pool and the outdoor bathroom - taking a shower under the stars with the sounds of frogs in the neighbouring paddy fields. Breakfast was brought to my villa at 9:30 and laid out on my patio table and the relaxation began. I visited Seminyak, enjoyed my pool and then met Ian and Amanda for a Barbecue at the hotel where Ian and Amanda's families were staying.
The following day we all headed on a tour of the island with a traditional Balinese dance, some wood carving, spectacular volcanic scenery and the highlight of the day for Ian, a monkey sanctuary. I am not too keen on tourists feeding monkeys bananas and some of them looked decidedly overweight and lazy, but it was a popular tourist attraction none the less! That night I was exhausted and just crashed out at my villa.
As nothing much was planned for the day after that meant the time could be spent lying by the beach at Ian and Amanda's parents hotel. It was a relaxing day with sun, sand, surf and of course some Bintang. After a delicious Balinese meal by the ocean and a good nights sleep the scene was set to travel to the wedding venue.
After about 2 hours in Bali's annoying traffic (the trick is to not stop, just keep moving slowly and everything else kind of keeps out of your way) I found myself at the Istana villa - a private residence on the cliffs in the area of Ulawatu - south Bali. All I can say is that this was the kind of place you see posh people getting married in within the pages of Hello magazine. My room, while missing out on the sea view, had a huge plasma telly, satellite TV and a surround sound DVD player with USB socket for my mp3 player. Oh, and another outdoor shower. The main suite for the bride and groom not only had the sea view, but also the big telly, which rose ceremoniously out of the cabinet via a remote control. Like I said, think Hello magazine! For the evening sunset we went on a trip to a nearby temple to see the sun set and a fire-dance, which resulted in me getting attacked by the biggest spider I have ever seen. As you can imagine I reacted calmly and rationally and in no way did I scream like a girl and throw a slight fit in trying to get the horrid thing as far away from me as possible. In no way did that happen.
The chief Bridesmaid and her boyfriend had also turned up so that made nine of us staying at the villa and after a fantastic barbecue it was time to get a good nights sleep for the wedding the following day. Except that four of us stayed up and drunk Bintang until 2am meaning I had a hangover and a lack of sleep at 8am when I was summoned by Ian for breakfast. He wasn't too impressed! It didn't matter though as we had plenty of time to get ready and to relax. Soon enough the remaining guests arrived and Ian and Amanda were married by the local priest on the cliffside in the sun overlooking the surf. Pretty amazing place. As best man I had a few duties to perform such as moving the guests, handing over the rings and signing the register. I felt quite important! Sadly as best man I also had to do a speech before dinner. I hope it went down well and I just hope I never have to do it ever again!
It was an excellent day overall, the wedding cake was profiteroles, they had fire dancers, the DJ played all the songs anyone requested (usually me!) and there was enough booze to keep even me happy. By 2am my body just refused to drink anymore, I must be getting old.
It was a wrench to leave the opulence of the Istana the following day, and when I arrived at my last accommodation in Sanur - the interestingly named Swastika Bungalows! - I wasn't ready for a sudden drop in standards! The place was nice enough for one night though and as I was shattered it was a quiet night before getting a taxi at 5:15 the next day to fly home again. This time I splashed out £20 for a better seat.
Back home again the job hunt begins again in earnest, joy. Ian and Amanda have two weeks of honeymoon, one further week in Bali before heading on to Malaysian Borneo. It was a really good week and I loved being best man and getting yet another few stamps into my passport. I wasn't totally sold on Bali as a holiday destination though and I am definitely glad I hadn't gone there travelling, but being there with friends made it an enjoyable week. I wish Ian and Amanda all the best.

Back home

2009-06-09T11:53:00.002+01:00

I am finally back for an extended stay at my home town of Northampton. Apologies for lack of blogging recently, it seems that now I have finished my travels I just don't do as much! I have managed to do a few things though.
For the late May Bank Holiday here in the UK I headed to the amazingly picturesque town of Arundel in the very south of England near to the coastal city of Brighton, or London by the sea as its also known. Arundel is very much what a traveller to England would imagine a small English town to look like, there is a castle, grassy riverside banks to have picnics on and a traditional high street with old Victorian buildings, traditional pubs and a small square. Its one of my favourite towns in the UK and was a good place to spend a few days.
My reason for visiting was that I have couple of friends who live in Arundel and one of them was celebrating their 40th birthday and had hired out a barn on the outskirts of the town for a Barbecue and party. The location was superb and the party was good fun in some unusually decent British weather!
It also gave me a good chance to catch up with some of my old school friends most of them I haven't seen since returning from my travels, and some that I haven't seen in a very long time. Most of my friends were staying in small B&B's or hotels in the area, but being unemployed at the moment I opted to save a bit of cash and pitched a tent in a nearby campsite! Good thing I love camping, and also a good thing as my accommodation only cost me £9.50 compared to the hotels charging around £50 a night! It was a good couple of days but as usual was over way too soon.
I also managed a trip to London to discuss wedding plans with my mate Ian who is marrying his girlfriend in Bali in a few weeks. For some reason (I'm going with default!) he has made me best man. At first I was a little concerned about having to spend a fairly considerable sum of money on flights and hotel accommodation for the wedding, but now having been back in the UK long enough to want to leave again, I am really looking forward to going. Looking forward to the best man speech a little less though!
After catching what must be the oldest train in existence for part of the journey, I actually found getting the train to London to be pretty good and with the stupid price of petrol in this country not too bad value for money either. Once in London we settled down into a tough weekend of shooting terrorists and watching the final club game of the season - the FA Cup final. I hate the summer weekends as they have no football... My mate Matt also came down on the Saturday and it was good to get out of Somerset for the weekend and just do pretty much nothing with a couple of mates.
Since then it has been a half-assed effort to find work that doesn't really exist, signing on at the dole office with the other knuckle draggers looking for work that doesn't exist and to try to cope with the chaos at being at my sisters house with noisy kids and the rest of my family. Its not been too bad, the weather has been nice so I have got in a few hikes on the Mendip hills (my sister lives in an amazing location), but the need to have my own space again meant I looked forward to getting home for this week.
So currently I am house sitting at my mates Heather and Ed's place while they take a much needed vacation on the coast of Norfolk. Its been fairly quiet and allowed me to catch up with people a bit more and also gave me the chance to call in at my old employers to see what work they might be able to offer me.
Sadly they weren't in a position to offer me anything immediately due to the hopeless economic conditions caused by a useless chancellor of the exchequer who now is an even more incompetent prime minister. Although I don't want to say too much on here they did stress that there might some opportunities at a new office they want to establish in Clevedon, some 10 miles from where my sister lives. This leaves me with a dilemma, as much as I want to work and knowing that this is a good opportunity, I am slightly reticent as I left the west country some 16 years ago and vowed never to return. Whilst I admit my life back here in Northampton has got slightly predictable during the past few years, one of my reasons for travelling in the first place was to experience things that I just wasn't getting to experience any more by living here, Northampton is still where I consider home to be and it would be very difficult to have to leave it to live in a part of the world that although I know very well, just doesn't hold as many good memories for me.
Its a tough decision and I am finding the job search to be far more of a challenge and far less fun than working out my next destination and accommodation when I was travelling! I look forward to my week in Bali and getting away from it all more and more each day.

Job Search

2009-05-22T14:04:00.002+01:00

Being home in the UK is not much fun. For starters until two days ago its done nothing but pour with rain! Also when you are travelling not having a job just doesn't seem to be an issue unless you actually run out of money. Also things seemed to cost less for some reason. Probably because things in the UK do cost a bloody fortune, but that's another story! This has meant that I have been looking for work, even though I am still not sure what I want to do.
Currently I have applied for three different roles, all of which I am perfectly qualified for and I even have the experience for. Truth is though, even when I was applying for them I kind of knew it was unlikely I'd get any of them. I may get an interview, but I doubt the final decision will result in me getting the role. Ho-hum. Apologies for the negativity, but the job market is really squeezed here in the UK, thanks in no small part to the appalling and abysmal government. This means that companies are unwilling to take a chance on employees at the minute, as if they make a mistake and employ someone unsuitable they'll lose money, which could mean losing the company in this current climate. Therefore companies are all employing people in-house, and only posting adverts outside of the company to fulfill some kind of equal policy criteria. Still you never know!
One thing I have discovered since coming home is how much I like my own space. Currently I am staying at my sisters house in Cheddar, Somerset. Its close to the village where I grew up and where my dad currently lives and is a very pretty slice of British rural life. However, I am used to my life in the Midlands where my friends live and I had a cool little flat. I am not used to sharing a place with family members, small children and my mother calling in every day.
Last night me and my sister watched a fairly entertaining film on Sky Movies called "Dan in Real Life". It starred Steve Carell and centred on his attraction to his brothers girlfriend while on a massive family get-together up in just fantastic looking Rhode Island in north-east USA (next trip methinks!). There were the mum and dad, sisters, brothers and all their partners and billions of kids.
My sister was saying how amazing it was seeing the whole family unit together including the extended family. I thought it looked like hell, and I know if I had to go to something like that I'd be the one skulking off at every opportunity, PSP in hand to shut myself off from the nightmare. I am not close to any of my extended family, save my Aunt Hillary and her family in the US, and to be honest I am not massively close to my immediate family. I get on with my sister and brother-in-law and enjoy playing with ny niece and nephew, but at the end of the day me and my sister are very different people. She complains that my remoteness is weird, but I am just one of those people who enjoys his own company.
This may seem perverse after spending a year travelling and sharing a room with up to 20 people at any one time, but if you travel by yourself as I did you do get as much time to yourself as you need - just not when you go to sleep! I don't think me and my sister will ever see eye to eye on this issue, and its not meant as a swipe at her family as I am eternally grateful for them putting me up until I can sort out a job and get my own place back, its just that after my long year away, now I just long for my own flat again. Fingers crossed it won't be long!

London & Northampton

2009-05-12T20:39:00.003+01:00

After arriving back at Heathrow very early in the morning after my final flight with the ever useless British Airways (Cathay Pacific were by far the best airline I flew with, closely followed by LAN) I waved goodbye to my mother and step-dad and headed into London on Heathrow Connect. This service links Heathrow with Paddington Station alongside the more expensive Heathrow Express. On my way towards central London I got my first views of the country I had left behind nearly a year ago. I wasn't exactly impressed by what I saw. Apparently the chavs still have the country by the balls and swarmed onto the train at each stop. Also as the train followed the line to Paddington used by First Great Western I got to see the amazing rolling stock offered by one of the UK's biggest train operators - wow, trains from over 30 years ago!
Imagine you are a Japanese tourist used to racing across Japan on the 300+ km/h shinkansen bullet trains. Modern, clean and most importantly, fast. Then you arrive at Heathrow, probably from a Japan Airlines plane with those fancy toilets that violate you. You grab a ride on the Heathrow Express, it sounds fast, in the mind of a Japanese tourist it may even sound like it might even use some fancy new technology like Maglev or be some kind of futuristic monorail or something. Then he steps onto a fairly standard, although admittedly clean Heathrow Express train before crawling into Paddington alongside trains that were only modern before Mrs Thatcher even climbed to power. And then when he climbs onto the aging London Underground he probably just thinks he has stepped through a timewarp back into Victorian London! The last comment is possibly a little unfair - its practically impossible to upgrade the aging London Underground to match the more modern subways I found dotted throughout the world as it was indeed built at the end of the Victorian era.
Anyway, once I got into Paddington I headed over to Greenwich and to my mate Ian's flat to catch up on some much needed zombie / terrorist shooting on various video game consoles. Awesome. Despite all the video game violence and swearing (House of the Dead Overkill recently got a Guinness Record for the most swear words in a video game!) we also managed to sort out some wedding details for his wedding in July, sort out a replacement O2 SIM card and see Star Trek at the IMAX (its a damn good movie by the way). All this with horrendous jet lag too.
From here it was back onto the aging UK public transport system and on to my hometown of Northampton to see my good friends Heather & Ed and their expanding family. When I left they had one daughter who had yet to fully speak sentences and another one on the way, one year later and they have a talkative daughter and a rapidly growing son. It was great to stay there, especially as it was Ed's birthday which meant barbecued meat and tasty cake! It was also nice as Northampton is still where I consider home to be so it felt like I had finally stopped travelling.
After a weekend of over-eating, spending way too much time sat in front of a laptop screen and then some more eating and enjoying the family chaos that is the Jakeman house unfortunately I had to leave Northampton due to the small problem of not having a house of my own to live in there anymore. This meant a trip on the ever reliable UK public transport system once more, this time to Somerset to stay in the spare room at my sisters house. Things started shakily, turned out I had bought a day return from London to Northampton, instead of an open one (stupid confusing UK train ticketing system) so that cost me another £22 (grrr). The trip to London was OK, but slightly late with the usual lack of information, and I got back to Heathrow easy enough.
From there the plan was to take the cheaper option of National Express bus to Bristol, simple right? No. This is the UK where nothing is simple. The bus broke down several times before it even left the airport, and then staggered onto the M4. It managed to make it to Reading for the first stop, but then let out a sorrowful groan and conked out for good. Luckily I managed to grab a commuter bus full of grotty and noisy school kids across to Reading train station and then caught the previously mentioned 30 year old rolling stock to finish the mammoth leg of the days travel. Thankfully the aging trains were on-time for once and I managed to meet my brother-in-law for a lift to their house. At only another £38 cost to me!
Now I am staying at my sisters house at Cheddar with two more noisy kids to entertain me / tire me out (I'll get one of my own one day I guess!) until I can accept the fact that its really all over and I have to get a job like the rest of the UK population - although in the current UK climate that may be slightly tricky. Its still seems pretty weird to be in the UK again, and it was good to see my friends I had to leave behind when I left the UK in May 2008, but I can't help but think that it already feels like I had almost not been away.
Sadly being away means you manage to get some perspective on exactly what the state of the country you leave behind is like. Before I left on my travels I had seen very little of the world other than a few places in Europe. Having seen so much more of the world now it saddens me to see the sorry state of my own country. Other than the unreliable, expensive and pretty ancient public transport system there are many other things that now stand out which make me question whether the moniker "great" really applies to Britain anymore.
Were people always this fat? Compared to Asian people British people seem ginormous and a visit to Abington Park made me wonder if there are any attractive women left in the UK anymore. Was there always this much graffiti? The US aside it seems you can't go anywhere in this country without seeing some un-intelligent moron scribbling their ill-informed comments over everything. Why are kids here so cocky and obnoxious? The little sods have all the power these days and they know it. Was everything always this expensive? Well, yes they were to be honest. Why are there so many unemployed people these days? It seems that everybody I know knows someone close to them who has been made redundant in the past six months, not good for somebody returning to the UK who needs a job. Why can't I get a job where I am paid just to surf the Internet? OK, not the UK's fault this one!
People also seem obsessed at the moment with asking me what my plans are now I am back home. The simple answer is that I just don't know. I thought that a year away would help me work out exactly what it is that I want to do by the time I arrived back in the UK. Sadly I am no closer now to working out what I want to do than when I left one year ago (except that I do know that I never want to climb up another bloody chimney as log as I live!). While I try to work things out though I'll keep posting on this blog and keep you informed if I ever do work it all out... Any ideas?!

Twitter

2009-05-07T19:21:00.002+01:00

Argh! For some reason I have signed up to Twitter - yet another internet social network thingy to take up my time when I guess I should be looking for work....!
Anyhoo, check it out at spunky9474 and drop me a tweet or whatever it is the kids do these days.

Singapore

2009-05-06T14:36:00.002+01:00

From Kuala Lumpur I caught the night train to Singapore, my final destination. The train was pretty similar to my previous overnight excursions, although not as nice as the Canadian and Chinese trips though. In between the noisy fat person snoring loudly and the rattle of the diesel engine I think I got a bit of sleep, although it was soon ended by customs boarding the train at the Malaysia border to check documents and then having to actually leave the train once I had entered Singapore for customs on that side of the border. Slightly bewildered by this method of entering a country I headed for my final accommodation once off the train.
As this has been my last stop on what suddenly seems an incredibly short year my mother and step dad were flying out to meet me for the last week. After finding my hotel (not five stars but after so much time in dorm rooms a welcome oasis of privacy!) I had a little time to explore Singapore before their arrival. I headed down to Orchard Road, the main shopping street and mooching around a few shopping malls I was suddenly stopped in my tracks by a heavy thunderstorm. Situated at the southern end of the Malay peninsula, Singapore is possibly even more hot and humid and gets some amazing storms. Most nights here have seen lightening and thunder rumbling with one night sounding like the building itself was a victim of a lightening strike. Certainly it set the alarms off, not much fun at 2am!
It was good to catch up with my family after so long, although my mother hasn't coped as well with the heat and humidity as my step-dad! Hailing from deepest, darkest Somerset they seemed slightly ill at ease in such a huge city with its new fangled subway systems and the like! Going from a village with just 4000 people to a city with over 4.4 million people was a slight culture shock!
Having them with me for the last week and staying in a hotel has basically meant that this has been a holiday and after almost a year of continual travel a most welcome one at that. It also meant that I have pretty much done all the tourist attractions Singapore has to offer including the cable car to Sentosa Island (great cable car, awful island with fake beaches and thousands of people), a boat ride along the Singapore River, Chinatown, Colonial District, visiting the excellent toy museum, enjoying a Singapore Sling at the famous Raffles Hotel long bar, riding the Singapore Flyer and just hanging out in the many restaurants the city has to offer eating food as varied as Thai to Spanish to Mexican.
Near to the hotel is the pretty amazing Singapore Botanic Gardens, which are not only a good place to wander in the heat, but also cater for their visitors with several restaurants. For some reason though we ended up in the extremely expensive French restaurant there where the food was expensive, but the portions small. I'm glad I didn't pay for that meal. It was an excellent dinner though, although it was something I won't do more than once a lifetime! In between our main courses the waiters delivered bite size morsels to keep the meal going. The first of these was a quails egg with three small snails (I did say it was a French restaurant after all!). I had the egg, but I drew the line at eating mollusc's. Thankfully the bite size section after the main course was a much tastier chocolate selection and just incredible Madeleine's. Must learn how to make them...
I have managed to grab a bit of exercise in amongst all the sightseeing, there are two hills in Singapore – Mt Faber at a dizzy 105m high, and Bukit Timah Summit at a staggering 186 metres! The latter of these spiralling summits is the centre of the Bukit Timah nature reserve where you can while away the humid hours hiking in one of the last remnants of ancient Singapore rainforest surrounded by monkeys, monitor lizards and about a million insects who happily enjoy chomping down on human flesh.
That's pretty much it for Singapore really. Although it might sound like a short piece for a whole week, its been pretty hectic at times, although this has been helped by the times when it wasn't so hectic! Such as when we went to the pub for lunch next to the river (at least three times), or when we just sat by the pool at the hotel and had a nice swim (tropical temperatures means the pool was just perfect). Overall though it has just been a nice relaxing week buzzing about Singapore on its excellent subway system (the UK is so far behind the rest of the world its embarrassing) and not having to worry about sorting out accommodation, transport, food and all the other things a traveller usually has to deal with on a daily basis. Plus, having a bedroom and a bathroom to myself for the first time in a while has been extremely pleasant.
I have missed the fun parts of hostelling though. Staying in a hotel there just isn't the travellers camaraderie that you get from hanging out in a common room sharing traveller stories over far too many cans of beers. Sitting here typing this in the last of the evening sunshine before heading off to the airport to get my final flight back to London I just can't believe that the year has gone so quickly, but at the same time I am looking forward to seeing my friends again as its been tough not being able to see them over the past 12 months. The UK is going to seem a whole lot smaller now though.

Penang

2009-04-27T04:36:00.002+01:00

Despite the dorm room containing 12 beds, it was a large room and never felt cramped and the air-con kept it cool. It helped that for the first two nights the room wasn't full, and even on my third night when it was I never felt like I was hemmed in. A window would have been nice though! The hostel itself was pretty new, having just opened its doors to world-weary travellers about five months ago. That meant everything still just about had a new shine to it and the Ikea furniture was comfy and homely. The flat-screen telly and satellite TV helped matters too!
I did go out of the hostel though, I went out to an amazing Indian restaurant called Kapitan twice (it was also cheap!), the chicken tikka masala was just amazing. Located near one the corners that led into Little India, the area was colourful and noisy with Bollywood films being played in shops and Bhangra music blasting out. Do I still need to go to India now?!
The town of Georgetown itself is originated from the old British colonial settlement, with grand administrative buildings and the fairly well preserved Fort Cornwallis - the old British military encampment. It was a grand testament to the once mighty British Empire and served to remind me just how powerful an influence the UK once had on the globe. I think now we have a few islands...
Penang Hill to the west of the city comes as a welcome relief from the heat of Georgetown, at the summit the temperature is at least five degrees cooler than in the city and the humidity is noticeably reduced. To reach the summit I took the funicular railway which takes two trains and about 30 minutes climbing up steep hillsides to reach the top station. After admiring the views of the city and the suspension bridge that links Penang to the mainland (reputedly the longest bridge in Asia) I walked back down the hill towards the Botanical Gardens. The track was very steep in places and I was glad I was going down. On the way I saw loads of monkeys, including several mothers with small babies clinging to them, just an incredible sight. A warning to anyone else who goes to see the monkeys though, do not feed them as this carries a large fine, and also don't get too close to the mothers with babies as the male gets a little irate and these buggers probably carry rabies!
As for nightlife, Penang is pretty chilled and traveller friendly. I spent one night hanging out at the hostel watching a couple of DVD's - The Transporter starring Jason Statham was a highlight, although the scene where he strips to his waist and covers himself in engine oil and fights lots of goons is quite possibly one of the most homo-erotic scenes in any movie I have seen in a long time.
The next night a couple of girls from the hostel asked if I wanted to come along to the Sikh New Year festival taking place at Fort Cornwallis. It was a fantastic exposure to one of the many cultures that makes Malaysia its home, the event had lots of food and traditional and more modern dancing. Despite the lack of alcohol at the event (!) I was glad to have seen the spectacle. The irony that an old British fort was being used as a centrepiece for the Sikh community wasn't lost on me either. We finished off the evening having a beer in one of the many little cafe's and bars along the main Chulia Street near the hostel. It really began to feel like my trip was coming to an end.
After Penang I caught the bus back to Kuala Lumpur and checked into a different hostel in the same area as my previous one. The hostel is also pretty new, and is very clean and Ikea furnished again! I spent the evening doing what I have now done so many times on my travels, hung out at the hostel enjoying their cheap beers and chatted nonsense to all the other travellers. Tonight I catch the sleeper train down to Singapore and my time in hostels will be over for now. I think I'm going to miss them.

Kuala Lumpur

2009-04-23T14:14:00.002+01:00

Did I mention the heat and humidity? Damn Malaysia is unbearably hot. Even at night it barely gets below 30C, and the humidity? Around 90% all the bleeding time. But other than that its another amazing country in my continuing journey around amazing countries. And Australia.
After a visit to an English pub I spent most of the following day sorting out some accommodation and transport to take me to the end of my trip in Singapore. I then went to Borders and almost wept at the size of their manga collection - all of it in English too! Best part was the prices were just pennies above the prices I'd pay at Amazon so I grabbed a few tankobons to catch up with the series I've been collecting.
But before the readers of this blog start uttering comments of derision about spending time on my hobby and not travelling matters (I am sure some of you have hobbies that to other people seem odd, manga and anime is just happens to be my hobby that's all) I did finish the day off with more than a few beers. After trying some Malaysian cuisine (very tasty) me and a mate from the hostel headed to the Sky Bar in the Traders Hotel. The bar is on the 33rd floor of the hotel and not only does it have a swimming pool in the middle of the bar, it also has just the most amazing view of the nearby Petronas Towers. The beer wasn't even any more expensive there than in the rest of KL's over priced bars. On the way back we stopped at several more bars (I am sure most of the women in them were hookers) and ended up at a different hostel where somebody who was staying at our hostel previously had moved on to. It was here I had a very interesting "debate" with an American over the state of the US verses Chinese economy. This guy refused to accept that China had long ago not only taken over from the US as a global economic superpower, but that it had taken over and ground the US economy into the ground. He steadfastly believed that the US was still dominant despite me pointing out how pretty much everything these days is made in China. Americans, give it up, your cars are shit, that's why not even Americans buy them anymore, and not even the mighty Barack Obama can return the US to its once burgeoning financial position.
Anyway... After awaking with a fuzzy head and then proceeding to lounge about the hostel I finally made it out to the Bukit Nanas Rainforest park in central KL. This is the only remaining section of native forest left in the city and it offers people a break from the busy city with trails and interpretive walks. And monkeys. I was really pleased to see monkeys in the wild, although I was a little concerned when I thought one threw a stick at me. Not a small stick either! The park was pretty cool, and surrounded the base of the KL Tower which as the fourth tallest tower in the world offered views all over the city. At least I imagine it does as I was too tight to pay the 38MR to go up it. Instead I headed to the Petronas Towers in daylight, although I was too late to get a free ticket to visit the sky bridge between the two towers sadly. There was a pleasant enough park here too, so I wandered around that instead and took photos of the second tallest buildings in the world.
After a deserved night in and with no more alcohol my final full day in KL involved more lounging about before I headed to another park in the city, the Perdana Lake Gardens, close to the central train station and central mosque. The mosque was fairly large, impressive and imposing (slightly better than Northampton central mosque for those that know it!) but I wanted to get on to the park - which took ages down winding roads. Eventually I found it though and I enjoyed the greenery and still hated the heat. The deer park nearby was pretty cool if a little small and best of all it was all free!
I stopped in again in the evening, partly due to the heat and partly due to my finances, and got a relatively early night as I actually had to get up early to catch the bus to Penang. By early I meant the alarm went off at 8:30. I was still sound asleep though!
That meant today was spent riding the air conditioned bus up the peninsula and across the short stretch of water that divides Penang from the mainland. It was a fairly boring journey although some of the scenery was pretty spectacular. I finally got to Penang to find it hot and humid. Big surprise. The hostel was easy to locate and is in a great location, surrounded by many restaurants and other travellers. Thankfully the 12 bed dorm is air conditioned even though it has many beds! Tomorrow I'll sort out anything that needs doing and then get out and visit the old colonial city.

Beijing

2009-04-20T04:34:00.013+01:00

First off let me say that Beijing is a totally different experience to Shanghai, but being China still has the same sensibilities. Let me explain. Whilst Shanghai had narrow streets Beijing has huge wide avenues with about eight lanes of traffic and cycle lanes as well. There are also billions of cycles in Beijing, and like Shanghai they all have their own traffic laws and just go anywhere all the time. My favourite joy of the wide roads was that if the cars actually do stop at a red light to let you cross (generally optional in China) the time the lights give you to cross the road is no where near long enough and as soon as the lights go green for the cars they set off regardless of pedestrians, often leaving you stranded in the middle of a road clinging to the tiny traffic island for dear life.
There are more things to look at in Beijing than Shanghai though. The city has a central axis running north to south and this is where amongst other things you can see Tiananmen Square and its associated gates, the Forbidden City and Palace Museum, Bell and Drum Towers and right up in the north of the axis the Olympic stadium and park from 2008's Beijing Olympic Games.
I pretty much visited all of these places, battling insane and noisy Chinese tourists the whole time, Tiananmen Square was interesting in a sense of modern history, although the events in 1989 aren't referenced anywhere. Odd that. In the square lies the embalmed tomb of Chairman Mao, the founder of modern communist China. The tomb is open to visitors between 8-12, so I toyed with the idea of seeing a dead man in a glass box, but when I re-visited the square the following day the queues were well over two hours long and full of noisy and impatient Chinese visitors so I decided "screw that". To the north of the square is the Tiananmen Gate and entrance to the Forbidden City which is one of the most famous sights in the world. Its the gate that all the news reporters will stand in front to deliver a piece to camera to prove that they are in China because "look, there's that picture of Chairman Mao". It truly is up there with the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Pyramids as one of the most recognisable landmarks on the globe. And now I've seen it too. Mega.
Cynicism aside its a pretty good spectacle and through it you enter the walled approach to the Forbidden City, the old capital buildings of ancient Beijing. Through here you can pay the 60 RMB (about £6 but a fortune in China!) to enter the Palace Museum where the restored palace resides. Its a huge complex and worth the money, but is again swarming with noisy Chinamen. North of the city you find the Bell and Drum towers, used for timekeeping in ancient Beijing. Only the Bell tower was open when I was there but it was pretty cool to climb up. Sadly the weather was rubbish due to cloud and pollution so the views weren't as impressive as they should have been.
Also north of the city are various parks and leisure areas. These make a refreshing change from the rushing traffic, with Beihai Park a highlight. The White Pagoda on the islet offers decent views of the city but costs extra money to visit up close, the Chinese know how to get money out of people! Finally in the most northern part of the city centre you arrive at the Olympic Park from Beijing 2008. At the very top of the park is the forest park recreation area with trails and views back towards the Olympic green. I spent a good few hours wandering around enjoying the various water features and viewpoints before walking down the main axis towards the green.
The Olympic Green is where the famous "Birds Nest" stadium, aquatic centre and indoor arenas were constructed. Apart from the building work being carried out in the area which left me with the impression that some parts of the park were either being improved, or more likely removed due to lack of use post Olympics, the rest of the park impressed me massively. The Birds Nest was a fantastic structure and when looked at closely you notice that far from just being decoration all the curved parts of metal are all structural and integral to the building as a whole. Add the quirky aquatic centre and the sweeping roof of the indoor arena and basically London 2012 is royally screwed. I just cannot see how they can put on an Olympic Games to even match Beijing, let alone go one further. If it wasn't for the fact that I enjoyed getting one over on the French, I almost wish that Paris had won the games and not London!
One of the other "highlights" of Beijing was the quite incredible market place in the south east. Apparently it handles around 90% of the world pearl market but also sells anything from 300gb USB sticks (amazing how one tiny stick can hold more data than some laptops!), different sized iPhones (!) and clothing at bargain prices so long as you haggle. Haggling is an art here and I bought a Quiksilver T-shirt for 50 RMB (about £5) after initially the stall owner wanted 260 RMB. I still could have gone cheaper though dammit. Just don't buy anything electrical though.
Also don't go to Beijing Zoo. Famous for its Giant Pandas and the successful breeding program, once you have seen this fairly good exhibit the rest of the zoo was so depressing I was glad to leave. Imagine a zoo in the UK from around 50 years ago (small crumbling concrete cages, sad looking animals) and you get the idea. The large amount of noisy Chinese made it worse as they seem not to realise that you don't throw food in to the enclosures for the animals, if sweets aren't good for people, they sure as hell aren't good for bears. But then the majority of the Chinese are incredibly stupid sadly, how they have turned their country into an economic powerhouse is beyond me.
I mentioned in my last post how I was a bit unimpressed with my hostel as it was essentially just a hotel with some dorm rooms. I was particularly unimpressed when I went to a hostel at the other end of the Hutong which was built in traditional Chinese buildings and had far more character. One of my friends from Shanghai was staying there so I spent a good evening drinking there and I wished I had booked into that hostel instead.
The area was just amazing though, I was staying in a Hutong - basically a small city within the city. Walking up the narrow street you find winding alleyways leading off, amazing restaurants offing excellent food for bargain prices (duck with bean sprouts plus rice and beer for about £2.20 anyone?), bars and also several "Massage Parlours". I found it fun to walk past the "Masseuse" as she would always jump out of her seat hoping a rich westerner would give her a pay day. Sadly I am not a rich westerner! She was a lot more attractive than any English "Masseuse" though...
I did have a good time in Beijing, finishing off with Peking Duck and some beers with other hostellers on my final night (way more expensive than usual Chinese food), but I was glad to leave China. Many people from the UK have moved to the country to get involved in the rapidly expanding economy. Whilst I wish them all good luck, moving to China for me would turn me into the worlds most angriest man! The Chinese are noisy, impatient, smoke all the time and everywhere and spit all the time and everywhere as well. Add in the traffic, pollution, scammers and con-artists (although not as bad in Beijing as Shanghai) and language issues (they all know enough English to try to sell you stuff, but that's about it!) and I couldn't understand how anyone could want to live there if they didn't have to!
After a late night and early start to catch my flight out (I got less than three hours sleep!) I finally arrived in Kuala Lumpur yesterday evening. The hostel I am in is excellent and I enjoyed a few beers in an English pub last night while watching the Premier League with another hosteller. Classic British tourist. I have a few days here to explore, but the only downside is the expensive alcohol (Malaysia is a Muslim country so alcohol consumption is restricted and heavily taxed), and oppressive heat and humidity. Its over 30C by day and no less that 25C by night. Hopefully I'll get to see a decent storm or two while I am here. Other than that I'll just drink lots of water and enjoy the beginning of the end of my travels.

Shanghai

2009-04-15T05:06:00.002+01:00

As I stated in my last post, the hostel I stayed at in Shanghai was indeed a proper backpackers type place. Despite the fact that my tiny room with its two sets of bunk beds crammed in had no windows (comfy bed though) the rest of the place was exactly what a lone traveller wants in a hostel. Comfy sofa area to hang out in and surf the web, next to that a cafe and bar with free pool table, a Playstation 2, and some of the most friendliest and funniest people I have met in a long time.
As my trip is finally nearing its end the desire to spend every day being constantly active sightseeing or hiking or whatever is beginning to fade away and is being replaced with a desire to just relax and run out the clock on the trip. The hostel in Shanghai was the perfect place to do this. That's not to say I didn't explore some of the interesting features Shanghai has to offer outside the doors of my accommodation. On my first full day there I wandered along the Bund - the historical embankment area on the west bank on the Huangpu, along one of the main streets that lead to the People's Square - a central park area also containing some magnificent buildings such as the Museum, and then back along East Nanjing Road - the main shopping street and apart from the hundreds of Chinese and the Chinese script on the buildings, pretty much the same as any main shopping street in the Western world.
This fairly short route enabled me to really see how progressive Shanghai is as a city, and yet how it tries to keep to its traditional roots as well. It would have been an amazing experience apart from one or two slight annoyances. It turns out that even after nearly eleven months of travelling where I have taken in colourful areas in New York City, Central America and South America I am still completely naive. A lot of Chinese citizens speak pretty good English, and on seeing a Western traveller are keen to welcome you to China and practice their English. This is fine, apart from some have learnt English for different reasons. Some of the more common scams include inviting Westerners to tea ceremonies or bars, only for your Chinese "host" to suddenly disappear at the moment the bill is produced, which is usually an astronomical figure. Young girls are often employed to carry out the bar scam, the helpless male westerner ending up getting hammered in the thought of getting some Asian lady action, only to find themselves lumbered with a huge bar bill or worse, bringing them back to their apartment only to pass out and then be robbed.
Thankfully none of these happened to me, but not because of my heightened awareness of being conned, but due to the helpful intervention of another traveller. Another scam is for young girls to claim to be art students, stop an innocent looking traveller on the street, compliment him and then mention that they are having an exhibition close by and try to usher you off to said exhibition. Once there you will be shown some art (if you are lucky, the unlucky ones just end up in a maze of a building and get mugged), and then the "Art teacher" will appear and mention how the students rely on donations to support said exhibition. At which point they will produce some "art" and expect you to pay a stupid amount of money (usually £50 -100, still a fair amount in China). Upon refusing they will suddenly turn a lot more aggressive and follow you back to you accommodation if necessary to make you hand over the cash. If you continue to refuse then they will often make threats regarding your personnel safety in the country. Thankfully these threats are generally empty threats, but the nervous traveller can feel very uncomfortable in this situation.
Thankfully as I said, an intervention by another traveller indicating that I shouldn't go with the "Art students" to look at some "art" managed bring me back into the reality that it was a scam, and that the attractive art student might possibly be trying to pull a con. Am I so starved of female compliments that I will almost do something stupid? Apparently yes. Sadly a fellow traveller at the hostel wasn't so lucky as after being persuaded to visit an exhibition he then had one of the "Students" following him back to the hostel and I got to see first hand how aggressive they can be in trying to extort money. He eventually managed to avoid paying over the odds for some worthless paper, but only at the expense of several hours in the company of aggressive con artists.
If it wasn't for the constant hassling by these people out to trick tourists I could recommend Shanghai more as a travel destination. The city is being rebuilt everywhere, with new roads, buildings and subway expansions in every direction you face in order to create a city for the 21st century. But unless the problems on the streets are corrected businesses will begin to leave Shanghai as Westerners looking to invest and send staff to the area will not want their personnel to be conned and to lose money as a result of other people's greed and trickery.
Thankfully I only nearly got conned on the one day, for my second day I went to the amazing Yuyuan Garden in the old part of the city. It began as a rainy day, perfect for just lazing around the hostel, but after lunch when the rain eased I finally headed out. The pretty grim weather had kept most of the scammers at bay allowing me almost free passage to the gardens. After wandering the maze that is the old city I found the entrance and spent about two hours wandering the old buildings, enjoying the peacefulness of the ponds with their hundreds of fish and occasional Terrapins. It was as far removed from the huge modern developments springing up as you could get. I loved it.
On my last day I decided to visit the of the modern developments on the Pudong bank of the Huangpu River, and travelled up to the 88th floor of the Jin Mao Tower. The view was rubbish due to low cloud and heavy pollution, but the best part was staring down the centre of the building to the Grand Hyatt hotel check in desk on the 53rd floor. The building houses the highest hotel in the world, and the central atrium which spans all the top floors was just incredible.
But these brief sightseeing moments and cheap con artists are not the memories I will take back from my time in Shanghai. What I'll remember most fondly was just hanging out in the hostel with other travellers with lots of beer (in the shop next door you could get a 600ml bottle of Tsingtao beer for about 39 pence!) and hilarious conversations. It was evenings like this that reminded me why I loved travelling so much and made my thoughts about returning to the UK early while I was in Japan seem a long way away.
Thankfully last night I had an evening off the booze to catch the overnight train to Beijing. This train was completely different to the one I caught to Shanghai. It was a lot more modern, very similar to the Japanese Shinkansen, and only offered the soft sleepers. This meant only four beds per compartment, and a noticeable rise in quality. It was very nice, but as the train left at 21:30 and arrived here in Beijing at 7:30 this morning the trip went a lot quicker. The early start has left me pretty drained though! Sadly the hostel doesn't look anywhere near as much fun as my last one (thank you Lonely Planet, grrr) as it just occupies the basement of a hotel and seems more suited to hotel travellers than grungy backpackers. It has a fairly nice bar downstairs though, but seems devoid of life and people. I'll give it a chance though, and if it does turn out to be dull, at least I'll be able to catch up on my sleep!

The night train to China

2009-04-12T03:23:00.002+01:00

After taking about 30 flights I decided instead of flying yet again I'd take the overnight train from Hong Kong up to Shanghai. I was not disappointed. Catching the train in Kowloon you go through Hong Kong immigration before you enter the train which means that when you arrive at the China border you don't have to stop.
I've been through a few land borders on my travels and I've always been slightly disappointed that they weren't high fences topped with razor wire and guard posts every few metres with heavily armed troops ready to defend the borders. Usually they are just areas of open scrubland or usually not even that. Heading into China though I got my wish. High fence topped with razor wire - check. Lots of guard towers with armed troops - check. Soldier opening a heavy gate on the line to allow the train through - check. It felt like a real border, and the change from prosperous Hong Kong to China was instantly noticeable.
In order to get to Shanghai I had to first take a train to the southern China town of Guangzhou, the trip to there was on a pretty standard express train and when I got off in Guangzhou I passed through customs and finally entered China. As I had my visa it was all straightforward, and a hell of a lot quicker and easier than entering the US!
I then found my way around the amazingly confusing station to my sleeper train and home for the next 17 and a half hours. I had booked what is known a hard sleeper, this is a bed in a 6 birth compartment and despite being called a hard sleeper the only difference I could really see was that the soft sleepers had only 4 bunks. I was on one of the top bunks which was pretty tricky to get into, and with only a few feet clearance above me pretty cramped if you try to sit up. I bashed my head many times! Once I had stashed all my bags though and relaxed a bit it was just amazing. The scenery began whizzing by and I was so glad I had decided to take the train instead of yet another flight.
The food on the train was even pretty decent, and only cost about £1.50 (China is amazingly cheap) and I had a few beers whilst everyone else sauntered to bed around 8pm (the Chinese also go to bed early!). Sadly as everyone goes to bed early it also means they get up early. By 7am the train staff were already wandering the aisle selling tea and toothbrushes. I actually slept pretty well which I was surprising and even despite the guy on the bunk opposite me snoring all bloody night. I kept hitting his pillow which meant he'd roll over and shut up for a bit allowing me a window of opportunity in which to get to sleep myself! Apart from the movement of the train occasionally waking me meaning I'd have to repeat the anti snoring process I got a good few hours sleep!
I'd recommend the train to anyone travelling across China, it was efficient and arrived on-time, was fairly cheap and comfortable and a great way to experience part of the Chinese way of life as everyone here uses the trains rather than flying. There are a few problems though, the biggest one I had was that as the Chinese don't seem to realise that smoking actually kills themselves and everyone else around them. They merrily puff away all day and night in the aisle and end compartments between carriages. After a few hours of breathing in recycled air this gets really tiresome - but sadly this is the norm everywhere here in China. Also after 17 hours the toilets weren't exactly at their best, there is no toilet roll available in most of the cubicles, so if anyone is thinking of travelling on the trains make sure you grab one of those promotional packs of tissues before boarding!
China is unlike anywhere else I have visited so far, although the hostel is a proper backpackers place with westerners everywhere! After I get this posted I'm heading off into Shanghai to explore, before probably sinking into a bottle again this evening!

Hong Kong

2009-04-11T07:34:00.002+01:00

Hong Kong has to have been one of the highlights of my trip. For anyone who hasn't been it truly is an amazing little country. The city areas are a fascinating homogenislation of old colonial English sensibilities mixed with Chinese ingenuity and design. Even though the country is sadly no longer governed by the United Kingdom (our 99 year lease ran out back in 1997) the country is governed as a Special Administrative Region with some autonomy from China and so has kept much of the English feel. English is still an official language and all the roadsigns are straight out of the UK Highway Code so it felt very much like being back at home. Only a damn sight warmer and lot more humid!
The hostel I stayed at was in an amazing location on Hong Kong Island and had spectacular views out over Victoria Harbour, Kowloon and several of the other islands. It was very isolated though, they ran a shuttle bus from the nearest subway station which had to go up a very windy narrow road to the top of Mount Davis where the old military barracks have been converted into the hostel. This did sadly mean a dorm room with 28 beds in it (a new record for me!), but it also meant decent kitchen facilities and that amazing view. To give you an idea of how far away the hostel was from the nearest main road it took me over 15 minutes of climbing up the steps from said road to get to the hostel! I don't recommend that climb too often.
Hong Kong is a great place to just wander about in and find the many shops and park areas. I was oddly moved when I saw Marks and Spencers for the first time since leaving the UK, and less excited when I found Ikea. As English is an official language this meant that there were many bookstores with English books and magazines, plus DVD's and video games were either in English or had English subtitles. I picked up a few things as a birthday present to myself!
There is also some amazing hiking to be had on the island, I took the tram up to Victoria Peak - the highest point on Hong Kong Island. The tram is an amazing experience, pulled up by a very thick steel cable, at certain points the climb felt like we were at about 45 degrees with the buildings appearing at a very odd angle. At the top I shunned all the expensive tourist attractions and headed off on the peak circle, a short loop around the peak with excellent views of the city below. It was a small walk but nice to get out of the city hustle and bustle. The following day I headed to the east of the island and walked up the hillside out of the high rises through the local cemetery. That was almost as amazing as the walk, the cemetery was built on terraces climbing up the hillside that covered the whole valley overlooking the city. At the top I started on the main walk, a route known as the Dragons Tail, one of the best hikes in Asia according to Time Magazine.
It was pretty if not massively challenging, and offered views of the sprawl one minute and then peaceful beaches and villages the next. Near the end of the walk I passed through Big Wave Beach, a really pretty beach area, popular with locals and tourists alike. The village was a contrast from the rest of the island, it almost reminded me of some of the places I had visited in Latin America and showed me how the difference between the rich and poor is very slim, even in Hong Kong.
I headed out one night with a fellow hosteller and visited the Happy Valley Racecourse to lose money at the horses. Its an interesting racecourse, surrounded by high rise buildings and giant television screens in the city and all lit up for night racing. It was nice to have a few beers and get out of the hostel and I treated it as my birthday night out.
It was a bit strange having a birthday while travelling, but when you get to my age (for those reading this who don't know how old I am I am not going to admit my age, lets just say I'm one year older now than I was when I started travelling) celebrations don't seem as much fun as they did when I was 21! I did get some nice birthday messages from people though, thank you all, it was nice to be remembered.
I really enjoyed my time in Hong Kong, the hostel was pretty cool with spectacular views and interesting people (although it had the usual weirdo too though!) and the city was an amazing place to hang out in. After a few days there though it was time to move on and I headed into mainland China via overnight train. Beats flying.

Busan and Gyeongju

2009-04-07T02:03:00.004+01:00

For my one full day in Busan rather than visit yet more shopping areas I decided to go for a hike in the mountains that surround the city. South Korea is very fortunate in that two thirds of the country is classified as mountainous, this means that even in the biggest cities you can take a short ride on a subway train and go almost immediately from the station straight into some excellent hiking trails. I opted for the mountains to the north of the city and to explore the site of Geungjeong Mountain Fortress. Much of the old fortress wall is still standing and work is ongoing to restore each of the gates.
Deciding against the cable car ride I climbed up the steep slope and found my way easily to the fortress walls. From there it was simply a case of following the trail along said wall past the east and north gates and then to the summit of the mountain. It was an excellent hike, strenuous but with some amazing views. For part of the journey I was joined by one of the local hikers who spoke excellent English and we discussed the various challenges facing both our countries. For challenges read methods we will have to employ to get the UK out of the mess Gordon Brown has put us into! As an added bonus the trail back off the mountain went past a huge temple complex, I wish UK cities had as impressive landscapes in as easy to reach locations as South Korean cities do.
After another boring night in I got up the next day to leave Busan and to head to the ancient capital of the Silla dynasty period – Gyeongju. I would have liked another night in Busan to explore some more parts of the city, but I was fairly pleased to leave the lifeless hostel. As lifeless as it was though it sure was a lot tidier than the one I booked into in Gyeongju! As I said in my previous post I had headed out of my comfort zone of Hostelling International endorsed accommodation and booked myself into a privately run hostel. Run down was not the word, the place was way beyond that, but my room was comfy (being slightly grotty meant I could afford a room to myself for a change) and the small TV lounge was OK, if a bit cold at night. The kitchen was rotten though! The roof terrace was at least pretty cool, and offered some decent views of the surrounding city. And a good place to drink with other travellers!
Despite the poor condition at least the hostel had some character to it, and some other backpackers to keep me company. The town itself was also in pretty poor condition, far worse than many of the locations I have been to on my travels in many ways. But aside from the shabby buildings the town had a multitude of historical areas to explore including ancient tombs, partly restored palace areas and many other buildings originating from the Silla Kingdom.
There was also the small mountain range to the south of the town and despite there being around 180 individual peaks the area is collectively known as Mount Namsan, which has one of the largest concentration of Silla remains in South Korea. Hiking along one of its many trails you will encounter small pagodas, images of the Buddha carved into stone walls as well as statues and various temples and spiritual areas. I did a hike up one of the most decorated valleys to one of the peaks on the central ridge. I could have hiked for longer as the weather was excellent, but it was nice to get back to the hostel at a reasonable time and just to relax.
I had a few beers with some other travellers that night and finished off with a few glasses of Soju – the rice wine I had had previously in Seoul – a very kind gift from a group of international students who were visiting the area from Seoul University. The following day reminded me why I shouldn't drink Soju, I had a banging headache all day from the stuff.
Me and another hosteller still managed to make it out to Bulguska Temple to the south east of the town. It was a bit of an effort though, firstly the buses weren't running until 1pm due to a marathon taking place in the area, and then when the buses were running they were so full that I was passed by three of them until one came that had enough space to fit people on. The traffic was horrendous too due to everybody making their way to the temple to witness the cherry blossom finally announcing the arrival of spring. The blossom was amazing and I can see why so many people make the effort to witness it in full bloom. The temple was as spectacular as they all have been, but as the site was yet another UNESCO World Heritage site the entrance fee was significantly higher than for the historical sites back in the town centre (although 4000 Korean Won is still only about £2.20!).
A short hike up into the hillside led to Seokguram Grotto which houses a large Buddha statue considered a masterpiece of Buddhist art so after finishing at the first temple I headed up into the hills along the very pretty pathway. Unfortunately I didn't realise that the entrance fee for the first temple didn't cover both of them and as this site was also listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site it cost yet another 4000 Won. I didn't pay this time! The bus journey back was if possible worse than the trip there for traffic, but at least I had a seat this time and only had to watch one bus leave me at the bus stop.
After a few quiet beers and Premier League football with Korean commentary (god I miss Sky Sports!) it was soon getting late and I dozed off to recuperate for the journey back to Seoul. I took a slower train than the KTX and instantly regretted it. This meant I was fairly late getting back to my hostel, which this time was right out on the eastern edge of the city at the Olympic Park site from the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games. The park was amazing with the stadium they had used still in working use for the Seoul community. Sadly the hostel was the worst of the lot in South Korea.
It may have been cleaner and tidier than the one in Gyeongju but it was little more than a hotel with some dorm rooms, no common area, no kitchens and most importantly for me, no bloody laundry! I have no clean clothes left at the minute and I really hope that my hostel in Hong Kong has one available as soon as I arrive. Annoyed at the lack of facilities I went to Starbucks to use their free wifi and gorge on their tasty cheesecake.
Currently I am flying on my way to Hong Kong on a very pleasant Cathay Pacific airliner. I have mixed feelings about South Korea, it is a beautiful country with vast mountain ranges, some amazing history and some of the most friendly people I have met so far, the majority of which speak varying levels of English. On the other hand the people can also be annoyingly rude and impatient. In Japan, and even in the England, people will wait until people have got off a bus or train before attempting to board. Not so in South Korea with people barging their way in, cutting in front of people queuing (that really annoyed me) and then proceeding to block the aisle when they have got on. Also the lack of international ATM's could be a massive problem, why have such a large network but with only about 5% of machines suitable for foreign cards? I have mentioned the hostel problems in this and previous blogs which means that once again I wouldn't recommend South Korea for backpacking, but I have to say it would make an excellent place for a holiday, especially if you are into hiking. Maybe after just 12 days I just didn't have the time to find better travelling accommodation, but overall I was glad that I visited South Korea. Hong Kong and China are my next stops though, and I have exactly one month today before I make the journey back to the UK as well. I am looking forward to seeing China, but looking forward to the end of these travels as well!

Seoul

2009-03-30T13:23:00.002+01:00

My hopes for a better hostel atmosphere were dealt a cruel blow when I turned up at the hostel here in Busan. The place is basically a hotel and sports centre with a few dorm rooms and a crappy kitchen added to get Hostelling International to endorse the place. Its pretty nice though, very fancy lobby and sports facilities for example, its just a bit quiet and without any other backpackers. Instead it has the usual amount of youth sports groups and other groups which is what the majority of South Korean and Japanese hostels seem to specialise in catering for.
I only arrived in Busan today though so I haven't had much of a chance to go and explore, I'll do that tomorrow. I did manage to find Tesco though! I was very excited and happy to be shopping once again in the chosen supermarket. In the inevitable supermarket wars that will follow once demand outstrips food and cheap value line mug supplies I fully predict Tesco will just walk into every other supermarket chain globally and just blow them all up with Tesco Finest incendiary devices. I hope to lead the charge, especially when they go into Morrison's and blow that crappy chain to kingdom come.
But I digress, Homeplus Tesco as its known here is just like back home, with value and finest ranges, some Tesco products from back home (yay!) and a desire to pummel the other South Korean chains into the ground. Good luck to them I say (although the huge Lotte chain might put up some stiff opposition!)
Back to my last few days in Seoul though. After another quiet night in enjoying super quick download speeds (up to 1000 kbs at certain points, a country addicted to Internet gaming requiring lightning fast connections means torrents download in minutes!) I also managed to explore the downtown area including the huge Changdeok Palace, the relaxing walk alongside the restored Cheonggyecheon Stream and just people watching amongst the insane busyness of it all. Seoul is a city full of character, but still just a another busy city in a long list of busy cities I have seen, it was good to get back to the park area and the hostel.
That night though was a bit more interesting. A group of Korean teachers had invaded the kitchen (which was on the top floor and offered amazing views over the city), and whilst I was making my dinner they offered me a beer and very kindly allowed me to join them for a few more. They were an interesting bunch, most spoke some level of English and were pretty good at drinking and singing! After a few beers it becomes common to mix the beer with rice wine (a Korean kind of Sake), this made it very potent! I was glad for the company and free booze!
For my final day in Seoul I took the subway to the north of the downtown area and headed up into the mountains there. Despite being called mountains however the tallest one of the two peaks I hiked up had an altitude of just 1994 feet, which I think would actually make it 6 feet below a mountain. Mountain or not though the views were spectacular, you could see pretty much the whole of the city spreading out in all directions only seeming to end where it butts up to the mountains to the north. It was an odd experience to be hiking on hills surrounded by high-rise buildings though.
I liked Seoul, its a busy city and shows just how different South Korea is when compared to Japan (much less emphasis on etiquette and politeness - I miss the mobile phone free Japanese trains!). Its just a shame the hostel was so based around youth groups and not other travellers. I had an absolute nightmare getting accommodation here in South Korea too. As New Zealand, and most other countries that I have visited are so geared up for accommodating backpackers I just found it easy to find hostels that I have taken it for granted that every country will be the same. I managed to find a bed here in Busan for a couple of nights though (having seen the same set-up as Seoul I am not too bothered at it only being two) and I am booked into a Hostel in Gyeon-ju for four nights. A private room in the hostel I found there was as much as a dorm in Seoul / Busan, so I hope the hostel is OK. Its a privately owned hostel so I am leaving my comfort zone of HI Hostels, some reviews on the booking site were positive, although some do say the place can be grubby! Fed up with lugging my kit every few days though so I have opted for the four nights. If nothing else the area is supposed to be beautiful, mountainous and full of temples. I hope it lives up to expectations!

Leaving Japan and Entering South Korea

2009-03-28T00:51:00.003Z

When I last posted I mentioned my excitement at heading off to the International Manga Museum in Kyoto. After a leisurely morning I caught the tram into downtown and walked to the museum with a spring in my step. Within less than 30 seconds this spring had turned into a bent and damaged slinky. Turns out the museum is closed on Wednesdays. It was a Wednesday. After uttering a curseword or two I walked off slightly bewildered and bitterly disappointed and just headed back to the hostel.
Thankfully for my last night in Japan things improved as a local Tea House had sent up a Maiko (Geiko or Geisha in training) to do a public performance of traditional music and dancing. Normally the Maiko do not perform to a public audience so this was an amazing opportunity to see traditional Japanese culture that the majority of the local population do not even get to see. She was pretty amazing, extremely graceful and dressed immaculately in Kimono and traditional make-up. I was quite surprised at the fact that she was only 18 and had been a Maiko since she was 15. If all goes well for her she will sit her Geisha exams at around 21 and if successful will graduate to be a full Geisha and then gain paid employment in one of Kyoto's famous tea houses.
A fairly early start the following morning to grab the trains to Kansai International Airport (including the funky blue Rapi:t train - the one that looks like the Russian train from Goldeneye) I arrived at the airport on the man-made island in good time and flew out of Japan.
I really enjoyed visiting Japan, I always planned it to be one of the highlights of my trip and I wasn't disappointed. It was a bit of a shame that I found it much more difficult to get accommodation than in New Zealand for example, which meant that I didn't end up seeing anywhere near as much as the country as I perhaps would have liked to. That just means that I will have to return in the future to see the places I missed out on the first time. I'd recommend Japan as a fantastic travel destination, and although I did find accommodation to be more expensive than in other countries, I didn't find Japan to be the astronomically expensive place people often think it is. It would have helped if the Pound hadn't collapsed so badly though as the exchange rate while I was there was pretty pathetic, but then what can you expect from years of Gordon Brown based economics?
There are a few things about Japan that did irritate me slightly though:
People smoke way too much and in too many public places - Unlike most developed countries Japan has no smoking ban. There is evidence of efforts being made to reduce smoking, but restaurants, bars, video game arcades, cafes, etc are full of Japanese businessmen puffing away. Coming from countries where there is a ban made it all the more noticeable, and I hope Japan can get its act together and clamp down on public smoking like in the rest of the developed world.
The Language Barrier - Not the fault of the country really, after all they have every right to speak their own language and I should have just learnt more Japanese! But it is still an issue for a traveller to find so few people speaking even basic English. Most signs on trains etc have English translations, but in terms of booking accommodation, sending post and just shopping, the language barrier can put people off being more adventurous, including me.
NHK, Japans national broadcaster - just desperately boring television.
Toilets that violate you - Japan is light years ahead of the west in terms of technology, and that includes toilets. They are just amazing, heated seats, automatic cleaning, and full bidet facilities. This means after using a toilet you just press a button and hey-presto you are fresh as a daisy. Apart from the fact that in doing this you get a jet of water straight up your backside. Everytime you use it you think you are prepared for the shock, but goddammit you just aren't. Still, you do feel fresher afterwards...
That's about it for problems though, other than this the whole country is pretty amazing, Shinkansen trains are light years ahead of crappy Virgin Pendolino's and always manage to run on time to within 6 seconds. Plus I didn't once have to take a bus due to engineering on a Sunday. Vending machines selling everything from fizzy drinks to cigarettes line every street and yet not one of these machines was vandalised to get at the product and money within. Despite the lack of bins there was very little litter, the trains and subways are immaculate and the people may not speak a word of English but are the most helpful people you will meet anywhere on the planet. I can't wait to go back one day.
As usual though I have moved on and I am now in Seoul, the South Korea. First thoughts were just how different South Korea is from Japan, its a very busy city and noticeably not as clean as Tokyo. The vending machines are all present again though, and people are just as friendly, but it just feels very different. Plus there is a noticeable military presence with troops wandering about the city everywhere. Coming from pacifist Japan this was quite surprising.
I've not done too much to be honest, yesterday I headed up Mount Namsan which the hostel backs onto and N Seoul Tower is situated on top of. The views from the top were spectacular and to add to the experience I was treated to a display from a local Martial Arts group, I can confirm that samurai swords are very sharp and that bamboo doesn't make a very good enemy!
I have a couple more days booked in Seoul and then hope to head to the south of the country to explore the mountains and temples followed by the port city of Busan before heading back to Seoul to fly to Hong Kong early next month. This hostel is a little quiet though so I hope I find some that are a bit more active.