Olympic Park

A couple of weeks ago a few locals offered to take a few of us out, get us out of Seoul and show us around a bit, That was to be yesterday. We met Hugh, Mary, Mat and Genevieve downstairs at 8am!!!! (after a party the night before) But when our hosts hadn't shown up at 8:30...We went back to bed, having arranged to meet at 11:30.
A few phone calls at 11:15 meant this became 12!
Off we went in search of ice skating at Lotte World. (like a big Myer Centre-department store with an amusement park inside)
Once we were there Ten Pin bowling was a much more popular option!

A couple of games later and we were off for DUMPLINGS!!!After some determined exploring (out of Lotte World now) we found a Japanese restaurant for lunch!

Then we spotted the Glass Cathedral (despite it being made of glass-guess the windows needed washing) and checked that out. It wasn't entirely open but from what we could see there wasn't any area that was directly under all that glass, like a building inside the building.
across the road from here we spotted The "BIG THUMB" which made for quite a few good photo opportunities (the best of which I don't have here yet)

While we lined up Hughes hand with the sculpture, we must have looked like Papparazzi trying to get a shot! There were shots where the thumb lined up better than this but I just like the intelligent look on Hughes face.

So, Olympic Park? Well the Seoul Olympics were in about '88 I think but there is a monument to them, statues of people participating in all sorts of sports and in the subway there was video highlights which still got us in after all this time. Basically they still celebrate the Olympic spirit here. The monument still has an eternal flame, presumably lit from the torch.

After a big night and a fair bit of walking this was where we started to wind down but time for a couple of group pictures here.

Only Mary thought to take the auto timer shot, and I haven't got that yet so... The second pic here is Mat, Gen, Mary Hugh ("Huge") and, of course Gill.




All In all a good day, not too much structure but everyone going with the flow, Oh the locals who were to take us out had left a note which we had missed so they redeemed them selves too!
I'd give it three thumbs up!

Return to Korea

Well we are currently in Seoul, Korea, again! Gill is working on Phantom of the opera here and Stephen is here, visiting, rehearsing Saturday Night Fever in the hotel and updating his web space, (blogging too).
Last time we were here it was the depths of winter and literally freezing. Minus 6 was the coldest day time temperature but usually just below freezing. Night time temperatures were regularly around minus 20 at least (well that is where my thermometer froze and broke anyway!)
It's a lot more pleasant here at the moment, High 20's (above zero). It will get a lot hotter yet and the humidity is already pretty high. Monsoon season is about to start so... Sunday night we went out in what seemed like light rain, by the time I'd reached the corner I was pretty wet so I put the umbrella up. By the time I'd reached my destination I was soaked from the knees down. The individual rain drops must be a lot bigger than they looked. There were decent streams running down the hills, across the pavements and steps into the subways.
Stephen went to see the show (Phantom) on Sunday, he'd seen it a few times before with various casts, including Broadway. Brad Little's performance as the Phantom was outstanding, backed by a good cast alround.
More on our explorations of Seoul to be posted as we go!

1st Blogg!

Well I've been a long time "web master" and tried to post pages via gillandstephen.com on and off for a while but i realised I was trying to make it too comprehensive, thus, wasn't doing ANYTHING! So here goes at using a blog page for the day to day travel stuff. I'll try nesting it inside the main site (did it work?) so major news pieces can get a dedicated page, like the Wedding pictures etc. I might do some retrospective bloggs here too, but there's just too much to catch up opn for now and a blogg is about NOW!
Lets see how we go!
Stephen