betabenblog

Berlin. I didn't really know what to expect from Berlin. Would it have classicaly elaborate buildings, as it is in Europe, or would it stand out from the typical European architecture with it's own bold German individuality? Would it be super clean with sleek modern buildings reflecting a new forward looking economy, or would there be dismal reminders of its schizophrenic cold war era? Well, a bit of everything really. It would be more interesting if it was heavily biased towards one of the options. If it's any consolation, I was surprised how french-looking a lot of the buildings looked; maybe that is more of a "European" look, but I had really expected berlin to be something independent, individual. Instead, parts of it looked like a humourless French city. Still, that was no comment on the people, the culture or anything, just my impression of the general buildings.


For the first time this trip, I decided to use public transport - you can get a day ticket to get you in and out of Berlin which will pay for all public transport as well. I originally wanter to try to walk everywhere in an attempt to see all of Berlin - I'm glad that a couple of Dutch guys talked me out of it. So, I arrived at Zoo Station in Berlin disappointed to find that the platforms were not lined with cages of lions and multicoloured birds. There is a zoo nearby, that's all - a bit of premeditated false advertising, if you ask me. They could a least have had a monkey at the signals, or something. As a side note, apparently they house a popular pandabear called 'Knut'. I believe he wears an fcuk t-shirt.

Anyway, in order to see as much as possible in one day, I first head Northwest to the Charlottenburg palace. The actual palace extends to the left and right, but it is unviewable because of the trees. However, the palace is not very deep, only really a line of rooms; maybe they were working on the principle of "make yourself look big". I have no experience of Russian architecture, but to me it looked as if it would be at home in Moscow; perhaps this was the seed in my head of the idea of Berlin being a colder, more plain version of Paris.

As you'd expect, there are lots of sights relating to WW2 in Berlin - perhaps a bit too many: it's a bit like they're going out of their way to remember the war and how bad Hitler was, and they really need to show everyone with public displays. Then again, I guess WW2 is a significant jigsaw piece into how they now are. Anyway, references to WW2 start with a preserved bombed-out church next to zoo station, which I thought was awesome. It's difficult to imagine what the scale of WW2 bombing was - how big the explosions, how much damage they do, what the raids were like and so on; the church is a good clue to bring the severity into focus.

To plug up the piety hole left by a dead church, they built another next to it (to be honest a bit too next to it) which is plain ugly.

Inside, all is forgiven.

It's like being in the christian version of the Matrix. (What happens if we actually are eh? eh? didn't think about that now, did you?) But really couldn't they have done soehing with the exterior? put spikes on it or buttresses or something? Covering it it tinsel would have been better than that.

So, given that I had an all day ticket, I followed some advice from the dutch duo and took a bus, a normal bus which happens to go past quite a few important buildings. I think it was 90. or maybe 1. could have been the 60. I've taken so many busses since then I can't remember sorry. it should be obvious anyway. First port of call - the Siegessäule (Victory Column) in the centre of the Tiergarten park. In the end, I didn't go around the Tiergarten because I was short on time; I assume it's quite nice, you don't get t see much of it from the road as there are too many trees. The lack of green in my diet of Berlin might have left me with a more constipated option of Berlin.

I got to the column, and there was a new zealand guy with lots of hair doing a bicycle tour - I think it was called the flat tyre tour - so I listened in. It was a good description - I might go for that next time I visit. He basically said that when Bismark united the Germans they celebrated by invading France. Not quite - they stopped off at Denmark and the Netherlands before then for some pre-war munchies. After they'd won that they made a column surrounded with cannons captured from the wars - the bottom row are German cannons. And the top row are Danish - they look to be made out of rubber balls - no wonder they lost. Then they put a big golden woman on top pointing at Paris to taunt them. No wonder the French hated them - way to go at being popular, Germany. After the end of the second world war, the French wanter the column taken down but the British stopped them. No wonder the French hate the British.

This is some palace.

This is an interesting building.

Onto the Reichstag! I really like the Reichstag. Bold, purposeful, classical solid. It makes you think the Government there would be hard as nails, and honest. Good design. The dome is now a crystal one - perfect for giving it a modern twist with emphasis on technology and the future. Well done. There's also a big swathe of grass in front so you can actually see it, and there are quite a few people that go and sit on the grass out side. Could you imagine that in your country? The grass makes the the building friendly, almost. Still it's just a building that I happen to like. you'll most likely be disappointed.


Down the road is the Brandenburg gate. Really, it seems, just a big plinth on pillars. I guess it's got acres of history and pride associated with it, and if you're German, and you know all about that stuff and it makes you all flushed inside, then it's a really great place to go. But for me, slightly disappointing. Maybe I was expecting it to be bigger. It's very crowded with tourists behaving like kids because they're exited to be there and don't really want to acknowledge that it is just a plinth on pillars. Lots of tourists walking through an arch, and then, surprised that they feel no different, walking back again incase something special happens. Still, quite iconic with a big statue on top, a must-see, I guess. The history behind the gate is what powers the appeal, more than anything.


Just adjacent to that a holocaust memorial, probably the best I've seen. lots of sombre monoliths arise from the ground in a huge square; as you travel to the centre the monoliths get higher but the ground also dips so they get bigger faster, swallowing you up into a quiet imposing, claustrophobic sea of emotionless granite. That is, if there weren't loads of fucking tourist teenagers running around and treating it like a maze. And also, the blocks are all aligned, which means you can always see out; I guess it would be a muggers paradise if they didn't do that.


Down the street is the Gendarmen markt, a square with a pair of twin churches on them. It would have been a lot more spectacular without the bilding site in the middle; still, I got to go up to the top of the Franzosischer Dom with good views and a bunch of bells which looks like the underside of a rocket from the bottom of the church.




I was hungry by now, so I headed down to curry 36, supposedly the best place for currywurst in the city. Curry wurst are sausages with a mild curry flavour - I had expected them to be strongly flavoured and hot, but they were neither. still, very nice; fries with paprika on them were a nice touch.

On the way, I passed by checkpoint charlie, the famous gate between east and west germany during the cold war. The booth still remains and there is a museum nearby and a weird portrait of a soviet officer hanging over it, there must be some significance in it. Again packed with tourists. Two men dressed in American and (I think) british uniforms who were acting a bit giggly at the attention they were receiving, posing with groups of japanese girls with glee. bastards. only joking. I don't know what I was expecting from checkpoint charlie; I think I was a bit disappointed.

Due to its proximity, I took a trip to the TOPOGRAPHY - OF - TERROR, the headquaters of the gestapo. It's amazing how the gestapo conducted such a fearsome campaign of terror and surveillance from a building site. There is a path nearby with many story boards describing the rise and fall of the gestapo, but it is really a glorified web page. If a tour offers a guide around the museum of terror, I would think twice about going. Incidentally, it was here I first encountered the begging roma of Berlin. I did not think much about it, other than it was strange for a gypsy to be in the centre of Berlin. However, I was to find the Dom was crawling with them begging for money, and playing the accordion comically poorly. They are multilingual in asking for money, too: why don't they get jobs as translators?

Back towards the Dom I popped into babels platz, where the nazi book burnings took place. There is a clever monument of a glass plate in the floor with an empty white room below containing empty book shelves; it would have been a lot more poignant if they weren't erecting a fucking stage over the top of it.

Past some important looking buildings lies the Dom, the chunky cathedral of Berlin. For me, who is used to cathedrals with a long aisle and trencepts, the Dom seemed a bit squashed up; a bit like a bulldog. Inside it was vast and impressive vertically, but this only seemed to expose it's small floor space. The decoration was quite regal for a protestant church, gold leaf and classically decorated panels.



Quite a few pages of the guide were dedicated to museums in the area, so I decided to go to one - I'm glad I did. I decided to go to the Pergamon Museum. It is very unusual for me to be able to take pictures in museums, so, given the opportunity, I went about logging everything. The centre pieces of the museum are three huge exhibits: a massive altar from greece; a gateway to a market from.. er.. well, it was Roman; and a street from Babylon with a gate at the end. It's worth going to see them just for their size.




The rest of the museum is filled with other quite large and interesting stuff including a room from a house in turkey (I think). The doors were tiny. I'm a small guy, but the people that inhabited these quaters must have been under 4 ft tall. If they were that small, how big must the rest of the huge ancient edifices have seemed?


The rest is really my trip back to the station. There is a huge spike with a blob on it it Alexander Platz which contains a restaurant, but i didn't have time. Maybe next visit.

I also visited an "old quater" nearby where supposedly they are trying to recreate the town a couple of hundred years agon, but it seemed to me to be a few artsy crafty shops getting together and putting old-looking signs outside their shops.

On the way back, I briefly visited potsdamer platz named after my previous blog, as Hitlers bunker is supposed to be nearby. I was quite interested, but the location is unmarked and there are no signs. It seems strange that this site has been forgotten by the berliners.

I'm stuck for a day while my car gets repairs, so I'll try to get this written up. Next place, Potsdam, Germany. For those who were looking forward to me getting high, going clubbing, pulling, getting laid and hitting a police man, look away now. This is a boring journey around a historic town, where one of the palaces exploded. True apart for the explosion thing.
On the way to potsdam, I had to waste a day getting a new wheel, so I made a detour across the netherlands north sea barrier, which I enjoyed, so here's a picture.

So, Potsdam: where hindenburg reliquished power to Hitler, and where the allied powers agreed to disagree after Hitler, Potsdam has been the neverland park of the German MVP for centuries. It's a bit bizarre to see a town centred around a disparate selection of palaces; it felt a bit like a themepark. Some of the palaces which would be the focal piece in a smaller town end up seemingly being forgotten in favour of the more grand buildings, a once popular themepark ride, now overshadowed by new rollercoasters and tucked away in a corner. You can walk north and find a huge palace just off a housing estate with no one visiting it.
Anyway, essentially, this guy, Fredrick Elector of Brandenburg, decided to live in this village on the edge of some lakes in 1660, and it's been a posh place since.

In 1685, Louis 14th of France decided that actually, all the Hugenots that were originally allowed to be alive in France were now to be dead. Fredrick, to piss off King Louis, decided to declare his own edict, the Edict of Potsdam, which said that they could all come to Potsdam where it was ok for them to live. Actually, it said that anyone could live there and believe anything they wanted, so given that there were tons of people dying over the continent, they all came to potsdam, giving it a big economy boost.
The upshot in pictures is that there are a bunch of out-of-place buildings in Potsdam, including a Dutch quarter (which I quite liked):

a bunch of Russian traditional houses:

and a weird pink synagogue:

(Although they weren't all built at the same time)
Potsdam really started to be posh when Fredrick the Great, the first Fred's large nephew, decided to build a bunch of palaces there. The most famous, sanssouci, is "the most important work of Northern German rococo" which basically means it is full of over the top (but very old) gold-plated floral-like designs whit a kind of crescent moon in them now and then. The inside was kind-of impressive; I guess it was far more impressive at the time. It's a bit like a bungalow with a bunch of differently decorated guest rooms in it, each just a room with an alcove for a bed. The exterior is better, with a bunch of terraces in front of the palace, each filled with grape vines and (I think) orange trees. It's kinda become the symbol of Potsdam.

A big deal is made of Voltaire visiting sanssouci for a coulple of years, and some of the tourist shops old town kinda make out that voltaire was Fred's best mate; however, it seems that Voltaire was a bit mouthy and got arrested or exiled from most places he was invited to, this being no exception.
Grape vines are all over the park on the different palaces, especially the Orangery palace, which used to be an olive grove and looks a bit boxy:

and, I think, covering the walkways (although I'm no botanist.)

Although I had noticed there were statues and busts everywhere, it first hit home that there was a statue fetish going on when I got to the new Palace in front of the university.

it seems that if there was a space to put a statue, they would put one there, a bit like the toilet sketch from not the nine o'clock news, except with statues instead of toilets.

Still, quite impressive palace. I took a slightly weird route through Potsdam:

so about now, my legs started hurt, so I was a bit disappointed by most of the places I went after that. There are some mock-roman baths which seemed a bit crap as I went past them, and a Chinese-style palace which looked to be a round pergoda type affair surrounded by slightly tacky gold plated characatures of chinese men and women.

Eventually I got to the site of more recent events, the english-style palace was the location of the potsdam conference where the allies gloated together after WW2. It wouldn't really be special if that had not happened.

It is perhaps fit that the agreements made in Potsdam which dictated it would be under Soviet control can seemingly be seen in the buildings just outside the palacial-shugared center.

Wham bam Amterdam. Or in my case, I don't smoke cannabis, I needed to drive later that day so no night out drinking, and I don't pay for sex, so just 'Amsterdam'. I feel with these constraints I didn't really get the most out of Amsterdam, I was probably the wrong person to go there. Maybe if my life collapses, I'll one day go and indulge in the vices. For now, really just a flying visit.

To get the boring stuff out of the way first, traffic from Rotterdam was awful. Parking in Amsterdam on the street costs 4 euros an hour, and only takes coins so if you've just arrived in Europe with a wodge of notes, you're a bit fucked. Luckily, I met three police officers who (of course) spoke English and eventually directed me to an underground parking lot for the museums, which cost the same but I could pay later. So I only really started my tour about midday, and due to being rushed, I missed out on the Stedelijk Museum and Nieuwe Kerk, which I should have seen. I also didn't know where I was going, and the tourist information center which I looked for for half an hour had been shut down.
Anyway, I guess my first impressions of Amsterdam was that it was a Brugge which had lived into the 20th century and been a little sullied by it. The housing was pretty, but with a air of maturity; an over-experienced middle aged man compared with the Brugge-jolly-old-grandpa who makes wooden toys for a hobby.

Three rings of canals circle the center due to an expansion by some king or other, and the land allotment was strictly regulated resulting in peaceful wide corridors of water surrounded by tall thin buildings. They are really nice to stroll down, generally free of cars and trams, and make Amsterdam seem a really pleasant place to live.

Just on the outskirts south of the old town one such ring contains a stretch with a flower market, consecutive greenhouses lining the street. Flowers are of course generally what they sell with the ever present tulip, but they are really small garden centres selling seeds, plants of all kinds, garden ornaments and so on. It's good to see that a flower market exists in a capital city - it shows that the people are willing to pay for small niceties which up the living standard a bit and make everyone just a generally a bit happier.
The radial routes are a bit different, generally big shopping streets with their fair share of kebab takeaways, as they suck you into the heart of the old town. The main street to the center from the south, Rokin, is wide with large tram routes and car lanes, and really, a bit concrete. Even the nice housing is made a bit grimy with functional shops at the bottom supplying the city. In retrospect, I should really have made more use of the side streets.

Rokin exits onto the main expansive square, I think it was called "Dam", which is host to several regal looking buildings and a large palace, and then continues as Damrak to the hub.


Parallel to this runs a pedestrian only shopping street full of cheap crap and fat citizens. Eventually, it leads to a slightly awkward looking dock containing the tour boats in front of the train station, and then to the east, the red light district.


During the day, the red light district seems a bit silly, as if the naked excitement of the night had just been embarrassingly exposed in the daytime. A bit like a nightclub when they turn the lights on at the end of the night and everyone starts behaving normally without the darkness. It's still full of people, quite a few tourists, but also quite a few people it seemed who were just waiting for it to get dark again; I came across two groups of confused american teenagers looking a bit disappointed, one of them saying "I don't understand - I'm sure it gets a lot better somewhere around here - trust me, it's awesome". I didn't go searching for strip joints or cannabis cafes so I can't tell you where it really was awesome just the next street over, or whether they'd just have to wait until nightfall, which is what I suspect.


Following my guidebook, I went to a church, Oude kerk, in the centre of the red-light district, a "haven of repentance". My concentration was on taking pictures of it that I jumped when a loud tapping sounded just behind me, and Iooked round quickly to find a clear door with two prostitutes in lingerie gesticulating at me to join them. Slow business, I guess, during the day. looking further at the buildings around the church, they all had fully plastic doors with bored looking prostitutes in underwear sitting on chairs. I didn't take a picture incase they charged me for it.

Given that it was a flying visit, I didn't go to any cafes, but I did go past a few, most of which were a little tacky, with names like "house of bongs" or "stoned palace" on them - names I've made up, but in that kind of mentality. I was a bit disappointed that they were a bit tacky, and not relaxed with a bit of classiness about them. However, I've since looked at http://matadornights.com/seven-coffee-shops-in-amsterdam-that-are-good-to-go/ which shows a few classier cafes.

Earlier on in the day but later on in the writeup, I went to the large expanse of green surrounded by museums south of the old town. It seems to be the primary place to come and relax, walk the dog, sunbathe etc. for the inner city. Further south west is the larger Volndel Park, which I have been told is more popular with the townsfolk. Expansive parks are always quite refreshing to go to after a packed town center.


And then, of course, the Van Gogh museum. Unsurprisingly, full of Van Goghs. (his paintings not shit loads of the man himself.) Good to see the famous self portrait and sunflowers; what I didn't know was that his early stuff was completely different from his famous works - so dark and dreary that sometimes is is hard to make out what he actually painted. Black, dark brown, dark green. Quite ugly, really.
So, I feel I've given a poor review of Amsterdam due to my speedy visit. If you go, I'd stay a couple of days to see the Red light district at night, as it's allegedly supposed to get strangely artistic in the dark; and I'd plan to go to a cafe rather than just planning on bumping into a good one. And take different routes into and out of town to see nicer streets than I did. And go for a boat tour. I think Amsterdam may be best appreciated not after fraught hours of driving and parking.

Brugge, a fairy-tail city of hitmen and dwarves. Driving there early in the morning, the I was happy to find car parks offering free parking all day. Not really the best point to start on when visiting a one of the nicest medieval towns in Europe, but if you're driving, finding a good place is a godsend. The second thing I noticed as I consulted the nearby towns folk ("really? free? all day?") was that everyone in Belgium speaks English pretty well, even if they modestly say "only a luttle bit".
I'm on a budget, so I didn't go into most places; I also didn't read the important historical backgrounds of the buildings; I just walked around.
The refreshing thing I found out about Brugge is that there is not an "old quarter", as most of the town is as it was 500 years ago when it enjoyed prosperity as one of the world's best centre for weaving. The walled area is a Unesco World heritage site, and as you walk from the centre to the wall, you'll find normal people living in the age old streets. True, it is entirely supported by the tourist industry and most of the touristy center has a continental cafe on every corner, but that doesn't really detract from the ambience.

Brugge is infused with a pleasant quantity of waterways, such that they become a endearing addition to the town, rather than a required characteristic. Most have tourist boats zipping down them, some are blessed with lazy swans. It's 'The Venice of the North'! Along with Amsterdam, Stockholm, and some other towns which are the other Venices. (according to wikipedia, even Birmingham!?!)


I arrived early on a rainy morning, so there were not many tourists. There are quite a few "notable buildings" to go and look at, I planned a route to get to most of them, but I think you could see half of them and not be disappointed; it depends when your boredom level for seeing yet another 600 year old significant building is exceeded.


There are two prominent town squares, Markt and Burg. The first is dominated by the 12th Century belfry which looks down onto a large central statue of -er- a famous Belgian, and the square itself is lined with grand medieval houses. Pity for me there were some big ugly tents on it. A trip up the belfry is about 8 euros, 300 odd steps up a tight spiral stair, and worth it for a panoramic view of the town. Hidden up the tower is a huge barrel-organ device which rings the bells in order. which I'm going to buy that when I'm rich.

On Burg, there's a large palace and the "Basilica of the Holy Blood" which contains some of Jesus's blood. We should get the cloning guys onto that. they should make ten jesuses and introduce them to each other on Jerry Springer.


I took an excursion out to the Northwest wall which was worth it just to get free of the growing tourist swarm, and found a couple of small local bars underneath a large windmill which served good Belgian beer. (although I only had one as I needed to drive later that day.) In retrospect, it would have been good to stop there overnight so as to appreciate the beer more.


One the way back from the windmills, as my legs aching slightly from the walking and the climbing, I made a small detour to St Waldberg's church.

I wasn't expecting much after reaching my quaintness limit, but I'm glad I went. Wearily climbing the steps, I was greeted by a benevolent old man; after a few friendly words, he proceeded to amble slowly back into the pearl-white interior of the church, which revealed itself to be tardis-like in proportions compared to the building front, opera music resounding round him as he went. I felt as if he was going to die that day, it was so cinematic; I sat down for a good half an hour in the cool white opera.

As a cautionary story, as I left Brugge later that day my GPS system went mad, directing me the wrong way down bypasses and being constantly confused. After quite a fraught journey out of the city including driving on the wrong side of the road and the wrong way up one way streets, I eventually remebered that the GPS was still on 'pedestrian mode' - it thought I was walking. Never use pedestrian mode!

Hello,
A while ago I found myself in seoul for an overnight stop, without really knowing what to do; I posted in a blog to get ideas, but most of the ideas I had done before (eat korean food), and I did not want to go to a bar because, essentially, I was on my own and it would be no fun. Unless I got steaming, but then I would not find my way home. So this is what I did, incase it will be useful
for others who find themselves in my position in the future. It's quite boring, sorry.

Looking on a website ( http://ask.metafilter.com/27208/Stuck-in-Incheon-for-15-Hours ), I decided I wanted to see the night Market at Dongdaemoon; I decided I would also like to buy some korean script at Insadong ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insadong ), and see some shrines (I decided I would like to see shamanistic shrines at Guksadang ( http://iguide.travel/Seoul/Sights/Temples_and_shrines ) ).

So those were my plans, although I did not know how long it would take to get to/from Incheon airport, and how much time I would get. Luckily for me, Asiana airlines had booked me in a hotel in Myeong-dong, right in the centre of Seoul. They had also bought me dinner, so I sat down to eat this with fellow overnighters before setting out at 9:00pm with my camera. The trains stop at midnight, I think (I might be wrong).



My plan for that night was to get to night Market at Dongdaemoon, and find my way back. Nervously walking from the hotel, I saw an amazing table of food on the street - it was awesome. There were all kinds of squid, some tentacles as long as my legs. I got out my camera and was fiercely discouraged by the stall owner. He was very angry, I did not know why. So, thinking "wtf? what did I do?" I walked off for Myeongdong subway. I was to learn that all the other food stall owners on the street had the same reactions and dirty looks for me when I tried to take pictures. I don't know why; from then on, I was fearful of taking pictures when anyone was around.


So with a small map, I found the station, and, with hand gestures only bought a travel card from a very forgiving ticket girl. It was Saturday night and everyone was going home. There was a huge que behind me by the time I had finished.

I took the blue line from Myeongdong to Dongaemun. I stood for most of the journeys, but when I did sit, I noticed many empty seats next to me. I very much felt foreign. Dongaemun was not quite as I expected it. There is a very impressive gate, but the market had packed up. It was dark, with deserted stalls, and only a few groups of teenagers. There was a police van with about 10 police men in body armour. I hopefully peered down some pitch black backstreets before regretfully finding my way back home at about 11:30. So, not really a very successful trip.



The next morning, I needed to catch the bus back to the airport at 10:30am, so I set out at 6:20am. My plan for today was to get to the Guksadang shrines near Dongnimmun. I'd try to stop on the way back at insadong. On the way to the station, I realised that the previous night's foray was not completely useless, as I had a full travel card and could confidently find the station, and knew how long it would take to get there and back.

I could not remember a lot from the website, so I took a few wrong turns on may way out of the station. Admittedly, I did not really know what I was looking for as I had seen no pictures, so initially I set out for mt. Ansan. One thing beginning to dawn in my head at this point was that in seoul I had often to travel though a few dodgy unlabled backstreets to get to my destination (- this was to catch me out later); I began to wonder if I had missed the night market by just not being brave enough.



Still, I found my way to the shrines quite easily after I got my barings. There is an obvious large gate, surrounded in a pool of rough concrete. It seems the people of seoul are quite happy with raw concrete. The steps up to the shrines are all made out of quite unkempt concrete, the higher shrines themselves look a bit rough, the are mainly made out of bricks, a bit like a makeshift barbeque, with some candles below them; they were surrounded by tubs of water, presumably for drinking.




On the way to the higher shrines are a few temples, but they are very densely packed, and it is not clear how to get to them all. I took a wrong turn trying to get to one of them - it took me a couple of minutes to realise I was in someone's back yard. Lucky they were not yet up. Just further up from a large bell there is a Larger temple, which was in the process of being cleaned out. I gestured to one man with my camera to the temple, the answer was a clear "NO!", but, getting a bit more of the hang of things, I re-gestured to another man that I wanted to take a picture of only the outside, which he kindly agreed to, closing the door such that the inside would remain invisible. This made me fearful of taking pictures of the shrines, so my pictures are mostly of the view.




Further up, there are some strangely shaped rocks known as the "zen rocks", where two ladies were performing a buddhist ritual. On of the husbands was there looking out on seoul, we shared a friendly moment gazing out. I had read to be careful not to take pictures of rituals; so no pictures here either.



By now, if I can remember, I think it was about 8:00 (give or take 20mins). I decided to go up Mt. Inwangsan, where I thought the views would be better. It took me 40 minutes walking around the base, however, to find the route to the path up the mountain. My mistake? The route looked as though it went through a building site, and then someone's backyard.

Eventually, I found my way up mount next to a remade castle wall. I was going as quickly as possible, now quite short of time if I was to get something good at Insadong. When I reached the top, I was very tired, just to find there was another peak further on, not visible previously. I think it was about 9:00, so as I caught my breath and took panoramic pictures, I debated doing the larger peak or cutting and running.


5 minutes later, I was on top of the larger peak. The climb to the top and back had taken 30 minutes of reasonably quick walking, if that is an aid to future travellers.



Take some water though! I was gasping by the time I found an open shop near the bottom. The lady charged me far too much, as I offered her my 10,000 won notes, which she happily took. However, a customer looked angrily at her and gave me more of the shop's produce as she looked on sheepishly. I need to learn Korean for "change".

At about 9:30, I made it to Insadong where I hoped I could get some authentic presents! It was deserted. It struck me that shops were closed on a Sunday in Seoul too.



Not to be beaten, I decided to use the last moments visiting the Palace at Changdeukgung:



and then I ran down to Jongmyo and back.




I arrived back at 10:15, ate the free breakfast, and caught the bus at 10:30. So, not completely a success, but hopefully it'll be a guide to how much you might get done if you have an overnight stop in Seoul.

Hello,
I am have about half a day in both sydney and seoul to spend, but I don't know how. Does anyone have any suggestions? (apart from going to see the opera house). I may not be able to access this blog between now and then depending on internet access, so it may be a bit useless; and I may not be able to respond quickly, so please do not think your efforts have been ignored.

Thanks in advance for any help!!

Edit: title should read: sydney and seoul