By Layla
Roz’s cunning plan for dinner turned out to be a re-visit to the good old kimibap joint, only this time we branched out into bigger main courses, a rice dish for Roz, noodles for me, and a large amount of spiciness for both of us. Steam coming out of our ears and lips burning, but otherwise having enjoyed the meal very much, we strolled down to Dorothy and had another cheery night drinking beer and mint tea, before heading home to bed.
This morning we got up fairly bright and early, and headed for Tous Les Jours (our second favourite French patisserie chain after Paris Baguette) and had bagels and cream cheese before picking up our bags, trundling through the hot sun, and catching a bus across the island, then a taxi to the capital, Jeju-si. We’d failed to book anywhere to stay as either places were full, or else not a word of English was spoken. We asked to be dropped off near a hostel, HK Hostel, much praised by Lonely Planet, but it looked so uninviting that we swiftly dashed away to find another option. Next up was the Tapdong and Bobo Motels – I have no idea what Lonely Planet was thinking when they recommended these horrible, musty old rooms. We were flummoxed and hot til a moment of wifi in the street revealed Hotel Impress, which seems clean, pleasant, has a comfy bed (not very common in South Korea), lots of space, and a view of the sea. We dropped our bags, pleased, and headed out for adventures.
But first, of course, lunch! Roz found a scary little café and after we pointed to ‘do you have any vegetarian dishes?” phrase in Korean at the back of the Lonely Planet phrase section, the woman in charge grinned in delight and pointed at two different items written in Korean. Non-plussed, we ordered both, along with some kiwi juice, and had a reasonably pleasant late lunch of vegetarian something sandwiches. And then to our afternoon destination, Hallim Park. Which I had mistakenly thought we could access from a downtown bus stop marked in good old Lonely Planet. Actually it turned out that it went from somewhere about 3 miles from there, but a full team of non-English speaking Koreans at the bus stop got us on one bus to take us to the terminal to catch the actual bus, and finally we were off. The island is a circle ringed by a road and our bus pottered west along it, stopping every 2 minutes. Roz and I were nerdily listening to educational things on our iPhones (Spanish learning for me, economics for her) and the constant announcements of the next stop were as disturbing as the old ladies wearing giant visors jostling violently for seats, as the sea sparkled on the right hand side throughout. Eventually we arrived.
Hallim Park is a really lovely park that has all manner of areas – palm trees, bonsai trees, stone sculptures, birds, reptiles, a folk village, a water garden, and our favourite, caves made of limestone and lava. We had a great afternoon strolling around the clearly demarcated paths to piped musak from the trees, dodging giant school groups, and trying to throw sticks into a barrel, one of the folk village games. We took such a long time to appreciate it all that the place closed, and we ducked out to a neighbouring shop to buy a couple of cans of beer in the nick of time, crossed the road, and sipped our Cas beers on a beautiful white sand beach, with black lava rocks, watching a brilliant orange orb of a sun setting in the water like a giant planet.
After that idyllic moment, it was more learning for us as the bus took us back to Jeju-si and we tried in vain to find the vegetarian restaurant we’d read about (but did get to walk down lots of dark back streets…). Eventually, we found another fab restaurant, the Baghdad Café, which was an Indian restaurant that was lovely in décor, ambience, and food. We lingered long into the night before strolling through cheery streets of bars and restaurants, then heading home to bed (having struggled vehemently to make three different taxi drivers understand where we wanted to go – it’s so hard when nobody speaks English!). Night night.
Wednesday 28 September 2011
Monday 26 September 2011
In which Roz and Layla manage to eat against all the odds and go under the sea
By Roz
Layla’s fears about our dining options turned out to be absolutely well-founded. Despite all the references in reviews to the plethora of dining options nearby, we were flummoxed and gently shepherded out of the restaurant or two which we entered by alarmed waiters, having conveyed our vegetarian situation through gesticulation (I don’t think the problem was our charade, but you can never tell). And so it was that we ended up in a not very glamorous dining establishment eating vegetarian pizza (again). However, dinner was very swiftly over and we then headed over to a very lovely café called Dorothy, in which we drank beer and discussed with excitement / fear / wonder our imminent move to Washington DC.
The next morning, I got up as early as I could bring myself to (which was not very early at all) and went running. I’m not getting in quite the distances I’d like given how near my half marathon is, but something is better than nothing… I accompanied my run by listening to an economics lecture series from a CD that I was given by one of my staff (an economist, concerned about my lack of knowledge of the subject given the topics I shall be covering in DC). I therefore had the rather surreal (but entirely pleasant) experience of running through a walking trail, through parks and by the waterfall, whilst hearing about supply and demand from a leading American academic…
Back in the hotel, and smug at not having got too lost, we headed out for breakfast at a French bakery (again) and contemplated our plan to go to a sculpture park, involving a bus, the number of which we did not know, and could not find out. It will therefore comes as little surprise to the reader to hear that shortly thereafter we were ordering kimbap to take-away in the lunch joint we’d been in yesterday, licking ice lollies from the French bakery, and heading down to the port with a vague plan of taking a boat trip. In fact, we ended up booking to go on two: a little tour round the nearby islands, and a submarine trip. But we of course planned our time well enough that we were able to retreat to the lovely shack that we’d been in the day before, to eat our takeaway kimbap and sip beer.
Both boat trips proved to be lots of fun. The first took us past islands that we’d only seen from a distance and which looked very different close up: impossible to scale, and unforgiving terrain, but bemusingly nevertheless peopled with a couple of fisherman perched on a rock (with no sign of how they could possibly have got there, or possibly hope to get off again). The submarine was even more fab: it’s not something either of us had done before, and it was brilliant to see the fish and coral so close, and gave me (momentarily anyway) rather an enthusiasm to learn to dive, as we descended to 40m to look at an old shipwreck.
After these waterey adventures, we headed to the Alice café for copious amounts of peppermint tea and cake for me (and lemonade for Layla). We spent a while there, reading our books and gorging, before it dawned on us both that the café had a music selection which only entailed three songs, and that these had now been repeated a rather unfortunate number of times. So we headed back to our room, manically humming the Carpenters, and began to contemplate what an earth we can do for dinner. But I have a plan…
Layla’s fears about our dining options turned out to be absolutely well-founded. Despite all the references in reviews to the plethora of dining options nearby, we were flummoxed and gently shepherded out of the restaurant or two which we entered by alarmed waiters, having conveyed our vegetarian situation through gesticulation (I don’t think the problem was our charade, but you can never tell). And so it was that we ended up in a not very glamorous dining establishment eating vegetarian pizza (again). However, dinner was very swiftly over and we then headed over to a very lovely café called Dorothy, in which we drank beer and discussed with excitement / fear / wonder our imminent move to Washington DC.
The next morning, I got up as early as I could bring myself to (which was not very early at all) and went running. I’m not getting in quite the distances I’d like given how near my half marathon is, but something is better than nothing… I accompanied my run by listening to an economics lecture series from a CD that I was given by one of my staff (an economist, concerned about my lack of knowledge of the subject given the topics I shall be covering in DC). I therefore had the rather surreal (but entirely pleasant) experience of running through a walking trail, through parks and by the waterfall, whilst hearing about supply and demand from a leading American academic…
Back in the hotel, and smug at not having got too lost, we headed out for breakfast at a French bakery (again) and contemplated our plan to go to a sculpture park, involving a bus, the number of which we did not know, and could not find out. It will therefore comes as little surprise to the reader to hear that shortly thereafter we were ordering kimbap to take-away in the lunch joint we’d been in yesterday, licking ice lollies from the French bakery, and heading down to the port with a vague plan of taking a boat trip. In fact, we ended up booking to go on two: a little tour round the nearby islands, and a submarine trip. But we of course planned our time well enough that we were able to retreat to the lovely shack that we’d been in the day before, to eat our takeaway kimbap and sip beer.
Both boat trips proved to be lots of fun. The first took us past islands that we’d only seen from a distance and which looked very different close up: impossible to scale, and unforgiving terrain, but bemusingly nevertheless peopled with a couple of fisherman perched on a rock (with no sign of how they could possibly have got there, or possibly hope to get off again). The submarine was even more fab: it’s not something either of us had done before, and it was brilliant to see the fish and coral so close, and gave me (momentarily anyway) rather an enthusiasm to learn to dive, as we descended to 40m to look at an old shipwreck.
After these waterey adventures, we headed to the Alice café for copious amounts of peppermint tea and cake for me (and lemonade for Layla). We spent a while there, reading our books and gorging, before it dawned on us both that the café had a music selection which only entailed three songs, and that these had now been repeated a rather unfortunate number of times. So we headed back to our room, manically humming the Carpenters, and began to contemplate what an earth we can do for dinner. But I have a plan…
Sunday 25 September 2011
In which Roz and Layla have a delightful day in Busan and finally make it to Jeju
by Layla
It is rather embittering to have to speak gushingly of a day in a city I was entirely unconvinced about, and Roz smugly recommended, but I must admit our chance visit to Busan was really lovely.
After a tasty breakfast in another French patisserie (a different chain - these are so popular here, and the bakery items are excellent), and a little lingering over coffee and fresh orange juice, we braved the subway, which yet again was well organised, good value, and entirely serene. We stepped off at some random stop specified by Lonely Planet, walked for a while, crossed some big roads, and found ourselves at the sea. After a very pleasant walk along a boardwalk, and a quick pause to stock up on water, we followed the Koreans clad in bright pink tops, hiking boots, and clutching walking sticks, and climbing up many steps, found ourselves on an absolutely delightful walk along the coast. Clearly this was a popular Korean weekend pursuit, as the trail was busy. Most of it was decking and steps following the line of the coast, with the amusing occasional addition of piped musak from hidden speakers in the trees, but then after we enjoyed the picnic lunch we'd brought from the lovely French patisserie and eaten on a rocky outcrop by the water, the trail climbed into the forest. We gamely followed, for lovely views and trees, and pleasantness.
We eventually retraced our steps, paused for a beer and a brief read, sat by the sea, and then returned to the subway stop, via yet another type of French patisserie (that promised to transmit wonderful tastiness, according to its sign), where we grabbed a sneaky orange cake, before going underground. Next stop was Centrum City, the world's biggest department store, with an oversized Guinness World Records sign to prove it. Our aim was not to shop, but instead to Spaland. If Seoul's Itaewonland was an ordinary Korean bathhouse, Spaland was the deluxe version, and according to them, the biggest of its kind in the world. Clearly this was an establishment that sought to break records. It was fun to see the high scale end of Korean spa action - a £7 entry fee got us into a spa mecca, a pristine, shining, delight of a bathhouse, where we plunged into bath after bath of water of differing temperatures, jacuzzi-ness, and chemical composition, both inside and outside. It was clearly very popular with the Sex in the City crowd of South Koreans, but I do wonder whether naked socialising would ever catch on in the UK...
After a while enjoying every single bath on offer except the boiling one and the freezing one, we dried off, pottered briefly in the giant department store, looked longingly at the ice rink (well, that was just me), and returned by subway to our hotel (I shall gloss over our failure to find it for an inordinately long time... eventually saved by Roz) to freshen up for the evening.
Ravenous, our freshening up took three minutes flat, and soon we were in a nearby Italian restaurant, where we shared a mozzarella and tomato salad, a vegetable pizza, and some lovely wine. And then, dear reader, shamefully but for the sake of honesty, we retreated to New York Fries for a portion... before finishing up in a cool cupcake cafe where Roz had a lemongrass tea and I had a red velvet cupcake.
Before going to sleep, we'd agreed to set the alarm for 6:50 but it was still bitter when it went off the next morning. Nevertheless we sprung out of bed and dashed for a taxi back to the airport where, oh joy, we were finally able to get our boarding passes for the island of Jeju. A final kiwi juice in the nice airport cafe, and a disappointing microwaved bagel at the other side of customs, and we were off.
Our first impression of Jeju was wind and less sun than we'd grown accustomed to. We hopped on a number 600 airport bus and an hour or so later were deposited at Seogwipo, our first destination on the island. It's the most southernly place in South Korea, and a quiet little town. How quiet we realised when we went hunting for lunch, which we eventually found in a slightly scary little Korean fast food shop where we ordered excessive numbers of kimibap, which is seaweed rolls with rice and vegetables inside. We munched away stoically as nearby diners watched in fascination to see if we'd manage to eat the entire order. Never underestimate greed, local diners! We had a coffee and lemonade afterwards at another nice coffee house and contemplated our plans for the next few days.
After lunch we checked in to Little France Hotel, one of the posher rooms which is rather nice and spacious and not too expensive, and then headed out on a long and very lovely walk along again a boardwalk-style walkway. Jeju has a lovely tradition of Olle Walks, which are marked walking routes along Jeju's coast with painted arrows and coloured ribbons tied to trees - Roz and I mused upon how many minutes this form of signposting would last in the UK! Our destination was the Cheonjiyeon waterfall, but we walked all the way up and round it, and through a pretty park to a viewpoint of the falls, then we couldn't resist trying out a set of the ubiquitous outdoor gym equipment which we have encountered all over the place (including, later today, at a bus stop to enable exercising while waiting for the bus!). We had a hilarious time trying out all the equipment (well, except the one that made you go upside down!) along with the Korean locals, before descending to the waterfall itself, buying a ticket and strolling right to the place where the waterfall hit the pool beneath (allegedly one in which nymphs bathed). At this point huge tour buses appeared, but it was still a rather lovely experience.
About to return to the hotel, I spotted a bridge to an island that interested me, and in pursuit, we ended up at a very cool little ramshackle bar right on the water. We ordered beer and sipped very happily while reading our books. As the sun set, we progressed to the rather cool bridge (which excited Roz because of its structure - her enthusiasm for the feat of engineering was...notable) and watched some traditional Korean dancing, before hiking up the steep hill homewards. All that threatens to spoil our stay here is the total monopoly of fish restaurants - where on earth will we eat tonight? We shall soon find out...
It is rather embittering to have to speak gushingly of a day in a city I was entirely unconvinced about, and Roz smugly recommended, but I must admit our chance visit to Busan was really lovely.
After a tasty breakfast in another French patisserie (a different chain - these are so popular here, and the bakery items are excellent), and a little lingering over coffee and fresh orange juice, we braved the subway, which yet again was well organised, good value, and entirely serene. We stepped off at some random stop specified by Lonely Planet, walked for a while, crossed some big roads, and found ourselves at the sea. After a very pleasant walk along a boardwalk, and a quick pause to stock up on water, we followed the Koreans clad in bright pink tops, hiking boots, and clutching walking sticks, and climbing up many steps, found ourselves on an absolutely delightful walk along the coast. Clearly this was a popular Korean weekend pursuit, as the trail was busy. Most of it was decking and steps following the line of the coast, with the amusing occasional addition of piped musak from hidden speakers in the trees, but then after we enjoyed the picnic lunch we'd brought from the lovely French patisserie and eaten on a rocky outcrop by the water, the trail climbed into the forest. We gamely followed, for lovely views and trees, and pleasantness.
We eventually retraced our steps, paused for a beer and a brief read, sat by the sea, and then returned to the subway stop, via yet another type of French patisserie (that promised to transmit wonderful tastiness, according to its sign), where we grabbed a sneaky orange cake, before going underground. Next stop was Centrum City, the world's biggest department store, with an oversized Guinness World Records sign to prove it. Our aim was not to shop, but instead to Spaland. If Seoul's Itaewonland was an ordinary Korean bathhouse, Spaland was the deluxe version, and according to them, the biggest of its kind in the world. Clearly this was an establishment that sought to break records. It was fun to see the high scale end of Korean spa action - a £7 entry fee got us into a spa mecca, a pristine, shining, delight of a bathhouse, where we plunged into bath after bath of water of differing temperatures, jacuzzi-ness, and chemical composition, both inside and outside. It was clearly very popular with the Sex in the City crowd of South Koreans, but I do wonder whether naked socialising would ever catch on in the UK...
After a while enjoying every single bath on offer except the boiling one and the freezing one, we dried off, pottered briefly in the giant department store, looked longingly at the ice rink (well, that was just me), and returned by subway to our hotel (I shall gloss over our failure to find it for an inordinately long time... eventually saved by Roz) to freshen up for the evening.
Ravenous, our freshening up took three minutes flat, and soon we were in a nearby Italian restaurant, where we shared a mozzarella and tomato salad, a vegetable pizza, and some lovely wine. And then, dear reader, shamefully but for the sake of honesty, we retreated to New York Fries for a portion... before finishing up in a cool cupcake cafe where Roz had a lemongrass tea and I had a red velvet cupcake.
Before going to sleep, we'd agreed to set the alarm for 6:50 but it was still bitter when it went off the next morning. Nevertheless we sprung out of bed and dashed for a taxi back to the airport where, oh joy, we were finally able to get our boarding passes for the island of Jeju. A final kiwi juice in the nice airport cafe, and a disappointing microwaved bagel at the other side of customs, and we were off.
Our first impression of Jeju was wind and less sun than we'd grown accustomed to. We hopped on a number 600 airport bus and an hour or so later were deposited at Seogwipo, our first destination on the island. It's the most southernly place in South Korea, and a quiet little town. How quiet we realised when we went hunting for lunch, which we eventually found in a slightly scary little Korean fast food shop where we ordered excessive numbers of kimibap, which is seaweed rolls with rice and vegetables inside. We munched away stoically as nearby diners watched in fascination to see if we'd manage to eat the entire order. Never underestimate greed, local diners! We had a coffee and lemonade afterwards at another nice coffee house and contemplated our plans for the next few days.
After lunch we checked in to Little France Hotel, one of the posher rooms which is rather nice and spacious and not too expensive, and then headed out on a long and very lovely walk along again a boardwalk-style walkway. Jeju has a lovely tradition of Olle Walks, which are marked walking routes along Jeju's coast with painted arrows and coloured ribbons tied to trees - Roz and I mused upon how many minutes this form of signposting would last in the UK! Our destination was the Cheonjiyeon waterfall, but we walked all the way up and round it, and through a pretty park to a viewpoint of the falls, then we couldn't resist trying out a set of the ubiquitous outdoor gym equipment which we have encountered all over the place (including, later today, at a bus stop to enable exercising while waiting for the bus!). We had a hilarious time trying out all the equipment (well, except the one that made you go upside down!) along with the Korean locals, before descending to the waterfall itself, buying a ticket and strolling right to the place where the waterfall hit the pool beneath (allegedly one in which nymphs bathed). At this point huge tour buses appeared, but it was still a rather lovely experience.
About to return to the hotel, I spotted a bridge to an island that interested me, and in pursuit, we ended up at a very cool little ramshackle bar right on the water. We ordered beer and sipped very happily while reading our books. As the sun set, we progressed to the rather cool bridge (which excited Roz because of its structure - her enthusiasm for the feat of engineering was...notable) and watched some traditional Korean dancing, before hiking up the steep hill homewards. All that threatens to spoil our stay here is the total monopoly of fish restaurants - where on earth will we eat tonight? We shall soon find out...
Saturday 24 September 2011
In which Layla and Roz are unwowed by a top UNESCO city, hunt for beer and spend a day at the airport
by Layla
Having awoken from my afternoon nap, Roz and I returned to the bathhouse for a pre-prandial soak in the hot water - very pleasant. And then onwards to an Italian restaurant for our anniversary meal, which was very tasty - spaghetti with vegetables, and a bottle of prosecco. Afterwards, Roz popped in to the posh chocolate shop and bought me a red chocolate anniversary heart - very sweet. I ate it in Cafe Zoo, and we both absemiously sipped mint tea as we had failed to locate a convenient bar.
The next day we rather slept in, so it was with unwanted haste that we jumped up, checked out, and took a taxi to Seoul Station, with the plan of buying bullet train tickets to our next destination, Gyeongju, a famous and allegedly beautiful city recognised by UNESCO as one of the world's most culturally significant. Drama ensued when the ticket machine wouldn't take our card, and nor would the ATM... fortunately we eventually located the one 'global ATM', extracted as much cash as we could, bought the tickets, and retired to a French cafe for juice, coffee, and cheese bread.
The train itself was delightfully efficient and whizzed us to the other side of the country in two hours. One shuttle bus later, we were standing bemused on the side of the road trying to figure out where our hotel was. And then a cheery man from our bus offered to drive us. And despite what we have been taught, into his car we hopped. Fortunately he meant only well, and deposited us at our hotel safely and efficiently. When I say hotel, Sa Rang Chae was really a guesthouse, of the traditional Korean 'hanok' style, very pretty to look at, with cool roof that twirled up at the corners, and the rooms opening out to a little courtyard where once can have breakfast. However, consistent with its traditional style, we were allocated an 'ondol' room, which means a sleeping mat on a wooden floor; said floor is heated from below at night. Neither of us were very good at sleeping on our sleeping mat, and - rather like the princess and the pea - persuaded the owners to give us mat after mat til we perched precariously upon five sleeping mats on the second night!
We'd meant to stay for four nights, but we didn't really bond with Gyeongju (though I'd expected it to be the highlight of the holiday) and only stayed for two. On the first afternoon we ventured out into the town, past huge grassy mounds which were the Shilla kingdom's version of pyramids. Town was a busy, neon place, with huge numbers of hiking shops and various other clothes and mobile phone shops. And a couple of cafes - we had lemonade and yoghurt in one, before retiring to our ondol to contemplate the evening's options. We'd planned to go to a Japanese restaurant, but it was a bit early so we searched in vain for a bar. South Korea, outside of Seoul, doesn't seem to be a place where people sit and drink in bars. We followed the signs for 'January Coffee and Beer' up a staircase and reached a terrifying big room of individual curtained booths, but even there they failed to produce beer, only offering us the ubiquitous lemonade at a price that made us suspect we were due some kind of sordid extras along with it...
Finishing our lemonades, we hopped onto wifi and noticed a rave review on a blog of a vegetarian restaurant, just out of town. Roz pointed out that we'd spent most of the day travelling and she felt deprived of a proper adventure, so we hopped in a taxi. As we drove out of town, down a long, dark motorway, we started to get cold feet that were only exacerbated when we arrived at what I confirmed by matching the Korean writing on the sign with that from the blog was the restaurant. Soon we were installed inside, sitting on the floor at a tiny wooden table, the only customers in an austere and silent restaurant, and a secret terror that we would never get back to our hanok. Our fears were unfounded - course after course of vegetarian Korean food was presented to us, the majority of which was delicious, and when the woman in charge decided we were finished, she called a taxi for us. A bizarre experience, and a rather enjoyable one, in a somewhat terrifying way. We spent the rest of the evening on our tiny ondol listening to The Moth podcasts and playing cards.
The next day Roz headed off for a run and got horribly lost and entangled in a band of about 1000 Korean children on school trips to look at the grassy mound tombs. Having eventually extracted herself and located the hanok, we changed, ate breakfast, and took a bus to Bulguk-sa, a very famous temple complex up in the hills outside Gyeongju. It was nice to be out of town, and we explored the temple with much interest, before climbing up a steep path through the hills for 3.5km to the Seokguram Grotto, our second UNESCO World Heritage site of the day, and one of the world's top examples of Buddhist art. It was rather lovely, with a great view down to the sea. When the ubiquitous million schoolchildren descended upon us, we fled, and walked back down the long path (which felt rather more pleasant and less long on the way down!) to the original temple, to catch a bus back to town, having had a rather pleasant day.
Determined to make the evening just as pleasant, we failed to find a bar yet again, but went to a pleasant pizza place where we procured a bottle of Malbec with our pizza, and supplemented the 'tiramasu' with ice cream from a local ice cream shop, and then we picked up beer and pringles from the supermarket and shut ourselves into our ondol again for more Moth podcasts and some confusion about how long we really wanted to spend in Gyeongju. Alas our next destination required a flight, and despite there being copious numbers of these, Friday was the most popular day to fly to Jeju island, and all were fully booked. We decided to muse upon it overnight.
I slept poorly, despite the multiple sleeping pads, and in the darkness of the night got very frustrated about the flights to Jeju. When I woke up Roz, we couldn't decide what to do, but her face implied that she did not wish a third night in the ondol room drinking supermarket beer... we discussed going to a nearby city called Busan but for some reason, I had taken against this and didn't want to. We went for a stroll around the tombs, and inside one of them, and then to see an astronomy tower built in ancient times and situated in a park, before returning to the hanok, our decision made - we would go to the airport and try to get on one of the many planes to Jeju. Well, it seemed a good idea at the time...
A very hot slog to the express bus terminal had us miss the hourly airport bus by 2 minutes. Frustrated, we retired to Paris Baguette, a very popular bakery and teashop chain in South Korea that has already been our salvation. We sat down in its air conditioned serenity, had drinks and cheese rolls, and read our books til the allotted time had passed. We then returned to the bus station and took an hour-long bus to Gimhae airport. A lovely, serene airport filled with Koreans boarding planes to Jeju, there were three companies that plied the route, and each of them had a 'stand-by' desk. Korean Airways were rude and shouted at me that there were no stand-bys for the whole of the weekend. I fled to Air Busan, who put me at the bottom of a long list of potential standbys for a flight departing five hours hence. And then to Jeju Air where the air hostesses, who couldn't speak a word of English, bade me return in a couple of hours for the standby list.
Roz and I retired to what was quite a delightful outdoor cafe, overlooking the airport and the mountains, bought fresh kiwi juice, and read our books in what has ironically been one of the most relaxing afternoons of our holiday so far. It was only when I realised people had started to queue at Jeju air that I had to dash to get my standby number. Then we had a rather delicious bimimbap meal of rice, vegetables and miso soup, before returning to the Jeju Air desk at the appropriate time. Despite having handed over large handfuls of won (Korean money), we failed to get a seat on the flight and the air hostesses returned our money. I find the culture of not being noticeably sympathetic quite frustrating - first when we'd missed the airport bus by 2 minutes, and now with the flight. I sloped off to our last hope, Busan Air. After 45 minutes, we were told we couldn't fly. And as such, were stranded.
We bought tickets for the next available flight (Sunday morning), and grabbed a taxi to the place Roz had wanted to go all along, Busan. 45 minutes later, we were deposited at the Angel Motel, a fairly basic place which has the benefit of a real bed! The joy. Plus the area, Seomyeon, was bustling and full of people on nights out. Again, this seemed to mean coffee shops rather than bars, but we strode through busy, neon streets to the posh Lotte Hotel where we had cocktails (me) and wine (Roz) to the dulcet tones of a lounge singer in the hotel's bar, and then back through the streets to an Italian cafe/restaurant where they had no wine but sold us beer, which was only allowed to be sipped outside on the terrace, and certainly not inside - bizarre. It was a tad chilly but we had a pleasant drink, and were just about to head for our hotel when we spotted a 'New York Fries' joint, and couldn't resist. Another rather pleasant little establishment, we ate our fill and had a beer (inside!), before returning to the hotel at an unheard-of midnight.
Having awoken from my afternoon nap, Roz and I returned to the bathhouse for a pre-prandial soak in the hot water - very pleasant. And then onwards to an Italian restaurant for our anniversary meal, which was very tasty - spaghetti with vegetables, and a bottle of prosecco. Afterwards, Roz popped in to the posh chocolate shop and bought me a red chocolate anniversary heart - very sweet. I ate it in Cafe Zoo, and we both absemiously sipped mint tea as we had failed to locate a convenient bar.
The next day we rather slept in, so it was with unwanted haste that we jumped up, checked out, and took a taxi to Seoul Station, with the plan of buying bullet train tickets to our next destination, Gyeongju, a famous and allegedly beautiful city recognised by UNESCO as one of the world's most culturally significant. Drama ensued when the ticket machine wouldn't take our card, and nor would the ATM... fortunately we eventually located the one 'global ATM', extracted as much cash as we could, bought the tickets, and retired to a French cafe for juice, coffee, and cheese bread.
The train itself was delightfully efficient and whizzed us to the other side of the country in two hours. One shuttle bus later, we were standing bemused on the side of the road trying to figure out where our hotel was. And then a cheery man from our bus offered to drive us. And despite what we have been taught, into his car we hopped. Fortunately he meant only well, and deposited us at our hotel safely and efficiently. When I say hotel, Sa Rang Chae was really a guesthouse, of the traditional Korean 'hanok' style, very pretty to look at, with cool roof that twirled up at the corners, and the rooms opening out to a little courtyard where once can have breakfast. However, consistent with its traditional style, we were allocated an 'ondol' room, which means a sleeping mat on a wooden floor; said floor is heated from below at night. Neither of us were very good at sleeping on our sleeping mat, and - rather like the princess and the pea - persuaded the owners to give us mat after mat til we perched precariously upon five sleeping mats on the second night!
We'd meant to stay for four nights, but we didn't really bond with Gyeongju (though I'd expected it to be the highlight of the holiday) and only stayed for two. On the first afternoon we ventured out into the town, past huge grassy mounds which were the Shilla kingdom's version of pyramids. Town was a busy, neon place, with huge numbers of hiking shops and various other clothes and mobile phone shops. And a couple of cafes - we had lemonade and yoghurt in one, before retiring to our ondol to contemplate the evening's options. We'd planned to go to a Japanese restaurant, but it was a bit early so we searched in vain for a bar. South Korea, outside of Seoul, doesn't seem to be a place where people sit and drink in bars. We followed the signs for 'January Coffee and Beer' up a staircase and reached a terrifying big room of individual curtained booths, but even there they failed to produce beer, only offering us the ubiquitous lemonade at a price that made us suspect we were due some kind of sordid extras along with it...
Finishing our lemonades, we hopped onto wifi and noticed a rave review on a blog of a vegetarian restaurant, just out of town. Roz pointed out that we'd spent most of the day travelling and she felt deprived of a proper adventure, so we hopped in a taxi. As we drove out of town, down a long, dark motorway, we started to get cold feet that were only exacerbated when we arrived at what I confirmed by matching the Korean writing on the sign with that from the blog was the restaurant. Soon we were installed inside, sitting on the floor at a tiny wooden table, the only customers in an austere and silent restaurant, and a secret terror that we would never get back to our hanok. Our fears were unfounded - course after course of vegetarian Korean food was presented to us, the majority of which was delicious, and when the woman in charge decided we were finished, she called a taxi for us. A bizarre experience, and a rather enjoyable one, in a somewhat terrifying way. We spent the rest of the evening on our tiny ondol listening to The Moth podcasts and playing cards.
The next day Roz headed off for a run and got horribly lost and entangled in a band of about 1000 Korean children on school trips to look at the grassy mound tombs. Having eventually extracted herself and located the hanok, we changed, ate breakfast, and took a bus to Bulguk-sa, a very famous temple complex up in the hills outside Gyeongju. It was nice to be out of town, and we explored the temple with much interest, before climbing up a steep path through the hills for 3.5km to the Seokguram Grotto, our second UNESCO World Heritage site of the day, and one of the world's top examples of Buddhist art. It was rather lovely, with a great view down to the sea. When the ubiquitous million schoolchildren descended upon us, we fled, and walked back down the long path (which felt rather more pleasant and less long on the way down!) to the original temple, to catch a bus back to town, having had a rather pleasant day.
Determined to make the evening just as pleasant, we failed to find a bar yet again, but went to a pleasant pizza place where we procured a bottle of Malbec with our pizza, and supplemented the 'tiramasu' with ice cream from a local ice cream shop, and then we picked up beer and pringles from the supermarket and shut ourselves into our ondol again for more Moth podcasts and some confusion about how long we really wanted to spend in Gyeongju. Alas our next destination required a flight, and despite there being copious numbers of these, Friday was the most popular day to fly to Jeju island, and all were fully booked. We decided to muse upon it overnight.
I slept poorly, despite the multiple sleeping pads, and in the darkness of the night got very frustrated about the flights to Jeju. When I woke up Roz, we couldn't decide what to do, but her face implied that she did not wish a third night in the ondol room drinking supermarket beer... we discussed going to a nearby city called Busan but for some reason, I had taken against this and didn't want to. We went for a stroll around the tombs, and inside one of them, and then to see an astronomy tower built in ancient times and situated in a park, before returning to the hanok, our decision made - we would go to the airport and try to get on one of the many planes to Jeju. Well, it seemed a good idea at the time...
A very hot slog to the express bus terminal had us miss the hourly airport bus by 2 minutes. Frustrated, we retired to Paris Baguette, a very popular bakery and teashop chain in South Korea that has already been our salvation. We sat down in its air conditioned serenity, had drinks and cheese rolls, and read our books til the allotted time had passed. We then returned to the bus station and took an hour-long bus to Gimhae airport. A lovely, serene airport filled with Koreans boarding planes to Jeju, there were three companies that plied the route, and each of them had a 'stand-by' desk. Korean Airways were rude and shouted at me that there were no stand-bys for the whole of the weekend. I fled to Air Busan, who put me at the bottom of a long list of potential standbys for a flight departing five hours hence. And then to Jeju Air where the air hostesses, who couldn't speak a word of English, bade me return in a couple of hours for the standby list.
Roz and I retired to what was quite a delightful outdoor cafe, overlooking the airport and the mountains, bought fresh kiwi juice, and read our books in what has ironically been one of the most relaxing afternoons of our holiday so far. It was only when I realised people had started to queue at Jeju air that I had to dash to get my standby number. Then we had a rather delicious bimimbap meal of rice, vegetables and miso soup, before returning to the Jeju Air desk at the appropriate time. Despite having handed over large handfuls of won (Korean money), we failed to get a seat on the flight and the air hostesses returned our money. I find the culture of not being noticeably sympathetic quite frustrating - first when we'd missed the airport bus by 2 minutes, and now with the flight. I sloped off to our last hope, Busan Air. After 45 minutes, we were told we couldn't fly. And as such, were stranded.
We bought tickets for the next available flight (Sunday morning), and grabbed a taxi to the place Roz had wanted to go all along, Busan. 45 minutes later, we were deposited at the Angel Motel, a fairly basic place which has the benefit of a real bed! The joy. Plus the area, Seomyeon, was bustling and full of people on nights out. Again, this seemed to mean coffee shops rather than bars, but we strode through busy, neon streets to the posh Lotte Hotel where we had cocktails (me) and wine (Roz) to the dulcet tones of a lounge singer in the hotel's bar, and then back through the streets to an Italian cafe/restaurant where they had no wine but sold us beer, which was only allowed to be sipped outside on the terrace, and certainly not inside - bizarre. It was a tad chilly but we had a pleasant drink, and were just about to head for our hotel when we spotted a 'New York Fries' joint, and couldn't resist. Another rather pleasant little establishment, we ate our fill and had a beer (inside!), before returning to the hotel at an unheard-of midnight.
Tuesday 20 September 2011
In which Roz and Layla wish each other a happy anniversary and go to a lot of cafes
by Roz
I returned from my virtuous run in the empty and soulless gym feeling, well, virtuous. We then got changed and set off for a pre-dinner drink. We sampled our first local beer (Cass) and pondered our dinner choices. We finally settled on an Indian restaurant, mainly attracted by the twinkly lights and promise of paneer on the menu (we are very easily lured). We felt a little guilty at not having Korean food for a second night in a row, but reassured ourselves with the thought that the guidebooks claim that this is the only area in which we will get non-Korean food and the hassles of being a vegetarian in Korea will not be far off and can justifiably wait one more day… The restaurant was fine, as was the food (if nothing too exciting).
The meal was over fairly quickly – in part due to greed, and in part due to the Korean enthusiasm for bringing starters and main courses around the same time. We then headed to a bar a couple of doors down for a couple of cocktails, before pottering up the road to take a look at a restaurant that we were considering for dinner the next day (that day being the august occasion of our four year anniversary) and having one final drink in a jolly looking bar, Virgin, en route home.
I slept beautifully, but Layla was cursed with jet-lag and awoke at 3 and was unable to get back to sleep. I therefore felt it only fair that I be the one to nip out for coffee and orange juice before anniversary gifts were exchanged. We then headed out to have breakfast and fortified ourselves with cream cheese bagels in a Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf (the chain we’d first come across when travelling in Borneo) before braving the metro (which turned out not to be scary at all) and beginning a self-guided art gallery tour around the palace district and Samcheongdong.
Of course, tour is rather a grand name for what was a very pleasant amble poking our noses into art galleries and – on one occasion – being filmed whilst doing so (presumably we got caught up in the PR for a show, though we didn’t quite manage to establish whether this was in fact the case). Pleasingly, lovely coffee shops seem to go hand in hand with cool art galleries, and we stopped in one for a very pleasant lunch of carrot and broccoli soup (with warm bread). As we continued on our walk, heading towards Changdeokgung palace, we passed through a very lovely area, with cute shops, cafes and restaurants – which we plan to return to at the end of the trip, when we are in Seoul again (and staying reasonably close by).
With no palace in sight, we felt a little lost, so I cunningly suggested that a good plan would be a lemonade in one of the lovely coffee shops – so that we could ask our way. The first part of the plan went well; the second not so much, since the owner / waiter didn’t speak English. But on consulting our iPhones, we realized that we had very determinedly headed in the wrong direction (Layla’s jet lag is no doubt to blame) and so we picked up our pace as we more or less retraced our steps – the speed being needed because Lonely Planet said that the palace could only be viewed with a tour – and the tour was at 3.30, alarmingly soon. Of course, when we arrived at the palace we found that (i) the tour was actually at 2.30 but (ii) it didn’t matter because tours are no longer obligatory. We rambled round the palace, enjoying the prettiness and the fact that we seemed to be the only European tourists, though I must confess we didn’t stay the 90 minutes we would have done, had we been being educated on a tour.
From there we headed to the metro, and were waylaid by yet another lovely looking café where I stuck to stereotype and had tea and we shared a less conventional green tea pancake (which bizarrely tasted very fruity) and read our books.
We are now back in our room, and I’m currently listening to Layla gently snore (pre-dinner nap to make up for sleep deprivation) and gazing out of the large window in our room looking at the quite fabulous skyline as the sun sinks, and thinking that Seoul really is jolly nice.
I returned from my virtuous run in the empty and soulless gym feeling, well, virtuous. We then got changed and set off for a pre-dinner drink. We sampled our first local beer (Cass) and pondered our dinner choices. We finally settled on an Indian restaurant, mainly attracted by the twinkly lights and promise of paneer on the menu (we are very easily lured). We felt a little guilty at not having Korean food for a second night in a row, but reassured ourselves with the thought that the guidebooks claim that this is the only area in which we will get non-Korean food and the hassles of being a vegetarian in Korea will not be far off and can justifiably wait one more day… The restaurant was fine, as was the food (if nothing too exciting).
The meal was over fairly quickly – in part due to greed, and in part due to the Korean enthusiasm for bringing starters and main courses around the same time. We then headed to a bar a couple of doors down for a couple of cocktails, before pottering up the road to take a look at a restaurant that we were considering for dinner the next day (that day being the august occasion of our four year anniversary) and having one final drink in a jolly looking bar, Virgin, en route home.
I slept beautifully, but Layla was cursed with jet-lag and awoke at 3 and was unable to get back to sleep. I therefore felt it only fair that I be the one to nip out for coffee and orange juice before anniversary gifts were exchanged. We then headed out to have breakfast and fortified ourselves with cream cheese bagels in a Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf (the chain we’d first come across when travelling in Borneo) before braving the metro (which turned out not to be scary at all) and beginning a self-guided art gallery tour around the palace district and Samcheongdong.
Of course, tour is rather a grand name for what was a very pleasant amble poking our noses into art galleries and – on one occasion – being filmed whilst doing so (presumably we got caught up in the PR for a show, though we didn’t quite manage to establish whether this was in fact the case). Pleasingly, lovely coffee shops seem to go hand in hand with cool art galleries, and we stopped in one for a very pleasant lunch of carrot and broccoli soup (with warm bread). As we continued on our walk, heading towards Changdeokgung palace, we passed through a very lovely area, with cute shops, cafes and restaurants – which we plan to return to at the end of the trip, when we are in Seoul again (and staying reasonably close by).
With no palace in sight, we felt a little lost, so I cunningly suggested that a good plan would be a lemonade in one of the lovely coffee shops – so that we could ask our way. The first part of the plan went well; the second not so much, since the owner / waiter didn’t speak English. But on consulting our iPhones, we realized that we had very determinedly headed in the wrong direction (Layla’s jet lag is no doubt to blame) and so we picked up our pace as we more or less retraced our steps – the speed being needed because Lonely Planet said that the palace could only be viewed with a tour – and the tour was at 3.30, alarmingly soon. Of course, when we arrived at the palace we found that (i) the tour was actually at 2.30 but (ii) it didn’t matter because tours are no longer obligatory. We rambled round the palace, enjoying the prettiness and the fact that we seemed to be the only European tourists, though I must confess we didn’t stay the 90 minutes we would have done, had we been being educated on a tour.
From there we headed to the metro, and were waylaid by yet another lovely looking café where I stuck to stereotype and had tea and we shared a less conventional green tea pancake (which bizarrely tasted very fruity) and read our books.
We are now back in our room, and I’m currently listening to Layla gently snore (pre-dinner nap to make up for sleep deprivation) and gazing out of the large window in our room looking at the quite fabulous skyline as the sun sinks, and thinking that Seoul really is jolly nice.
Monday 19 September 2011
In which Layla and Roz travel to South Korea, suffer jet lag, and have most of their skin scrubbed off
by Layla
It feels a long time ago since yesterday, when Roz and I boarded a night flight to Seoul, South Korea. There is something soul destroying about night flights, particularly when everyone around you is snuggled and snoozing as though in their own beds, and all you can do is watch the minutes ticking by... After enjoying the film Midnight in Paris, Roz joined these happy slumberers and I wriggled and tossed and turned as much as one can do in the middle of a row of aeroplane seats. It was disconcerting to land at 4pm after all this sleeping (or pseudo-sleeping in my case) but Seoul airport was a dream of efficiency, and with zero drama we found ourselves on the 6060 bus heading straight for the IP Boutique Hotel in Itaewon, Seoul, our first South Korea destination and as ever with our first nights on holiday, something of an extravagance.
Apart from lacking a swimming pool, the hotel did not disappoint - mad decor, and very cool, sleek room on the 11th floor with a view of lots of skyscrapers and a tiny bit of the Han river. We dusted ourselves off, consulted our three guide books, and headed off to what we persuaded ourselves was dinner, a 5 minute walk away on a little street packed with restaurants. Itaewon is apparently not especially touristy, but quite popular with ex pats, and the restaurants were fittingly unalarming. We settled incongruously in a much-recommended Thai restaurant called the Buddha's Belly, and even more incongruously sipped mohitos while we enjoyed our tofu-based thai food.
After dinner we strolled back to the hotel via a chocolate shop where we bought a couple of posh chocolates, then to the hotel bar which was cool, sleek, elegant, and deserted, save for a stoical singer at a keyboard in the corner (whose repertoire included a bizarre number of Christmas songs). The wine glasses were the size of our heads, so we settled down for a drink, surreptitiously nibbling the posh chocolates. We determinedly kept ourselves awake til after 10, at which point we collapsed into bed.
At 2:30am, we both woke, bright and perky. Alas. Roz eventually got back to sleep while I read my book on Kindle, using its reading light under the covers til 6:30, at which point I finally dozed off. Roz prodded me awake at 11:30am. DIsorientated!
We had planned to go for a hike today, in one of Seoul's parks, but gazing 11 storeys down to the main road of Itaewon revealed Koreans brandishing umbrellas, and a sky the colour of lead. With guidebooks in hand, we headed for a little breakfast place called the Flying Pan, which was very cool and rather expensive, and gave us fairly pleasant brunch, though both of us felt a tad nauseous. Since pretty much everything in Seoul is closed on a Monday, we contemplated what to do with some confusion. We moved to the chocolate place for coffee (or in my case, a rather tasty berry smoothie) and contemplated again. And decided with our tiredness and the weather, what was really called for was a visit to one of Korea's bathhouses. And handily enough, one of the best in Seoul was literally minutes from our hotel.
Itaewonland bathhouse was rather scary, but no more so than the bathhouse we went to in Georgia earlier this year, on a similarly wet day, so up the stairs we strode, and we were soon given our keys for the first locker, in which we deposited our shoes. Barefooted, we proceeded to the ladies' area, where we deposited the rest of our clothes etc in a second set of lockers, putting on matching pink t-shirt and shorts ensembles that we had been issued. A shout of protest from an elderly lady in bra and pants revealed our faux pas. Off came the clothes and we were pushed under hot showers, apparently coming from a mineral spring 300m underground. The bathhouse was quite attractive, with showers along the back wall, which were filled with Korean women engaged in the very serious act of getting clean. Their scrubbing routines seemed to take a full hour, which was very impressive. Lacking that dedication, Roz and I had paid for a scrub, and before long were summoned to shiny pink tables where two very vigorous women wearing loofah gloves scrubbed us within an inch of our lives, only pausing to exclaim at the dead skin they had dragged from our protesting, very pink bodies, and occasionally point to it with an expression of fascination and alarm.
Feeling pristine, we got into the array of differently-heated hot tubs, all being topped up continuously by fountains in the shape of large, gold-painted penises. The hot tubs were just what was called for, and we spent an inordinate amount of time lazing in them while around us, women scrubbed and scrubbed. We mused over the lack of similar dedication to removing dead skin in the UK, and whether everyone else has a serious, regular scrubbing routine, at home or elsewhere, that we have been missing all these years. Anyone?
Having eventually dragged ourselves from the bathhouse, we returned to the hotel, where I am relaxing, writing this blog, reading, and contemplating dinner plans, and Roz, who is training for a half marathon which is happening in a couple of weeks, has unenthusiastically headed to the hotel 'gym' (a windowless room sporting a couple of pieces of gym equipment) to do a bit of training. Glad I'm not her!
It feels a long time ago since yesterday, when Roz and I boarded a night flight to Seoul, South Korea. There is something soul destroying about night flights, particularly when everyone around you is snuggled and snoozing as though in their own beds, and all you can do is watch the minutes ticking by... After enjoying the film Midnight in Paris, Roz joined these happy slumberers and I wriggled and tossed and turned as much as one can do in the middle of a row of aeroplane seats. It was disconcerting to land at 4pm after all this sleeping (or pseudo-sleeping in my case) but Seoul airport was a dream of efficiency, and with zero drama we found ourselves on the 6060 bus heading straight for the IP Boutique Hotel in Itaewon, Seoul, our first South Korea destination and as ever with our first nights on holiday, something of an extravagance.
Apart from lacking a swimming pool, the hotel did not disappoint - mad decor, and very cool, sleek room on the 11th floor with a view of lots of skyscrapers and a tiny bit of the Han river. We dusted ourselves off, consulted our three guide books, and headed off to what we persuaded ourselves was dinner, a 5 minute walk away on a little street packed with restaurants. Itaewon is apparently not especially touristy, but quite popular with ex pats, and the restaurants were fittingly unalarming. We settled incongruously in a much-recommended Thai restaurant called the Buddha's Belly, and even more incongruously sipped mohitos while we enjoyed our tofu-based thai food.
After dinner we strolled back to the hotel via a chocolate shop where we bought a couple of posh chocolates, then to the hotel bar which was cool, sleek, elegant, and deserted, save for a stoical singer at a keyboard in the corner (whose repertoire included a bizarre number of Christmas songs). The wine glasses were the size of our heads, so we settled down for a drink, surreptitiously nibbling the posh chocolates. We determinedly kept ourselves awake til after 10, at which point we collapsed into bed.
At 2:30am, we both woke, bright and perky. Alas. Roz eventually got back to sleep while I read my book on Kindle, using its reading light under the covers til 6:30, at which point I finally dozed off. Roz prodded me awake at 11:30am. DIsorientated!
We had planned to go for a hike today, in one of Seoul's parks, but gazing 11 storeys down to the main road of Itaewon revealed Koreans brandishing umbrellas, and a sky the colour of lead. With guidebooks in hand, we headed for a little breakfast place called the Flying Pan, which was very cool and rather expensive, and gave us fairly pleasant brunch, though both of us felt a tad nauseous. Since pretty much everything in Seoul is closed on a Monday, we contemplated what to do with some confusion. We moved to the chocolate place for coffee (or in my case, a rather tasty berry smoothie) and contemplated again. And decided with our tiredness and the weather, what was really called for was a visit to one of Korea's bathhouses. And handily enough, one of the best in Seoul was literally minutes from our hotel.
Itaewonland bathhouse was rather scary, but no more so than the bathhouse we went to in Georgia earlier this year, on a similarly wet day, so up the stairs we strode, and we were soon given our keys for the first locker, in which we deposited our shoes. Barefooted, we proceeded to the ladies' area, where we deposited the rest of our clothes etc in a second set of lockers, putting on matching pink t-shirt and shorts ensembles that we had been issued. A shout of protest from an elderly lady in bra and pants revealed our faux pas. Off came the clothes and we were pushed under hot showers, apparently coming from a mineral spring 300m underground. The bathhouse was quite attractive, with showers along the back wall, which were filled with Korean women engaged in the very serious act of getting clean. Their scrubbing routines seemed to take a full hour, which was very impressive. Lacking that dedication, Roz and I had paid for a scrub, and before long were summoned to shiny pink tables where two very vigorous women wearing loofah gloves scrubbed us within an inch of our lives, only pausing to exclaim at the dead skin they had dragged from our protesting, very pink bodies, and occasionally point to it with an expression of fascination and alarm.
Feeling pristine, we got into the array of differently-heated hot tubs, all being topped up continuously by fountains in the shape of large, gold-painted penises. The hot tubs were just what was called for, and we spent an inordinate amount of time lazing in them while around us, women scrubbed and scrubbed. We mused over the lack of similar dedication to removing dead skin in the UK, and whether everyone else has a serious, regular scrubbing routine, at home or elsewhere, that we have been missing all these years. Anyone?
Having eventually dragged ourselves from the bathhouse, we returned to the hotel, where I am relaxing, writing this blog, reading, and contemplating dinner plans, and Roz, who is training for a half marathon which is happening in a couple of weeks, has unenthusiastically headed to the hotel 'gym' (a windowless room sporting a couple of pieces of gym equipment) to do a bit of training. Glad I'm not her!
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