Day 441 - 25 Sep '24 - Hanoi. So far, our time in Vietnam had been in cities. We had heard from others about the beauty of the country, but we hadn’t really seen it. Time to remedy that, by going on a day trip to Ha Long Bay, one of Vietnam’s most picturesque places.
We were picked up at 8:30am, and spent the next two-and-a-half hours in a ‘limousine’ bus. The seats were spacious, comfy, and could recline to about 30°!
We had two stops on the way, one for a toilet/cigarette break, and one to visit a pearl farm, with the obligatory sales pitch and shop walkthrough.
As we got closer to Ha Long Bay, the destruction from the typhoon two weeks ago was everywhere we looked. Broken trees, missing roof tiles, bent and twisted corrugated iron…it must have been terrifying, and the clean-up job was extensive.
We boarded the boat at midday, and after our guide told us our itinerary, a buffet lunch was provided. There seemed to be just enough food for the 100 people on board, which alleviated Alex’s initial concern; it was very tasty, with lots to choose from, although everything was cold.
Ha Long Bay is famed for its karst rocks that are spread as far as the eye could see. These limestone formations jutted out of the water everywhere, in varying shapes and sizes. Some of them were named for shapes like ‘butterfly’ or ‘fighting roosters’ but we really couldn’t see the images.
We weren’t the only cruise boat out there either - this was still low season, and it was rather busy. I’d hate to see what it looked like when it was actually busy!
Our first stop was to Luon Cave where we chose between staying on the boat, going on a bamboo boat (that was paddled for you), or going on a kayak. We chose the kayak option, and soon experienced what could only be described as chaos! There were people who had never kayaked before (good on them, giving it a go, but they sure were funny to watch), as well as bamboo boats everywhere, all crashing into each other.
(I should say that I’m sure the first time I paddled a kayak or canoe, I looked just as hapless, and I know my parents would remind me of the time I rowed a boat backwards at Roukenglen…).
We paddled through a low-ceilinged cave into a large ring of limestone rocks, some of which were slowly dripping away. We even got to see a monkey clambering on one!
Alex was sitting behind me on the kayak, and I kept getting splashed when he lifted the paddle near vertically every stroke.
“It’s not a canoe, Alex! It’s a kayak! You don’t need to keep lifting it up so high!”
“You’re not going fast enough, mummy!”
“It’s not a race!!”
“I’ve paddled 75% of the time, and you’ve only paddled 50%!”
“We’ve really got to work on your maths…”
Our next stop on our cruise was to visit the Sung Sot caves, along with hundreds of other people. Our guide told us it was a 1.8km walk through the caves, and it would take us 45 minutes.
“I’m not surprised!” muttered Dan. “Look at all the people standing still on the stairs!”
As with most queues, it only moves as fast as the slowest person, and the slowest person in this particular queue was an old man with a bandaged knee. Why he thought it would be a good idea to climb 200 steps is beyond me.
“Maybe it’s something he’s always wanted to do?” Dan pointed out, when we stopped, yet again.
The rock formations on the inside were quite striking. The limestone drips had formed cauliflower shaped bulges, long vertical lines, and the ceiling looked like it had been scooped out by a melon-baller.
It wasn’t as cool, temperature-wise, as other caves we’d been in, but there were LOTS of people emanating body heat. We talked about those other caves while we walked through, and decided that while this one wasn’t as spectacular as the others, it was pretty impressive because it was inside an island.
Our third and final stop on our trip was to Ti Top Island, apparently named after a Russian cosmonaut. It had a large man-made beach that we could go swimming at, or we could walk to a pagoda on the top of the island for 360° views.
The water was green, so, no thanks on the swimming, and we started the climb. It was quite a steep staircase, winding and twisting its way up 91.6m.
“Man, we’re unfit!” I gasped out at one point.
“We stopped to let your kids go past,” a couple said to us. “They’ve got plenty of energy!”
“Yep - they’re annoying like that! I replied with a smile.
“Ha ha ha, just shows us how old we are!”
The view from the top was absolutely worth it though. We could see everywhere! All the individual karst formations, and all the cruise boats dotted around.
Some, like ours, were just for day trips, while others were stay-overnighters and had smaller tenders to take their guests sightseeing.
The sky had been cloudy the whole day, and while it did alter the view, it at least was cooler than a sunny day would have been. Plus, the haze made everything have muted tones, which was rather pretty as the sun got lower.
We all boarded the boat again, and this time sat on the top deck for the sunset party! Incredibly loud dance music, and a supremely bizarre combination of foods: fresh fruit, prawn crackers, sweet potato biscuits, cold green tea, and red wine.
There’s a reason nobody has ever heard of Vietnamese red wine.
“Bleuch!” grimaced Dan at the first sip.
“Jesus Christ!” I coughed out. “That’s vinegar!”
“Oh, that’s horrible.”
“It would make an excellent vinaigrette!”
It was absolutely vile.
“Are you having a second glass?” I asked Dan, incredulous.
“It would be rude not to since Abi had already brought it.”
“Well, if you’re having one then so will I!”
“WHY?!”
“Because it’s free!”
“Well, maybe I’ll have a third then.”
“God no, don’t do that!”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s disgusting!”
As we looked around, we saw others screwing up their faces and giving it thumbs-down into cameras.
“There’s gold stickers on the label, look, it’s won awards!” I said when I showed him.
“When? 1993?”
“More like 1793!”
We tried eating some watermelon and dragonfruit before taking a mouthful of vinegar (sorry, wine); Dan was convinced it made it nicer, but I didn’t think so. The only way to get through it was large gulps, and then a large handful of crackers. Thank god they were just small glasses!
The sun got lower and lower as we slowly made our way back to the marina, casting a red glow up into the sky.
Then, for no more than 30 seconds, the sun burst its way out from the clouds, before disappearing behind more clouds and the rocks. Beautiful.
Despite the crowds and crowds of people and boats, it had been a very pleasant and relaxing time in Ha Long Bay, and it was great to get to see some more of the country.
We disembarked at 6pm, and boarded our limo bus once more. On the way, we passed a stretch of road that had sections of illuminated trees. I’d seen them on the way past in the morning, but they looked even prettier at night.
It was a slightly shorter trip back to Hanoi, as we only had a 15 minute break, and we were dropped at our accommodation at 8:50pm.
We had packed everything up before we left this morning, so there wasn’t much to do other than go to the toilet and charge Dan’s phone for a few minutes (it had 3% battery, and we needed the check-in details for our new place).
We said goodbye to our host, who very sweetly gave us a gift of four super-cute magnets of Vietnamese people!
“Will you put these ones on the fridge “ Abi asked me later. “They’re very pretty.”
“The fridge in the kitchen?”
“Yes.”
“Absolutely not! It’s stainless steel!”
(Don’t worry, they’ll go on the one in the garage).
By the time we got to our new place it was 9:20pm. The kids were both tired, so there were the usual complaints of the room being too hot (Alex) and the room/bed/space being too fill in the blanks (Abi).
At least we don’t have to get up early tomorrow.
Day 442 - 26 Sep '24 - Hanoi. The sky was overcast again, which meant it was back to being super humid. We hadn’t had dinner, and because we got back so late last night, we hadn’t bought any milk for today’s breakfast. Dan and I went without, while Abi had her cereal with a carton of strawberry milk, and Alex used a tub of yoghurt.
We’d all had a good sleep, not waking up until 9am, and we left the apartment about 10:30am to start exploring this side of Hanoi.
It was a totally different feel and sound compared to the Old Quarter - buses and cars and scooters all zooming around and honking their horns. The roads were much busier and the buildings much bigger.
Our first stop today was the Tran Quoc pagoda, which was built into a spit of land on Tay Lake. It was a lovely, narrow, multi-tiered Buddhist temple, but it was unfortunately closed when we arrived.
We walked further along the lakeside and stopped at a chicken takeaway shop for lunch, then carried on to a large garden area of government buildings.
There was no access to the Presidential Palace, and we weren’t even allowed to take photos. There was a large parade ground in front of the National Assembly building, and directly across from it was the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum, a very stark and imposing structure.
Also within the complex was the One Pillar Pagoda. This pagoda was originally built in 1049 and had been rebuilt a number of times since.
Just around the corner was a temple that had some beautiful vases. The tallest I think I’ve ever seen!
On the outside walls of the temple, were large posters depicting Karma situations. We all had a good laugh at some of them:
We left the government area and went on an incredibly windy route through alleys and lanes between houses, not even wide enough for a car, until we made it to our destination - a downed B-52 bomber! This plane was shot down on 27 December 1972, and has remained in situ ever since.
We got a taxi ride back to the apartment, as none of us felt like walking the 40 minute return journey; we were all rather thirsty and sticky from the humidity, and just wanted to get inside some air conditioned comfort.
We weren’t back for long before Dan and Alex went to find a barber while Abi and I stayed put. When they returned, it seemed beard trims were not a big thing over here, and Dan said he had to ask the barber to cut Alex’s hair shorter!
“The man said they don’t usually take hair off the top of the head,” he told me. “I had to ask him to take another inch off!”
We found some dinner at a nearby restaurant, but it was a bit underwhelming. I mean, it all tasted okay, but it was nothing special. We wouldn’t be going back there tomorrow.
Day 443 - 27 Sep '24 - Hanoi. The air conditioner in our room needs some maintenance. No matter how many times we set the temperature to 23°C, it always seemed to reset itself to 17°C. Don’t get me wrong, 17°C is nice and refreshing, in short bursts, but when you wake up in the middle of the night with cold feet because the duvet is too small for the bed and the air conditioner has reset, 17°C is not very enjoyable at all.
We were up at 6am this morning to go on another tour out to the countryside. Our current accommodation was no longer in the ‘pick-up’ zone, so we had to go to a pre-determined collection spot. Fortunately, that was one just an 11 minute walk down the road, which ended up really annoying, as the bus then drove back down the road we’d just walked!
“He could have picked us up from our hotel!” Abi complained.
“It was probably too difficult to get the bus up the parking ramp,” Dan explained.
“And we got our pick of the seats this time!” I added.
Once we had collected the other 13 passengers, we left Hanoi for our day trip to Ninh Binh.
The first stop was to the seemingly obligatory tourist trap, but oh-my-goodness, I could have spent a fortune!
This place was embroidery done by victims of Agent Orange, and the people working away were very clearly affected. However, their work was astounding!
So, so, so pretty (and signs saying ‘no photos’ everywhere). Golden dragons, multicoloured fish, rice paddies, forest groves, baskets of flowers, temple buildings, city scales…all stunningly beautiful.
“I need to get out of here,” I said to Dan, “otherwise I’m going to buy something!”
All sewn with single strands of silk, with incredible detail. One was a black and white portrait of an old lady, and the expression in her eyes surrounded by wrinkled skin was phenomenal. That one was almost a metre square and took four months to sew and, quite rightly, cost $4372NZD.
Well, maybe that was a bit excessive in price, but still…
Our first destination stop was to Bai Dinh Pagoda. This was an extensive complex of 700 hectares; it was so large we got driven in electric golf buggies to the other side.
Inside the first gate were two large statues of somebody.
I say “somebody” because at that precise moment, Abigail decided it was important to ask if uniforms were worn in high school. Really…
We then walked up one of two 1700m long Arhat corridors that contained 10,000 statues of Buddha, all in glass display boxes. 500 stone carvings of venerable monks (Arhats), also lined the corridor; each of the stone carvings weighed 2.5 tonne and were carved from monolithic green stone.
The statues had been rubbed by worshipers so often, that prominent parts were blackened by oils, and signs had since been erected asking people not to rub them anymore.
The most impressive feature of the complex were the drum and bell. The bronze drum measured 5.5 metres in diameter and weighed 70 tonnes, and the bell weighed 36 tonnes.
It was so large, the stick to ring it was a tree trunk of ironwood, which weighed 500kg and measured 4.5 metres long!
The first temple we got to was the Kuan Yin Hall, and it housed a massive statue of the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara. This lady cut out her eyes and then cut off her hands, to cure her dying father (really sorry Dad, but I’m pretty sure that wouldn’t work), and Buddha then rewarded her with 1000 eyes and 1000 arms to see and help those in need.
The statue was a faithful representation, with 1000 arms (only 47 on her body, the rest were behind her), and each arm had an eye in the palm of the hand.
Also in the hall were two huge carvings from tree trunks, that were found under the surface of the Red River. Both statues were 10 metres tall, weighed four tonnes, and were carved out of wood before being plated in bronze and gold.
The next temple housed a 10 metre tall, 100 tonne gold plated statue of the Shakyamuni Buddha, as well as gold plated statues of two of Buddha’s great disciples, and eight bronze statues of Vajrapani, who were responsible for protecting and upholding the Buddha Dharma.
Both temples had required Abi and I to borrow some wrap-around skirts to cover our shorts, which I had no issue with. Abi, of course, took umbrage; first, at an Australian family who hadn’t been asked (but they got asked shortly after us), and second, at me, when the Velcro came unstuck and it fell from my waist as I was tying up my shoes outside.
Her next gripe came quick on the heels of the last one, when our guide said it was time to go back and we would be having lunch at 12pm.
“The itinerary said lunch was at 11am!”
“Yes, it did, but these things are flexible.”
“But I don’t want to wait until 12pm!”
“Well, that’s just too bad!”
“I never wanted to come on this stupid trip, who agreed to it, hmm?”
“I did!” said Dan.
Abigail had been trying our patience aaaaaaallllll day. We have long come to realise that she likes everything ‘just so’ and doesn’t like change - she’d make an excellent police officer. She also gets incredibly possessive of things that she thinks as hers, even though they aren’t. For example, last night I grabbed a towel from her bedroom to put in the bathroom for the kids to dry their hands on. This started World War Three, as it was HER towel, and why couldn’t I have used one of Alex’s? She refused to listen to the valid arguments of no towels being either hers of Alex’s, her bedroom being closer when I grabbed one, and she had two towels and only needed one anyway. Cue foot stomping and tears. At 10 years old. Later, at bedtime, she said it was because she was tired, but that’s only partly to blame. She has been like this for years.
And so, when lunch time was moved an hour later than originally stated, she’d had another meltdown.
The next ones came after lunch, when we boarded our bamboo boats in Trang An, for an hour-and-a-half trip up and down the river.
She was told to put on a life jacket: “I know how to swim”.
She was told to lift up the umbrella because the lady rowing the boat couldn’t see: “it’s up high enough”.
Then she complained about having the sun on her, being too hot, having a sore bum…
“If you don’t be quiet, you’ll be testing out the life jacket!” growled Dan. “I’m sorely tempted to tell the lady to turn around and drop you off!”
After a bit of shuffling around, she settled down, and we got to enjoy the trip up the river. The ladies rowing all the boats (and there were a lot) did an excellent job moving the boats while facing forward, which is rather difficult to do. Some of the ladies were also wearing jackets with built-in motorised fans - so clever!
Trang An was known as ‘Ha Long Bay on land’, with huge limestone karsts either side of the water. King Kong:Skull Island was partially filmed here, and it certainly had an otherworldly appearance.
The seats were rather uncomfortable, being rows of bamboo with a thin bamboo mat on top, and it was very hot. After 30-40 minutes we were back at the jetty, and while surprised at the shortened duration, we were happy to get off.
Except…we didn’t get off. We kept going further up the river. By this stage, the faces on all the people we saw coming back the other way, were no longer the happy ones we’d seen at the start. People looked bored, hot, sore, or most likely a combination of all three.
We did get to see a pagoda that came out of the water, and then a temple that we didn’t get off the boat to see, as well as some traditional houses by the water’s edge.
When we eventually got off the boat, our arses were either sore or numb. Walking was a challenge to start with, having been hunched over for so long. It was a lovely river ride, but we (as well as others on our bus) thought that half the duration would have been ample.
“A sore bum is not what we want when we’re about to walk up 500 steps!” I said with a smile to Dan.
“500 STEPS?!” butted in our darling daughter. “I don’t want to walk up 500 steps!”
“Of course not.”
“Can I stay at the bottom?”
“God, wouldn’t that be nice,” I thought, but said “no, you can’t.”
The 500 steps in question were on the peak of Mua Caves. They only climbed 150m, but were quite steep, and very busy. The steps were mostly in the shade, but the humidity was a killer. By the time I got to the top, my tshirt and shorts were soaked with sweat, and I wasn’t the only one!
But the view…so worth it.
On one side we could see the river and people on boats; on the other there was a shorter peak with a pagoda, and a view over rice paddies.
Alex ran down the steps we’d just climbed, and then ran up the steps of the shorter pagoda. I hadn’t brought my zoom lens up the stairs (I’d thought about it, but then decided the normal one would be better for the view, stupid decision), but you can definitely see him in the photo (he’s in a grey patterned tshirt and rust-coloured shorts).
We slowly made our way back down the stairs, and then quickly bought some cold drinks. We were super hot, super thirsty, and bright red in the face. Looking around, so was everyone else! Our guide had even made the trek up - he explained he does it every time in honour of the people on the bus, thinking that if they could do it then so would he.
We had half an hour until the bus left, so we had a quick look in one of the caves. It had a very low ceiling (barely over my head), and must have been one of the upper-class of caves, as it had a paved floor, ha ha ha!
We were all back on the bus at 4:30pm, and began our journey back to Hanoi. We dropped nine passengers off in the town of Ninh Binh, as they were staying there as part of a two-day trip, and the rest of us carried on, stuck to our vinyl seats with sweaty clothes. Super pleasant!
Rather than go back to our apartment, we asked the driver to take us to the lake at the old quarter, and we went to the same restaurant we were at yesterday. And thus began even more complaints from Little Miss Moaner.
“I don’t want to eat the fried rice.”
“Fine, don’t eat it. Have anything else on the menu,” I said.
“But I don’t want the other things.”
“Would you like soup?” the manager asked. “Or noodles? Or rice?”
Abi ignored her. And that was the final straw.
“The lady is trying to help you!”
“But I don’t want soup!”
“You don’t have to have the soup! She was asking if you wanted the soup! You could have the stir fried veges or the chicken and rice or so many other things!”
“But I don’t want them!”
“FINE! You don’t have to eat anything. I don’t care anymore.”
Abi sulked and the three of us ordered our meals. We had just started eating when the lady tried again, explaining other options and Abi decided that she would in fact have stir fried veges with rice noodles.
Ordinarily we would have made her sit with no dinner, but the lady was putting in so much effort, that it must have been a cultural no-no for a child not to eat. We’d already had eyebrows raised when people saw the kids carrying rucksacks!
We had to walk a bit to get a taxi once we’d finished, as the roads were again blocked off, and we were all in bed shortly after 9pm. Luckily it was an easy tomorrow for our last day in Vietnam.
Day 444 - 28 Sep '24 - Hanoi. Nobody stirred until 8:30am, which was wonderful, and then Dan left at 9:45am for his last dentist check-up.
Everything was all good, and he returned at 11am. I’d made the kids do some schoolwork, as I was more and more conscious of their lack of knowledge compared to their peers. When Alex gets back to school he will have to sit a test to determine what level class he goes into in high school.
“But how can he expect to pass a test if he hasn’t even been taught the subject?” I wailed to Dan. “It’s like him sitting a Spanish exam when he’s only been learning geography!”
I wasn’t as concerned with Abigail, as she still had a year of primary school to go, then two years of intermediate. I’m pretty certain I’m going to have to put Alex in some kind of summer school program to get him caught up.
I did a load of laundry and hung it up on our balcony, although I was doubtful it would dry in one day as it was incredibly humid.
We grabbed a car to the old quarter again for Alex to do some Pokémon Go raids, and we all got hot and angry very quickly. While sitting on a park bench, a 10-year-old Vietnamese boy sat down next to me and asked if he could practice his English! This was the second person to have done this, the other being a university student.
Apart from Abi (who had French fries), we had some Banh mi by the lakeside, then walked 15 minutes in the soul-destroying humidity trying to get to more of the Pokemon Go raids.
After three failed attempts, we packed it in and got a taxi back to the apartment. We drove past an incredible mosaic mural wall that runs along a dyke, which was built to celebrate the 1000 year history of Vietnam.
It is almost 4km long, and made it into the Guinness World Records! There is another 900m section that is currently undergoing a design phase.
When we got back to the apartment, Dan had a snooze while I finished working out our route across South Korea.
I’d lived there for nine months 18 years ago, but couldn’t remember the names of places I’d visited while there, so was basically starting from scratch. Unfortunately, two weeks was all the time we had there, so it was going to be a rather compressed trip.
We went to the local KFC for dinner, just because it was close, quick, and easy. Funnily enough, I feel quite self-conscious eating fast foods while in Asia, as I think that locals looking at us are thinking ’those foreigners are just having Western food and not even trying our cuisine’ which of course is not true at all!
We got the kids into bed at 8pm, with their rucksacks packed, as it was another 6am start tomorrow.
Day 445 - 29 Sep '24 - Hanoi to Seoul. One annoying thing with travelling, is that bodily functions do not care. Just as we got to the kerbside to meet our driver, Alex needed the toilet.
“Why didn’t you go when we were in the room?”
“Because I didn’t need to then.”
“But there’s no toilets here!”
“I’ll go and ask.”
Of course, while he was gone, the car turned up, which meant I had to run back inside and find the toilet in question.
The rest of our journey was uneventful, and we arrived at the airport with no issues. The check-in procedure, while no different to any others, seemed to be the most painful one we’ve experienced yet.
Everything seemed to take an extraordinarily long length of time, the queues were all endless, the stamping of passports took forever.
We eventually got to our gate and sat down, with only four other people waiting.
“What size of plane are we on?” I jokingly asked Dan. “A single propeller? Surely we can’t be the only people flying to Seoul?!”
Even the bus to the plane took us by surprise, as it had comfy seats that looked like they belonged in business class. Not at all what we were expecting.
The flight was just over four hours, and was, for the most part, okay. However, there were two less-than-desirable events.
The first was the meals. Abi’s gluten free one came first, and it looked delicious and was also plentiful. Sweet and sour chicken with vegetables and rice, salad, orange-flavoured milk (weird), and dried fruits. The steward then came back around and served the children, so Alex got his chicken and rice with prawn salad.
Almost 10 minutes later, the steward came back and said the chicken was now gone and all that was left was pork belly with kimchi.
No thank you!
So I had two bread rolls and some pickled slices of carrot and daikon.
The second bizarre event was 30 minutes before arrival. We had SEVEN public announcements, then 10 minutes of adverts cut into our viewing, and then the air hostess came round and told us all to take off our headphones!
I’ve no idea why at all, but the entire plane was then forced to spend the last 20 minutes of the flight watching the sky map, or whatever they had on their phones.
I ignored this request completely, and watched the last seven minutes of the TV show I had selected, before I turned it all off and removed my headphones. There’s not much worse than missing the last few minutes of a movie or TV show!
Luggage collection required us to take an inter-airport train to the next terminal, and immigration required paper forms to be filled out; neither took very long.
“Before we leave, we should go to the China Eastern Airlines desk and try to sort out our tickets,” I said to Dan.
“Why don’t we do it when we come back to the airport?” Dan suggested.
“We should do it now when we have no time constraints!”
“Okay, but you can go by yourself.”
I was gone for almost an hour.
Here’s the scenario:
We had originally booked tickets from Vietnam to China, then China to Korea, then Korea to New Zealand. When we realised the first week in October was a Chinese national holiday, we changed our plans, and swapped Korea and China. However, we didn’t cancel our final flight, which flew Seoul-Shanghai-Auckland. We figured we could just check-in for the Shanghai-Auckland leg; the Shanghai layover was 10 hours, so we had to leave the airport and take our luggage anyway, then check back in again. Believe it or not, the Seoul-Shanghai-Auckland flight was $2000NZD cheaper than any other option out of Seoul OR Shanghai!
With the help of Google translate trying to make a complicated question sound easy, I learned that if we don’t check-in on the first leg, the second leg becomes invalid. It doesn’t necessarily get cancelled, but we just can’t use it.
This makes no sense, as we had to re-check-in for the second leg anyway.
I then suggested that we check-in online for the Seoul-Shanghai leg, yet don’t board, but this was again shot down. If we checked-in but didn’t board, the ticket was invalidated as well.
“So, she said we’ll have to cancel the ticket and rebook it just for Shanghai to Auckland,” when I relayed it all to Dan when I finally made it back to them.
“Or…”
Dan had two ideas. One, we leave our luggage in our hotel in Shanghai and get a cheap flight with no checked baggage back to Seoul, then catch the Seoul-Shanghai flight, collect our luggage and then carry on. Two, we alter our China travelling route to visit Hong Kong, then fly Hong Kong to Seoul, then catch the Seoul-Shanghai flight etc.
There was also a third option, which involved asking booking dot com (whom we’d booked our flights with) and see if they could change the flights, but we didn’t hold out much hope for that.
Whichever option we decided, it now involved some research on the computer tonight.
We had landed at 4:40pm, and eventually left the airport at 6:45pm. We boarded the airport train, which was a 45 minute journey, and then walked eight minutes to our accommodation.
“It’s been a while since we’ve walked anywhere wearing our rucksacks, isn’t it?” I said to Abi.
“Don’t talk to me,” she replied. “It takes too much energy.”
“What?! How can me talking to you take too much energy?”
We rounded a corner and started an uphill climb, which luckily was neither steep nor long.
“This is a much better hill climb than that horrible one we did in Lisbon!”
We dumped our bags and left to find food. Since it was already after 8pm, we decided against one of the many restaurants we passed, and grabbed some chocolate milk and sushi triangles from a 7-11. Tomorrow is another day to try Korean cuisine!
The kids got to bed around 9:30pm (which was really just 7:30pm in Vietnam), and we began the fun of trying to sort out our Seoul-Shanghai-Auckland dilemma.
I was on an online chat to customer services asking if they could change the flight (no), and Dan was on his laptop looking at other potential flights. One was Hong Kong to Seoul for just $545 for the four of us (including bags), but while he was talking to me about it, the price doubled!
This was not going to be a cheap, or easy, exercise.
Day 446 - 30 Sep '24 - Seoul. Sometime between 11pm and midnight, our route was sorted. We would now be going to Hong Kong (at a cost of $780NZD) and flying from there to Seoul, and board the flight as it already existed. We could have cancelled the flight from Seoul, but the refund was only $377NZD, and we had paid $2075NZD! Bloody ridiculous. I had a few choice words for the customer services person, but instead I passive-aggressively thanked them for being unhelpful.
It was 9:15am when we woke up, and we all took our time getting ready to start the day. Consequently, by the time we got off the subway at our first destination point, it was 12:30pm!
We bought some sushi triangles for our lunch and ate them inside the 7-11, then walked around Bukchon Hanok village, a place where traditional houses still lined the street.
Yes, it was a bit touristy, and the buildings had clearly undergone extensive renovations, but the difference between this area and other ‘traditional villages’ elsewhere was that these houses were still in their original positions.
The houses all seemed to be quite small, were square, and had a central courtyard area with no roof. There were signs up everywhere telling people to talk in quiet voices, and even a man walking up and down the street carrying a sign that said the same; the houses are still all lived in, so we all had to be mindful of that.
After the houses, we walked to Gyeonbokgun Palace, the largest of five Joseon palaces. This palace was originally built in 1395, destroyed by the Japanese during an invasion in 1592, rebuilt in 1867, and again destroyed by the Japanese in 1915 in order to have a park and zoo. In 1926 the Japanese Governor-General had a house built there, which was torn down in 1996, and from 2001, the palace buildings were all completely rebuilt…again.
In fact, this was the case for many historical buildings throughout Korea. During the Japanese invasion period, they destroyed many of the ancient buildings across the country, which were rebuilt in the 18th and 19th centuries. It’s pretty crazy to think that their rebuilt historical buildings were still a couple of hundred years old!
While walking around, we saw lots of men and women (and even a baby!) wearing Hanbok, the Korean traditional dress. The palace had a wonderful idea that if you wore traditional attire then you didn’t have to pay the admission fee!
The palace grounds were quite extensive and had a lot of buildings around. They were all quite large and imposing, but inaccessible, which was a shame. One I did get in was an old library, which had an interesting ceiling.
One building was specifically for entertaining foreign dignitaries, and for enjoying banquets, and was built on a square pond.
“You’d think that people could at least walk around that one,” Dan pointed out.
Within the palace grounds was the Korean Folk Museum. Inside was a brief history of Korea through the seasons, and from birth until death. It also covered particular rites of marriage, celebration, and funerals.
One pretty cool display was the table offerings during ancestral rites from the Andong Kwon Clan, around 1490. It was elaborate and colourful, and represented basic principles as well as family-unique features such as multi-coloured rice cakes.
Another interesting exhibit was of a bridal palanquin - I can’t imagine being carried to meet my groom in a box that looked barely big enough to comfortably hold a child!
After the museum we walked to the nearby Gwanghwamun Square, which used to be a 10-lane road and was turned into a long public plaza with statues in stone and gilded bronze.
It was seven degrees cooler in Seoul than it was in Hanoi, which was a blessed relief, but by 4:30pm we were hot and bothered nonetheless. Time to call it quits and head back to the apartment.
We stayed there for about an hour, planning and replanning and replanning and replanning our route across South Korea. Lonely Planet had a two-week recommended route that had 10 places on it. I’ve no idea how they ever thought that journey would work, unless they spent approximately half a day in each place! So I’d cut one place out, then another, and another. Then Dan told me there was no accommodation at one of the places, so it got cut out as well.
By the time I’d finished, there were only four places left on the list, and both Dan and I had had enough.
Enough of planning. Enough of booking accommodation. Enough of organising transport.
Time for dinner!
We walked around the nearby streets trying to find somewhere that had pictures or English, but they were rather lacking. We ended up going to the first place we’d stopped at, which I’d found online, but which had no pictures and no English.
Dan and I had dolsot bibimbap (a rice dish served in a hot stone bowl, and which I ate almost every day in winter when I lived here), Alex had kimbap (Korean sushi), and Abi had a tuna rice ball.
“Can we come back here again tomorrow night?” both kids asked.
At $30NZD it was a bit pricier than other places in Southeast Asia, but still cheaper than New Zealand. Plus, because it was a small, local restaurant, the prices hadn’t been inflated. I imagine they’d be a bit pricier in the city centre.
We had the kids in bed at their usual bedtime, and then Dan and I watched a movie - there’s only so much planning depression one can take!
Day 447 - 1 Oct '24 - Seoul. Today was a temporary public holiday in Korea for Military Appreciation Day. The government had created this holiday to bolster the fading spirits of its citizens, and to encourage them to have an extended break; the 3rd is an existing holiday, so if they took tomorrow off, they could have a five-day break including the weekend. If they then also took the Thursday and Friday off, they would effectively have a nine-day holiday and only cost them three days.
In the morning, Dan and I spent a couple of hours sorting our train and bus tickets to Daegu, which is where I used to live and where we were heading next (having sadly cut out everywhere else north). Because the 3rd was a holiday, it turned out there were no longer train tickets available. There were bus tickets, unfortunately going to the other side of Daegu than the one we wanted, but we couldn’t buy them online using our foreign credit card.
“Sometimes it’s just easier buying the tickets in person,” I said to Dan.
“But it’s easier online,” he countered.
“Not in South Korea. Are you sure you just don’t want to turn up on the day and buy tickets? There’s a bus every hour, and they’re all empty.”
“No, I don’t want to do that. They can fill up, and then we wouldn’t have tickets.”
“Well. I guess we’ll be going to the bus station!”
“Where is it?”
“Thirty-three minutes away.”
Dan wasn’t too pleased at that, as it meant a subway fare there and back, plus the hour in travel, but there was no other option.
“It’s freezing!” Abi exclaimed when we got outside.
“It’s not freezing,” I replied, but I could have done with some trousers!
It was only 19°C, overcast, and a little windy. A huge difference to the 34°C we’d left in Vietnam! It was a little cool but still pleasant to be in, and no goosebumps. I had my windcheater in my backpack, which I had planned on using later, but gave it to begrudgingly to Abigail.
Buying the tickets when we got there was super easy. We decided to try the self-serve kiosk, and it accepted our credit card with no problems. We attempted buying our follow-on tickets, but ran into a couple of issues. A kindly Korean man helped us, once in Korean so he could work out the tickets, then duplicated it all in English for us. However, it turned out we could only buy onward tickets from the station we would be leaving from. Fair enough.
We went to a nearby mall to get some lunch from the food court. I had bibimbap (which was tastier than last night’s), Dan and Alex had katsu chicken with curry sauce and rice, and Abi had nothing. She didn’t want to try anything, and decided she’d wait to eat a sushi triangle later on.
“You’re going to end up really hungry! You don’t even try anything!” I said. “Alex tried the soup that came with my meal, but he didn’t like it, which is okay. You won’t even try it!”
I love all the accompaniments that come with the meals here. With my bibimbap I had a bowl of soup, some spicy pickled courgettes, a spring onion pancake, and some garlic fried baby potatoes! Yummy!!
We got the subway back into the city centre, and joined the five-deep throng of people that had lined the main road, in anticipation of the military parade.
With half the population in favour of it (instills a sense of pride in the military) and the other half against it ($5.87M USD, blatant show of force to antagonise North Korea), we were excited to witness something we’d never seen before.
Last year was the first time in a decade that the parade occurred, and there was some surprise that it was to be held again this year, as previously it had only been done every five years.
Abi took turns on mine and Dan’s shoulders to be our official videographer, as she was the only one who could see. Alex jumped up and down periodically, and I stood on my tiptoes and would get glimpses between people’s shoulders when they shifted positions.
It stared at 3:20pm with a small contingent of soldiers in historical attire, holding pike-like sticks and large golden shields. They were followed by the modern equivalent of, who gave a wonderful display of dexterity when they twirled and moved their rifles, complete with bayonets attached.
Then, there was 30 minutes of nothing.
“If this is supposed to be a display of might, I don’t think anyone has to worry!” I cynically said.
I was about to give up, but Dan (who had long since stepped backwards into space) told me to stay: he was watching someone’s live feed on their phone, and things were starting to happen.
At 4pm, convoy of vehicles of their important people came past, everyone standing up in their respective cars. Once they had taken their seats further down the road, there was another 10 minute wait.
“This is ridiculous. I’m going to leave,” I said to Abi.
“No! They’re starting! They’re starting!” she called from above my head.
Overhead, there were various planes flying in formation, some with coloured smoke, followed by a bunch of helicopters.
On the ground came armoured cars and trucks, then tanks and supply vehicles, more trucks and armoured lorries, more tanks, then vehicles carrying drones, and finally trucks with missiles!
Everybody was cheering, but it was hard to see anything through people’s arms held high with their phones trying to record the spectacle.
Meanwhile, I was slowly dying. I’d now had Abi on my shoulders for 30 minutes. The pain was excruciating and it was even getting harder to breathe.
“We have to go Abi!” I shouted. “I’m done! I’m in agony!”
“NO! There’s two more tanks coming! Then we can go.”
As soon as the tanks and trucks had gone past, I turned around and gasped out to Dan to take Abi off. Alex took my backpack, and was rather concerned about the indents that were now in my shoulders. It took a few minutes for me to be able to take in a full breath without it hurting.
We didn’t see the massive cavalry parade that came on the heels of the vehicles, instead opting to board the subway before thousands of others did the same.
We popped into a market to buy some cereal and milk for breakfast, and also bought the biggest nashi pear we have ever seen! It was easily the size of a small child’s head, and when we cut it into quarters, each quarter was larger than a standard nashi pear bought in New Zealand. It was rather expensive at $7NZD, but crunchy and juicy and sweet and filling, so worth it in the end.
For dinner we used up another packet of gluten free pasta and had some carbonara with sauce I’d bought in the market. It was very tasty, and nice to have a simple meal again, but we all agreed that my cousin Rebecca’s made-from-scratch carbonara that we’d had in Mallorca, was far superior!
In the evening, I worked out what we’d be doing tomorrow for our last day in Seoul, and Dan did invoices.
“That’s the last time I’ll have to do that while we’re away!” he proclaimed.
“Why?”
“Because this time next month we’ll be back in New Zealand!”
“Oh yeah!”
Abi is already counting down…!
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