Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Summer Holidays

I'm way behind on posts. It's no fault of mine, I'm on holidays until August 11th (when I go back for half day English camp. Since my last post I have been whitewater rafting with my co teachers (post to come), out multiple times to eat drink and say goodbye to Shelly who left on Monday (posts to come), jogging everyday to get rid of all the calories I gained saying goodbye to Shelly (hot pictures of me to come), shopping trips to update my wardrobe (no post) and finally this week I've been resting my liver for our weekend trip of luxury to Jeju Island (post to come). I will honestly try to update tomorrow.

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Eurwangni Beach


Blogger isn't letting me upload pictures from the weekend. Here's the short of it. Six of us went off to Eurwangni beach and stayed in the best pension I've yet to stay in. It was a great weekend. I'll post more about it later. I can't be bothered to write up about the weekend, the pictures can do the talking.

Friday, July 11, 2008

A few Weeks Ago

I'm off with Seajin and some of his friends to the Island off of Incheon for the weekend so before I get too far back in my blogging here's a soccer game I went to a couple of weeks ago.


North Korea and South Korea played each other in the second leg of something to do with the next World Cup. The first game was to be played up North but they refused to play the South's national anthem so the game was played in Beijing as it was a neutral site. The game was rumoured to of been moved but the Seoul played nicely and the game went off without a problem. The North got a huge ovation from the crowd when they came onto the field and after their anthem was played another classy cheer was given.


Shelly managed to get five free tickets in the sixth row from her co teacher so thankfully (it was a horrible game) we paid nothing.


This was Raymond's first soccer game and he did his best to be a trashy soccer fan. Here he at half time with some of the better dressed Korean fans.


Leoni, Shelly and Eve looking good.

Tuesday, July 08, 2008

Beijing...Day Three

Our last full day there was hitting up most of the sights in the city. These first set of pictures I caught from the tour bus back from the great wall.


Not sure what this building is but it looked cool.



The CCTV building right next to out hotel. It an awesome structure that I couldn't really capture, it has two main towers and they are linked together by an L shape of several floors. It will definitely look amazing when it's done.


This is the only Olympic venue we saw, it's where the tennis will be played.


We started the day mighty early when Joel came down to our room to let us know he was off to shop. It's good luck for vendors to make their first sale and so they are more inclined to give a bargain, this was exactly what we wanted. Shelly and I quickly showered and hit the buffet downstairs before taking off to shop. Being without cellphones it was a risk splitting the group up but we made a plan to all meet up at 1:00 outside the Forbidden city under Mao's portrait. I gave my camera to Saejin because he and Chan Young didn't feel like shopping and instead went to the Summer Palace. Tony knew where we were shopping so he came a found us before heading to the Forbidden City.

This is where our immaculate plan of meeting up went down the hair clogged drain. Meeting two black haired Koreans in front of the busiest entrance of the busiest tourist site in one of the busiest cities of China was next to impossible. When you add in bags brimming with shopping and a Full blazing sun, it got annoying fast. We did wait around for forty minutes before we chose to head in and get the tour done with.



Luckily for us Seajin and Chan Young were Korean tourist and managed to rush their way through the place quickly and while we were mid way into (a boring, boring palace) the started calling out our names. Even better for us they kept up their Koreaness and wanted to head off for massages so they took all our stuff back to the hotel so we could finish walking around the palace.


After leaving the back entrance (where the palace is much much better) we hailed a taxi and went back to Tianeman Square. I loved this place just because it's what I first learnt about China. Obviously a square is boring but seeing the vastness of the place along with all the troops guarding it was a highlight of the trip.




It was a long hot day but after making use of the shower and tub in the hotel room we went out for Peking duck at some very, very famous restaurant.

Not sure of the name here but there were a bunch of famous politicians and "stars" pictures up of who had eaten at this place.

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Not wanting to chance a line up we made reservation for a private room and payed a bit more for the food but it was great having your beer filled each time it dipped below the mid point by our personal waitress.


After some shaddy courses (see the menu below) the doors to the room split open to have the chefs cut up the duck in front of us. It was definitely the best part of the meal.


Wondering what the worst soup ever is? Duck tongue and snail takes the cake.


It was my first trip abroad (from Korea) with a lot of friends and a great trip. Sadly Shelly is off back to Canada soon for school but the rest of us will be here for more good times.