In the Land of Kimchee - part 1

안녕하세요!

I had few "I'm going to Korea!" moments in the past already, but there was always something else in the way.  Luckily this time I was determined enough to go, so nothing could stop me. I bought my ticket on Thursday and flew out the next day after work, on Friday evening. The decision was quite spontaneous, but as it usually is with spontaneous decisions (at least in my experience), it was worth it.

Korea Train eXpress KTX (한국고속철도)

Even though I got to Seoul quite late in the evening the first day was, to say the least, very active! I met with my old Korean friend from London, we had some beers, flavored Soju and some good food! If that wasn't enough we ended up in a Norebang (노래방) signing away our stresses and every day problems! This kind of amusement is very popular in Korea. Koreans start their journey at bars and restaurants and then end up in Norebang. Did I like it? Oh yes, great fun! Not that I'm a good singer of course. Actually I'm probably terrible! Thanks God I do this only when drunk...

Fried chicken

Grapefruit Soju

Stairway To Heaven by Led Zeppelin in Noreabang

I took with me Lonely Planet guide to Seoul, but don't have any strong feelings about it. It was ok. Seoul is a big city and there's many sights to see. I'll describe shortly few things that I found the most interesting.

Close to one very busy street is Gyeongbokgung Palace which was the main royal palace of the Joseon dynasty. It was built in 1395 but a lot of it was destroyed during wars with Japan, so not a lot of it is original. It's also a great place to chill out as basically the surroundings form a huge park. You can easily spend there a whole day wandering and admiring "ancient" walls, chambers and buildings. There are free English tours as well, it was hard though to decode the guide's English accent. Good luck with that :)

Bukchon Hanok Village, stunning and beautiful traditional Korean housing from old ages. It definitely has the far east vibe! I loved it. Also I found a bar there where I could buy a local Korean Ale. That doubles the reasons why one has to visit that area when in Seoul ;)

Korean Ale

Makgeolli (막걸리)

Another good spot, Cheonggyecheon, amazing recreational space in the middle of Seoul city, something like Regent's Canal in London. Clean and green, just buy a beer, sit down and enjoy!

Han river, rent a bike, cycle along the river. Insadong, Hongdae, Gangnam (Psy's Gangnam) and other fancy districts where you can eat, drink and buy stuff. There's also Itaewon which is a district for foreigners, one of the largest party districts after Hongdae AFAIK. It's right next to the huge US base in the heart of Seoul!  How did they pull that off? I mean such a huge space in the city centre for a military base? I guess that's what you can do when you win a war. National Museum of Korea, The National Folk Museum of Korea, War Memorial of Korea (ehh, missed this one, next time) and so much more. There's plenty to see. Great city, great culture, taking into account how poor South Korea was 50 years ago. Great Wi-Fi everywhere you go too! :)

It's getting late and I still haven't written anything about the most interesting thing about Seoul and South Korea in general, at least from my point of view. Today is the fifth year of my existence in the city of London and you know what? It's flat, and I'm not talking about my existence, although sometimes... no no, let's not go there! The area is flat. London is flat. Very often I envy people living in Zurich or let's say Edinburgh. Now I envy people living in Seoul as well. You see them everywhere: "mountains" (in quotes, because these are not very high, at least not the ones in Seoul itself) and hills. It feels great to see them everywhere and from anywhere. I didn't plan to do a lot of hiking in Seoul (a lot? rather none!), but I think I ended up doing quite a bit. Namsan Tower, easy, very popular among tourists and locals, looks sweet during night time with the Seoul N Tower lit up.  Ingwansan I did with a CouchSurfing friend, very nice, quite steep. Ansan, I did an amazing night hike with a local Meetup group.

The best was yet to come though, and that was Bukhansan National Park. If you look at Google Maps and Seoul, you'll see a big green patch north of Seoul. That's a real National Park (yeah, reeeaaal National Park almost within the city?! That's an appropriate reaction after 5 years in London...)  with "mountains" and tons of hiking trails. The highest peak, Baekundae (836.5 m) I also hiked with a fellow CouchSurfer. In South Korea it's super funny, because me and me friend went there in shorts and sport shoes whereas all other Koreans, regardless if it's a simple hill or a mountain or whatever, are in full gear! Top brand backpacks, shoes, waterproof trousers, hiking poles. It looked like hiking gear expo!

Food... I feel that food in Korea is very important. It's also very important to go and have food together with your friends and share. Believe me, there's plenty of good food in Korea. I'll restrain myself from mentioning all kinds of food that I had, because I could dedicate a separate post for that and maybe I should. You'll have to take my word that it's absolutely genuine and delicious. With regards to drinks, there' Soju (rice wine) and my favorite Makkgeoli (rice wine with some kind of yeast extract). These alcohols come in different flavors and are very cheap. I have to say though that the best food I had in Busan. Busan is a city located in south of Korea to which I will dedicate a separate blog post. Busan lies at the seaside, so seafood absolutely rocks there.

Mung beans pancake and sides - Seoul

Bibimbap - Busan

My friend's mom made breakfast for me - Busan

Street food - Busan

Gimbap

These are few facts about South Korea lifestyle that I heard from Korean people I've met during my stay there:

- Parents have very strong influence on their children in Korea.
- There's a lot of English teachers in Korea. Interesting lifestyle, it's possible to go even on 6 months contract. They get free accommodation. Not always good opinion about them.
- Seeing non-Asian people on the tube or street is quite rare. Not a lot of immigrants.
- Koreans party quite a lot, you can see a lot of "dead" bodies in Hongdae at 5am on Saturday :D
- European/Western countries perceived as a better place to have proper work/life balance.

Party in Hongdae - Seoul

If you're going to South Korea make sure you get KakaoTalk installed on your mobile phone. CouchSurfing community in Seoul has a big KakaoTalk group. Find the right people and they will add you to the group. They do quite a lot of activities, so it's definitely worth it, especially if you're travelling on your own.

I really enjoyed that trip. It was also my first ever trip to Asia. Seoul is an amazing place for a tourist. From what I've heard it's not that good for perfect work/life balance. Still, it's a magical city full of very kind people. It's also very safe. Seoul though is not the only interesting city in South Korea. After Seoul I went to Busan which is a coastal city in south part of South Korea! I'll tell you more about it in my next post though.

Busan

Me in Busan ;)

One year later, the last bit about Switzerland... better now than never!

I have always envisioned Switzerland as a rather uniform country with regards to language, culture and ethnicity, but it turns out that I was very much an ignorant. Traveling to the French and Italian parts has definitely widened my view. My overall conclusion is that all three parts of Switzerland are very different or at least the look and feel is. Taking into account that I've been there just for a bit more than a week I can be totally wrong, so take my opinions with a huge grain of salt please and test on your own!

I was briefly warned about Lausanne by my friend, that it is not as nice and safe as Zürich, and indeed it feels very different. Suddenly I felt like I'm not in the perfectly organized Switzerland anymore. More young people, street artists (or "artists"), different styles and subcultures clearly distinguishable. Felt more like recent home of mine, London that is. I liked it! My CouchSurfing host in Lausanne, Celso, was as nice as you can probably get. He and his cousin cooked a dinner for us, we had few beers and we've watched Sony PlayStation opening ceremony (yes, PlayStation opening ceremony... not that I'm a fan). Geeky atmosphere, I can handle that!

So when I was traveling around Switzerland, mostly with trains, there was something I really really liked. I could see it on every train station. What's that? People with backpacks, in trekking shoes, everywhere. I don't know why, but wherever I am, and I see a person with a huge backpack, sleeping bag and mat sticking out of it, I just get a warm fuzzy feeling. I don't exactly know why, probably it reminds how cool and unforgettable of an experience traveling/backpacking is! It makes me unhappy at times, especially when I travel to work in Canary Wharf (ugh, not my favorite place on the planet) with London Tube, I would love to switch places with that person! Oh well.

During my time in Switzerland I enjoyed really good weather. As a side note I wanted to mention how impossible it is to convince people that in London we're having quite good weather as well. All the rainy postcards and movies have irremediably made London the rain capitol of the World! Nicely done!

Train trip from Zürich to Lugano through Alps, nothing to describe here, you have to do it yourself! Yes, you have to! Amazing stuff.

Lugano is a real paradise, palm trees, yachts, beautiful women, great weather, mountains, lakes... I could go on like this for a while, so let me stop here, I'm sure you get the point. I stayed in a really nice hostel with a great view on the city. Traveling alone and staying in hostels has its advantages, you get to talk more with strangers rather than almost all the time to your travel buddy. I've also visited Bloomberg office in Lugano, it's situated in a district called Paradise, and it's very decent! They are constantly looking for C++ Developers, so who knows, hmmm... :)

End of journey, going back to Poland! Time to visit family and friends. Trip back was interesting as I met a Polish businessman who as it turned out, was working in London long time ago as well, so we had quite a bit of topics to discuss about.

No pictures this time, need to dig them out as this post is more than a year late! :)

A million miles away - #NY2SF

It's more than 500 miles to Chicago. We've got a full tank of gas, full thermos of water, it's bright, and I'm the only one not wearing sunglasses. Hit it! Awesome, but maybe let's start from the beginning!

I'm just writing from the back seat of our car. We're driving on the interstate 90 from Niagara Falls to Chicago. There's this overly organized Russian, fussy Lebanese, and me (I'll hold on commenting on myself). So what's the plan?

New York, Chicago, Kansas, Denver, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, San Francisco and more. In other words we've embarked on an epic journey to cross a continent, reconnect with the nature and visit some of the coolest landmarks in the USA!

The dream almost died when we've reached the AVIS office in New York. Who the hell in Europe needs a credit card? The epic journey was standing on the edge of a high cliff, preparing to jump. Dark future flashed before our eyes, it's name was R.I.P. #NY2SF trip. Seems though the free spirit of the USA was keeping an eye on us, so touched by its presence Kassem found out that HERTZ actually doesn't suck big time as AVIS does. We bid farewell to AVIS, took our bags and strolled few blocks away to fulfill our destiny!

This ugly episode happened fortunately after we had a chance to enjoy New York. The city of high skyscrapers, smelly hot-dog stands, awesome views and, most noticeably, full of cute girls! Tipping was at times a bit annoying especially when the service was poor. Maybe soon you'll have to tip the cashier in the shop too? Except the air conditioning in the Metro, London Tube wins in all other cases i.e. easier access to check your balance on travel card, cleaner stations, friendlier staff, more maps and travel information provided. There are always pros and cons, but there's one thing I have to give to New York. It has this unique atmosphere that makes you feel really good, like straight from a comic book or famous American movie. It's just magical!

Keep calm and carry on they say in England, so we did. Our next stop was Niagara Falls.  Vast waterfalls between Lake Ontario and Lake Erie, right on the border with Canada, make you want to re-think your life and appreciate nature, contemplate. A bit similar like the pork ribs we had in Hard Rock Cafe, they make you wanna contemplate too, but in a bit different way.

The road spirit in the USA is huge. You can notice it on every food stop, gas station and of course on its main medium, the highway. So here we are now, listening to music, driving to Chicago, living in America for two weeks, hitting the road, so stay tuned!

States we've passed through so far: New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois.

Fighting Deer and Wild Parrots in Richmond Park

Visiting Richmond Park was on my list of things to do in London since I've heard you can see there free roaming deer! How cool is that? The park is situated within borders of London in a rather rich area called Richmond. The difference between Richmond and other poorer areas of London is visible with a single glance. Classy shops, clean streets, expensive cars and houses, and foremost elegant people with even more elegant dogs ;) Since I've spent most of my time here in East London, and most of my life in rather grey Poland, it wasn't hard to spot this! Also add to that all the narrow streets with lovely cafes, intriguing pubs and restaurants and it all gets really enchanting, especially with Autumn colors and weather! Yes, I know, some of my friends probably wouldn't really appreciate foggy and drizzly Autumn weather here, but I did! The only problem with Richmond is that it is quite far from the city center, but oh well, sometimes we need to sacrifice our commute time to live in such a good place, and it seems people indeed do that!

Richmond Park was founded in 1634 as a deer park and is one of the largest Royal Parks in London. What is really amazing when you're there is that the deer aren't at all afraid of people walking their dogs, running, cycling and doing other sport activities. I was finally motivated to visit the park by one of my friends. There was few of us  and seems we were really lucky, because we actually saw a deer fight! From my very quick research on the Internet it looks like the reason why deer fight is quite obvious.

Deer typically fight in order to state that they are the dominate buck in the area and although it may seem like they are trying to hurt one another, it is more of a playfull competition.

It indeed looked more like there were playing with each other rather than fighting, although we preferred to keep a safe distance and not get too involved in their private matters ;)

Curious detail of this trip was spotting quite a lot of parrots! Not dead parrots like from the Monty Python sketch, but real wild parrots! I found an interesting article about it "The tropical birds who have made their home in Surrey". Where do they come from? Seems no one is quite sure, but their numbers are growing, mostly thanks to mild winters. Well, my parrot friends, I've heard that this year in the UK we'll have hell of a winter, so keep warm and don't fell off the trees! We don't want you to end up like Monty Python's Norwegian Blue!

Bern

Time has come to tell you a bit more about the second part of my trip to Switzerland. First thing to mention here is Swiss Pass. Basically it's a ticket only tourists can buy that allows you to freely travel around the country with trains and it is also valid for local transport within cities. Mine was valid for four days and I simply shipped it to my friends in Zurich. I didn't have to worry about buying tickets on the stations and it is particularly useful when you have to quickly change between trains. I guess that you can easily buy tickets from the conductor, but I advise to invest in a Swiss Pass and make your life simpler especially when you plan to commute a lot. Equipped with my Swiss Pass I set off to do a trip around the country of the happy cows! First stop after Zurich was Bern, the capital of Switzerland.

The place I really wanted to visit in Bern was Einstein's house. His second floor flat is situated in the city center at Kramgrasse No. 49. Entrance is not free, but if you have a Swiss Pass you get a discount, so that's another reason to have one! As far as I know it also allows you to enter certain museums all around Switzerland for free.

Bern is situated upon the river Aare which makes a nice U-turn around the old town. Some old legend says that the founder of Bern named it after the first animal he met on a hunt and that was, you probably guessed by now, a bear! Highly likely then that's the reason why close to the old town there are bear pits. Don't mistake with beer pits :) One of the best tourist attractions in Bern is the Zyttglogge, but personally I liked Rosengarten the most. These are situated on a small hill just across the river with a stunning view on the city.

You can also get on top of the Berner Munster and I do recommend doing this! The view is fantastic, unfortunately my camera battery was already dead at that point, so I don't have any photos. Actually it was dead earlier as some of you probably already noticed that photos stopped matching the description :(

Now a short story why you should always have a travel insurance! Switzerland is considered to be one of the safest place in the world, but the wind is blowing there too! Why is that important you may ask? Let me explain. I met my Couch Surfing host in a small Cafe close to the train station. We were sitting outside and having a nice chat about different matters when the wind started to blew stronger and a big metal holder standing on a pole right next to where we were sitting fell off and almost hit me in the head! Fortunately the only part of me that suffered was my shoulder, but I tend not to think what if I would get hit with that thing in the head. Ouch! The cafe owner wasn't really concerned and nothing serious happened, so I just let it go. As an act of compassion he took the bill on him. I should have ordered more stuff :P I've secured myself for this trip with the World Nomads travel insurance.

My Couch Surfing host was living outside of Bern, in Bollingen. His hobby were butterflies, so I found out quite a lot about the butterfly surveillance project, sponsored by the Swiss government, he has been working on for the past few months. He even went to Iran to study butterflies. That's what I call commitment :)

When planning the trip I was first pushed off by the fact that I'll be travelling by myself, but now I think that it was a perfect setup, i.e., it meant total freedom when it came to any kind of choice! I didn't feel completely isolated too, because every night I had either an interesting Couch Surfing host that I could talk to and share my experiences from the day or weird people in a hostel to which I could babble about all kind of stuff.