Bangkok! hehe, ahh. I love that city, not only for its sass with a name choice but my first impression of Bangkok has been one of epic magnitudes! for starters, we arrived at the airport and Ange’s common sense bought us to the bus that dropped us literally on the doorstep of the hostel we were staying at. Now now it’s important to note that we were only staying here for a few days before heading off to Burma for a week! so our aim was to do most of the things in Bangkok so we could brush over it on the way to Phuket from Cambodia. Upon arriving here and walking out of the air conditioned airport we had come to realize that it was deathly hot! much hotter than we were used to in China. So it was time to start wearing the tie dye pants more and eat alot more ice cream too.. and eat ice cream did we ever! at this point in the trip we were realizing how much money we had been spending and were trying to be cautious with our spendings so we did alot of the whole bringing 7/11 food back into our air conditioned room so we could stay in bed all day watching cable TV. Because.. like, our room was nice!

See? it IS a nice room, and we enjoyed it immensely! =P

Ahh but yeaah, Bangkok was awaiting for us! so one day, I don’t know when we decided to get out of bed and actually do something! but by using our trusty new guide book we discovered the coolest way to check out this grand city for the day was to embark on a voyage up the river on the local ferry! sure enough, we bought some ice cream and headed over to one of the docks. The first place we went to we were quoted massives prices of around 800 baht for a trip up river, not really buying into it and knowing this was a private touristy operator we soon found the local ferry dock. Some 14 baht later we had two tickets heading upstream. Annnd I’ve gotta admit the ride was pretty cool, we could see a decent amount of cityness and temples on the either side of the river.

Nice view of the popular Arun Wat!

Oh so first, where were we going? our plan was the National Museum for a bit of culture and then we’d go to either the Grand Palace or Democracy Monument and the Golden Mountain! well upon getting off our ferry ride we were approached by a nice enough looking guy that was trying to tell us our destination was closed.. tee hee, yeah WE HAVE A GUIDE BOOK! it tells us all about your scams, so ha! sure enough, the museum was completely open that day and we spent around 2-3 hours just checking out the displays that I have now mostly forgotten! near the museum was a little tourist information centre where we were able to score some free post cards and get a picture of our heads poking through a cardboard display thing! you know? heh, after that we found opposite of the national museum was a massive park that had hundreds of stalls and open market shops. Me being a BIG fan of street food, and I mean a BIG fan.. we immediately headed over and I started eating tons of random street food! it was the greatest, super cheap and really tasty with so much to offer hehehe, so from there in our current location we figured we’d go inland some more and check out the democracy monument!

We found it! this is when we all go get some maccas now right?

Well the walk was more than we had bargained for and yeaah, the heat was coming down pretty hard on us. So of course we took an ice cream break! we arrived at the Democracy monument and sure enough there was a McDonalds right across the road. I felt like it was by divine intervention that there should be such a large symbol of America sitting across the street as we sat on the steps of this sacred monument of democracy and ate our ice cream. Now next, we were really challenged! not sure if we should head back or continue on without a real way of getting home. Like true travelers we headed out into the wilderness of Bangkok! and hey, no regrets! we found the golden mountain, a nice old man pointed out the way and well come on, it’s sort of like a golden mountain so it’s not that hard to miss. After chilling out up top for a bit and eventually coming down to bang some really loud gongs and run away like little children we were faced with the problem of getting home. To dwell on the fact we headed into yet another 7/11 store for a drink and found ourselves next to a tiny little river. At that moment a tiny little boat raced past and dropped off some people. Feeling pretty lucky we went down to this mini dock and asked where it was going. After showing our map to them in the guide book we figured out that it doesn’t go out to the larger river canal but deeper into Bangkok! so sure, off we went.

Let's pretend it's a real mountain then. ^^

After about 15 minutes in the canal, with my tracking our progress on the map by counting off bridges we got off in Siam which is basically central Bangkok and were able to take the Sky train to a place just 10 minutes walk away from out hostel. Now with such an exhausting day behind us we really had to refill our gas tanks so it was proposed.. PIZZA AND ICE CREAM IN BED!! ahhh, bed memories of Bangkok. I will remember them foreverr! but yeah, there is a chain in Thailand and alot of other Asian countries called The Pizza Company that does really good pizza and whatnot and we were able to get an awesome pizza off them (with mini sausage crust!) and a large tub of cookies and cream ice cream!! now that was a happy night! we sat up in bed stuffing our faces with the best foods EVER while watching some movies on the movie channel.

Ummm. So yes, that was the day in Bangkok where we did something worth talking about! the other adventures included going out for food and laying in bed watching movies with some food. Heheh, we needed to relax after China and especially before one week of full on Burma travels! speaking of which, at some point, we got up suuper early and took a taxi to the airport where our Burma adventures begun.

So we arrived in Hong Kong, via the 80 pound sleeper train, Hung Hum was the name of the station we arrived at and we needed to go to some place called Tsu Tsim East. Well… we got to our room which btw was pretty dodgy but we weren’t planning on spending much time in our room, not in Hong Kong.

Overall Hong Kong went by pretty quickly, we had missions in Hong Kong and we were very driven as we knew once we entered South East Asia proper things wouldn’t be the same. We had to get our Burma visas and get Ange injected with all the shots she should have got herself fixed up with during Winter break (naughty naughty needs to be punished!). These were of great import as I didn’t want her to die, neither did she. We had one full day in Hong Kong and we were going to make the most of it!

Immigration forms wheeee!!

So our one full day turned out to be pretty full on. We needed our visas and after some Googling on the internet we found the location of the Burmese Consulate in Hong Kong. Turns out getting a visa for Burma is really really EASY in Hong Kong! ahh we dropped our passports off and were told we could pick them up later that afternoon which is what we hoped for! Burma visas – check. Next was vaccinations for Ange, a task that proved a little more difficult! we were really confused as to where to go so we consulted the ticketing desk at the train station. We had previously been told to go to a hostpital but this guy directed us to a special disease control clinic that was 15 minutes away on foot so we decided to give it a shot! well, the guy at THIS establishment gave us addresses and directions for traveler clinics that were another 10 minutes away on foot. Thoooose guys said they couldn’t do it for us but gave us some phone numbers that we could call. Eventually we ended up back at our original train station with three numbers and a pay phone. A few calls later, we had found out who could do Ange’s immunizations for the cheapest price and an hour or so later my pretty little girlfriend had her shoulders (which I like to kiss from time to time) stabbed with what she describes as massive needles!

Vaccinations ahoy!

Feeling pretty good about ourselves because we’ve been so productive thus far we get some lunch and head over early to the Burmese consulate where we were able to pick up our passports! it’s 2pm and feeling good about what’s been done so far we decide to pack in some of tourist Hong Kong into our visit. So! the decision being made we made our way to Lantau Island to investigate the Big Budda that sat on the top of some mountain. =P

Well.. the train ride there took what seemed forever but we got there only to find that the scenic lift service was under maintaince! what were we to do? take a bus of course! a long windy bus ride much to Ange’s hate. The important thing is that we made it to the top without anyone spewing tee hee, and well it was worth it! we saw the Big Budda! we saw some random cows running around loose and took in yet another monastery!

I went for the biggest highfive of my life.

After thoroughly checking out the Big Budda and covertly taking pictures of monks we returned to mainland Hong Kong for some dinner! Ange was feeling a bit under the weather at that point because of the vaccinations or the whirly mountainous roads so me being the best boyfriend ever served her Pizza Hut in bed. ^^

Now that I think about it, that was the second time we had had Pizza Hut in Hong Kong. We actually had a day before our full epic day but we didn’t achieve much! just random exploring around the city and some fine dining at Pizza Hut for dinner. But yes! Hong Kong was over the next day as we packed up and headed to the airport! we had a bit of drama getting to the airport on time if you were to ask her but I think we were fine. =P This was good bye to China proper. The first country of many we were to complete on our epic Asian adventures.

And so we arrived in Shanghai, killed by the most tormenting train ride ever! we got off our train and found ourselves on a subway metro line! with limited instructions on how to find our accommodation that we booked online we stumbled around in the area we were going to be living for the next week for at least 15 minutes before we found the place, the name eludes me right now but it was meh meh. It’s sign was TINY and that’s why we didn’t find it immediately despite walking past it twice. NOTE TO HOSTEL OWNERS: make your sign big. real big.

Annyway, we were staying in the dorms cos well that’s all they had and we needed a place and besides! dorms are good for making quick friends right? yeah well it didn’t pan out. We were in the dorms but everyone was lame! heh anyway. Once arriving we found ice cream and jumped on a random bus that was pointed out to us by the hostel lady. We wanted a guide book, a book to ALL of Asia! (we found out one existed at our Beijing hostel) so we went to a biiiig bookstore in the middle of some colonial-like looking district. The bus ride there was adventurous enough! we gave the bus driver too much money and he shouted at me for not taking all the change he had saved for me from the other bus patrons. Nice Chinese people indeeed. Long story short here, we found the book store and bought the book that would become our life saving Bible many a time in the future. South East Asia on a Shoestring. Perfect for us cos we’d be touching almost all the countries in the book! Next, was food.

Everyone eats food!

Anywho, after food we went to People’s Square~! and we took loads of pretty pictures! we found a movie cinema too! we wanted to watch a movie later that night. We didn’t.

NEXT! was Shanghai 2010 World Expo!
I’ve decided it was so awesome it gets it’s own post!

So AFTER the Shanghai 2010 World Expo! the day after, we actually did go back to People’s Square we we found like.. these little adventure rides, just imagine the Wipeout from Dreamworld. We went on that, THEN we saw that movie that we wanted to see. PRINCE OF PERSIA. It was alright actually. ^^ later that night however (or another night?), we met up with a friend of Ange’s, a guy called Paul! and he’s an pretty cool guy in my book. We met him at the Pearl Tower and got some good old Japanese food before going to his place for some beers and then eventually heading out into the night, for a night of Shanghai clubbingness.

View from Paul's place!

So the Shanghai clubbing experience you ask? well, for starters I’m not much of a clubber, that’s more Ange’s scene.. but one thing we both didn’t expect to see was some sort of freaky, kinky bondage show! we just got there and there was some black dude in all that leather gear and a ball in his mouth being pranced around by a blonde chick. Not really knowing what was up, we got some drinks and met some of Pauls friends. I don’t remember any of their names. But! cool thing about the drinks was that they were coupon based! you basically, bought a set of coupons for 10 drinks and just use them all night. It’s the best system ever! you pay once, and then just use the coupons! speeds up the entire drink getting process. Annnyways, after about like.. a long time and after dancing, moving, shaking and talking we eventually decided to head off into the night and take a cab home. Ange was nice enough to leave a little surprise in the back before he dropped us off too!

What can I say? I'm decent with a camera.

The next day, we had to move out of where we were staying (for the second time) cos we wanted a more… private room shall we say? (it was our anniversary!) ^^ annnywho.. we booked into a hotel airport (how dodgy) that was waaaay out in the middle of no where, but we didn’t know that when we booked it. Since we booked it in the morning and turned up later that day, we had some trouble with the staff and our room. BASICALLY, they didn’t have our information and were confused how we claiming to have a room that night. Annnyway, after talking to the manager with shitty English for a while we manged to get into our room and it was AWESOME. The best room we had stayed in to that point. We didn’t get much done that day but we came out during the night! found out the our train line.. METRO LINE 2, was retarded and stopped running at like 6pm so we had to take a taxi to another station reeaaaally far away. We went from there to Pearl Tower again and went looking for food. Oh boy did we find it! we found.. PIZZA HUT.

Just looking at it makes me want it!

But the classiest Pizza Hut in existence, and my friends I tell you now, it was on this date that I discovered.. CHEESE FILLED CRUST on pizzas. I had never tried them, thought it was some evil gimmick but it was amazingly tasty! after dinner we needed to book our train tickets to Hong Kong! well, we went to the place but the queue was amazingly long and our train line stopped soon so we had to abandon ship and head home. Next morning we raced to the train tickets and found that there was only 4 tickets left.. and they were only for first class! so we booked them at astounding prices and spent the rest of the day doooing.. well not much, we went to the Bunt and I was ambushed by some crazy guy that crappily told me all about how I was born in the year of the snake and my mother was born in the year of the blah blah. He bugged me for ages and I kept getting him to talk more.. he told me about the lottery and how he has lots and lots of birds. A very queer fellow indeed. Eventually we escaped when I said we had to catch our train, which was sorta true.

Getting onto our train was a trifle. Firstly, we went to the wrong place.. even though the signs indicated we were supposed to go through there.. then cos we were first class we had to go else where.. and then we had to go through immigration like 10 minutes before our train departed. It was hectic, but when we found our seats.. or rather, should I say ROOM! it was glorious.

Two beds, two chairs, table, toilet and TV!

Ahhh and that was that. We were on our way to Hong Kong! away from Shanghai with all it’s glory and spazzyness. Oh and we went to the Peoples Square park one day and played chess and saw two Chinese guys fight.

Ahhhhh!! so we went to the Shanghai World Expo 2010! (as the post title suggests =P), little did we know when we set off on this adventure that the next world Expo was even in China! soo when we found out we decided we had to go and I’m totally glad that we did! First off, we got up early in the morning hoping to make the most of our Expo day and started researching how to get there using the computer downstairs. I found the right way using my ultra leet Google skills but then! as fate would have it we met another person who was going to the Expo as well and we invited her along. I forget her name completely but she sort of sucked anyway! for starters her directions disagreed with mine and seeing as I quickly Googled how to get there and wasn’t 100% confident in what I found we went along with her directions as she was positively sure! well well well, let’s just say I was right and my direction sense came through! (for once heh) — annnyway, long story short. We got there! Yes, we made it to the Shanghai World Expo 2010, we managed to use our expired Japanese student cards to save about 100 yuan each! which really, is weird cos the dates were written in Kanji which is no prob for the Chinese but I digress.

The first thing we saw as we got passed security! Worker drones!

We were on a high! we had ditched the weird faulty-direction-ridden traveler that we had taken along with us and it was just the two of us! yay epic day begin. =D but this elated feeling was doomed to disappear with the mystery of the lost German restaurant! basically, what happened was that since we left the dorms pretty early to go to the Expo we were pretty hungry and our little guidebook to the Expo said there was a German restaurant in a place where it exactly WASN’T! we even tasked the Expo volunteer drones to help us and they were flabbergasted as to why it wasn’t there as well! so we ate some weird food at a weird restaurant that wasn’t a really good restaurant at all! But after having food in our bellies we were eager to explore! and take pictures of course.

Lots of people everywhere! China china china!

We went to a load of pavilions! Nepal, Australia, China, bunch of Asian and Middle eastern countries and a looad of European ones minus some of the big ones! you’ve got to forgive us there, it’s not that we dislike the western world but the lines for some of the more popular pavilions were around 3 hours long. Annnd, I’m not really one to spend 3 hours or more in a queue.. so instead of one great hyped up pavilion we went into all the ones that didn’t even have a line to speak of and saw a bunch of random stuff! but of course! yes some of these were sooo small that we were learning about countries we never knew existed! at some point, somewhere in between visiting the North Korean pavilion and posing with South Korean children for photos, Ange managed to attract a very large audience of people who were watching her get her leg painted by this guy.

Last person he painted that day was Ange!

But what a mistake that turned out to be!! Ange’s leg painting seemed to rub off on everything it touched! me included. Til this day I have pants with a mix of green and yellow paint smeared into it! she defaced the seating at a Pizza place, some outdoor seating and her own clothes too! oh and our little microfiber towel that evening when she tried washing it off. >.< All the same we proceeded to some more pavilions doing posey shots inside and filling up the camera til in what seemed like a blur Ange attracted another friggen audience and had people literally queuing up to take a picture with her as if SHE were apart of the display!! silly Chinese folk. =P

As day turned to night we found our selves checking the Australian queue and deciding it was too long, buying some much needed Aussie snacks and a drink (stubbie of VB and a lamington!!) we proceeded to drink our cold Aussie beer in Europe! after some African pavilions where someone showed off their French language skills and an African show with multiple musical influences (blues, jazz, rap etc) we headed over to Berlin Square for a mini concert. ^^

Some random German DJ chick had the stage. German music.. tsssk!

As it was getting late-ish and we still hadn’t done the Australian or Chinese pavilions yet we headed off to the outback to see what Australia was all about.. ummmm, it was pretty good except for the main event inside the pavilion which turned out to be basically just a massive circular TV screen in a theatre. My only insult was that it was all in Chinese, no sub titles whatsoever. Sooo as a foreigner an Australian no less at the WORLD EXPO, I still had no idea what the hell was going on. All that aside, like I said it was alright and at that time the line was like 10 minutes long. Annnnnnyway! it was time for our last pavilion! the Chinese one. The structure itself was amazingly big! and we were sure as we approached it that it’d take ages, and in fact they had closed the entrance and stopped admitting people but we were able to just walk into one of the back entrances. Ummm.. so they had alot to show but the size of the structure makes you think that you will be able to go up to the top! well, you couldn’t. The entire Chinese display was on only one level and supposedly you could go up to the top if you got special tickets that are sold limitedly each day (only a few hundred) — the entrance to which was outside and really far away from the Chinese display. Soooo, yeah a LIL bit disappointed with the Chinese one but all the same it wasn’t a bad finish to the night.

Feeling completely tired and worn out, we headed home and caught the train at around midnight and crashed out in our dorm at around 1 in the morning. Oh what a day!

So I had to pick up Ange from the airport because I clearly doubted her ability to actually find the hostel. Men know where things are, men know directions. So, without wanting to wait forever to see her, I left early in the morning to get to the airport and be the knight in shining armor that I am. Getting a little side tracked by the desire for food I arrived at the airport just in time for Ange’s flight and she appeared some 30 minutes later through the immigration doors. Me being the extra prepared dude that I am exchanged the remaining yuan I had into USD in case we’d need it. I didn’t want to run into a situation where we had no money like in Tianjin.

Heh! Taiwan arrivals come from the international section eh China?

So, I had picked up Ange and we were hungry for food! my first real meal in China turned out to be Burger King at the airport! yaay, I can see what sort of traveling adventure this is going to be. =P after sampling Chinese burger king and being content with the satisfaction of my stomach we used the Airport Express train instead of getting ripped off like they did by using a taxi last time she was in China with Charlie and Jesse. Hmph! already doing well. We dropped off her bags at the hostel and set off on an adventure to see Beijing! well, not really. It was late and we decided to rest a little and then head off to Snack Street.

Spiders, Scorpions and Starfish! and that's just the S's.

Snack Street is adeptly named, it’s a street full of freaky Chinese snacks. You can find anything from strawberries coated in honey to spiders or scorpions on a stick. We ate some scorpions and they tasted like some chips, original flavour – slightly salted. Next we went to another random place just like Snack Street to have some food for dinner, after finishing said dinner I approached the garbage man to throw away the remains, keeping in mind that the bin was right here and I was going to put it in the garbage man decided it was best if he just threw the rubbish I had under the food stalls that were emptying for the night due to the rain and time. Tee hee do as the Chinese do, obviously not really caring too much for the look of these little food stalls. Needing a drink we retreated to good old maccas for a milkshake! these cheap little things were just the thing we needed, while drinking said milkshakes a random passerby wanted to take a picture with us (Ange in reality though!) and with that done we returned to the hostel for a beer and to play a game of chess because I had bought a really cool looking chess board from some market sometime during the night.

Gotta visit a temple every now and again.

Next morning we set off sorta early and taking advantage of Beijing’s cheap subway service (2 yuan to go anywhere!) we went to a Tibetan Lama Temple in the city’s north. I was told it was better than the Forbidden Temple and it did really look amazing, we spent about 2 hours here before catching a train towards Drum Tower, well we meant to go there but went the wrong way, finally arriving at a train station near Drum Tower we were off to go see it. On the way, we were harrassed by random rickshaw drivers that wanted us to use their services. Apparently it would seem that foreigners aren’t allowed to walk for it is beneath them or they should be taken advantage of from rickshaw drivers and the like.

Annnnyway, we arrived at Drum Tower with ice cream in hand or at least that’s what we thought! we actually paid for and climbed up the Bell Tower but oh well it’s the same thing the Drum Tower is across the street right? yeah well the Bell was nice enough and they we learnt of a quaint little story involving the casting of the bell. Seeing enough sights we went in search for lunch along a nice little river that goes straight through Beijing, we didn’t find food but a market of sorts that sold everything except for food! Ange bought yet another leather bound diary and seeing as it was becoming late we headed off towards the Forbidden Temple.

I hear those bells / drums!

After consulting the locals about the buses, we jumped onto the right bus paying only 1 yuan each and were whilsted off to the Forbidden Temple – Tiananmen Square area. Weeell, it was kinda late and the Forbidden Temple was on the verge of closing so I didn’t end up going at all! a sad shame but leaves me a reason to go back to Beijing. We sat in Tiananmen Square for a bit and decided which casual looking people were actually spies looking for trouble and shared a joke or two about the guards in the square. Thinking I had yet another day we didn’t stick around for the lowering of the flag. Our final day in Beijing was met with a tour of the Great Wall of China! Ange being my tour guide, we took a train up to the Great Wall at the Badaling section and it was a short walk from the station there. Once on the wall we took waaay too many photos but also managed a few funny skit videos. On the way down we went off the beaten track (aka the Wall) and walked along side the Great Wall of China! we were followed by some other people who obviously thought we knew the way but we had no idea if it’s take us back down. Well it did and after listening in to the complaints of some of the people way behind us that this trail was dangerous we managed to climb back onto the Wall and passed a group of soldiers which Ange took a photo with being the sex magnet that she is. As we got off the wall a school group of Americans started climbing up passed us as it just started to rain. For reasons unknown, we were pleased at this.

You need a picture of the Great Wall!

Upon finding out that the next train out of Badaling was several hours away we caught a bus back into Beijing, after heavy traffic we were dropped off somewhere random and my Android phone with GPS was telling me there was a nearby station that we tried to find. Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on how you look at it, it started raining so heavily that we took refuge in a small restaurant and had dinner. The dinner was great but we were absolutely drenched, after we got out and the rain started dieing down a bit we realized that the Google Maps were WRONG and that there wasn’t a train station where it said there was. We found a foreigner who helpfully pointed out the direction of the train station which was basically near where we got off the bus, go figure. Because of that entire fiasco I missed checking out the Forbidden Temple and seeing the flag lowered in Tianamen Square as we had to hurry off to our sleeper train that left that evening. However since we were heading back to the hostel to pick up our bags, we were able to see the outside of the Forbidden Temple fully lit up with Mao’s face which looked kinda cool.

Getting to the Beijing Railway Station with about 20 minutes to spare, we quickly bought some food at maccas and boarded the train. Much to our surprise was the train. It was a complete mess, buying a hard seat although very cheap had been a mistake as for the entire trip it was near impossible to sleep and there were people everywhere. Noisy Chinese people that had no concern for other passengers when they are trying to sleep at 1 in the morning, I swear there was this one guy who was mentally deficient as he kept speaking so loudly on his phone and genuinely looked retarded, not to mention that at the end of the trip I felt like killing the guy to save anyone to put up with his antics on an eventual return journey. But that was that, we were in Shanghai.

So I had to make it over to China to meet up with my beloved Ange as she had a convenient little ticket to Beijing and I didn’t have the money to buy a ticket directly to Beijing. Hence my entire South Korea plan, the basic plan was to get a ferry to South Korea and then another ferry from South Korea to China. Well it worked, I was at the port in Incheon and I paid around 90 dollars for a ticket to Tianjin which just happens to be an hour or so away from Beijing I had heard. So I went through Immigration at the port and I found myself getting on some dodgy bus and then an even dodgier looking ferry (if that was possible) and before long I was sitting in my little bunk sleeper thing with an old lady staring at me with her toothless grin. Yet again I was the only foreigner on the ferry ride and to my dismay there wasn’t much entertainment or alot of hospital service on this ferry ride, but I suppose that can be reflected with the price. But what did I care? my only aim was to get to China without killing my wallet and that’s what I did! I don’t want to talk much about the ferry ride, it wasn’t as great as the first one and it actually made me feel a little terrible! I felt truly alone, no one to talk to or anything like that. My iPod did wonders to cheer me up and I finished one of my books but it seemed like the ferry ride just went on and on! to make matters  worst I had limited won left and there were no English announcements to indicate what times breakfast, lunch or dinner were at!

The neon lights say it all!

I found myself often wandering up to the ships deck and watching the mist surround the boat during the early hours of morning or at night. Either that or just sleeping constantly. ^^ When we were finally due to arrive we stumbled across the biggest port I had ever seen. The port of Tianjin could be said to be the port of Beijing for all intensive purposes, but once we arrived I was in for a rude awakening. There was no ATM of any sort at the Immigration port area! meaning of course that I couldn’t withdraw any of the local currency and was left wondering how the hell I was supposed to get anywhere and do anything at such a late time during the night. To top things off the people were telling me that I couldn’t catch a train to Beijing that night and I would have to stay the night in Tianjin. Well thank god for foreigner stubbornness, I insisted on the immigration official that they write me a note explaining to a taxi driver that they were to take me to a ATM and then to a train station. Success! I was able to withdraw money after meeting a taxi driver that could say the basic hello etc etc and knew very little English but enough for me to work with.

This little boat literally pushed the ferry sideways into it's little docking port. Twas awesome.

After talking to the taxi driver I decided to take the risk and try and get to Beijing despite what the immigration official said to me. Telling the taxi driver train station and Beijing and repeating it a few times making sure that he knew I was to take a train to get to Beijing I was satisfied that I was getting somewhere, until of course 20 minutes passed by in the taxi and it looked as if there was nothing in the  surrounding area. I began to worry that this guy was going to actually take me all the way to Beijing by taxi! lucky for me he eventually stopped at Tianjin station which turned out to be over 50kms away from the ferry port and cost me almost 30 dollars. Buuuut thankfully this was the right train station as I was able to catch an express, a short bullet like train that took only 30 minutes and went over 300kms an hour to get to Beijing! It was actually at Tianjin station as I was trying to work out how to buy a ticket off a Chinese person that in fact a Japanese traveler came upon me, to my annoyance it was the very same person I thought had that look of loniness on the same ferry I came to China on! if only we had talked a bit we could of had a better time. All the same, we talked at Tianjin station and on the bullet train and eventually because he didn’t have a hotel reservation or anything (neither did I) he asked if I would show him to where I was staying at. Lucky for us, Kazu as his name was, Kazu and I were able to check into the hostel that I was supposed to be staying at with Ange when she arrived the very next day. Kazu and I shared a twin bed room and he left early the next morning to go to a Japanese hostel.

He woke me up just for this photo! and I'm glad. ^^

Little did I know that this wasn’t the last time I’d see Kazu. But yes, I went to bed that night knowing that I was where I was supposed to be and that I would be picking up Ange from the airport the next morning.

Right from the get go after arriving in Seoul I had little time to get myself into a bed for sleep. I arrived after taking the KTX – Korean Train Express service at some time around 10pm, from this point I had to make my way from the middle of somewhere I didn’t know to another place where I didn’t know but knew I might be able to get a room for the night. Using a recommendation given to me by my friend Jace I made my way over to a hostel called the Bong House a few stops away from the centre of Seoul. Getting to the right train station was the easy part, following the instructions that I took a picture of the earlier in the day was the hard part. I got lost twice but eventually, with effort, found the place and with extreme luck was able to secure the last bed. After talking to some of the people still awake about some hiking in Hong Kong I had a quick shower and went to bed as I had to be up early the next day for the DMZ Tour.

DMZ time!

The Demilitarized Zone Tour, or DMZ Tour for short. This is something I had been wanting to do ever since I decided that I would be going to South Korea. So getting up at 6am, I had another shower (I’m special like that) and headed off to City Hall train station to meet with the tour guide at a certain exit which escapes me now to jump onto the tour bus. Well I made it, paid the 46,000 won and sat myself next to a bunch of engineers from the Netherlands. After exchanging life stories and talking a bit about the Korean writing system we picked up a few more people until we were a full tour bus and headed off towards the first destination which turned out to be some weird theme park looking place where we switched into a special shuttle bus that was allowed into the military zone. In truth the first destination was just before Freedom bridge (or was it Reunification bridge? =P) and was designed to be a meeting place for families that were separated with the split of Korea into two Koreas.

So close yet so far away!

Next stop was Dorasan train station, the station that will reunite North and South Korean by train. This train station was built in preparation for the day where the two countries become one again. We were able to buy a ticket and go down to the platform and poke around, it was all very interesting and it turned out that even former President Bush ventured out here once and made a speech. After Dorasan train station we went to Dora Observatory where we were able to actually get a glimpse of North Korea, yes yes I’m proud to be able to say I’ve seen North Korea! the entire thing was kinda funny to say the least, they wouldn’t let you photograph North Korea and actually made a line where you can take photos which didn’t actually let you see anything. But me being me was able to convertly take a few photos of North Korea, being said they don’t look like much. When these DMZ agreements were being hammered out, they said that they’d allow one village to be in the DMZ. The funny thing about the North Korean side is that their village is completely empty and mostly fake and there is one black tower that is just taller than the South’s tower to show superiority.

A guard on duty at Dora Observatory.

Our final stop was the 3rd Tunnel part of the tour where we were able to go into the 3rd Infiltration tunnel dug out by the North Koreans in a plot to invade Seoul. Although the North Koreans deny they were digging an invasion tunnel and that they were looking for coal (something they tried to support by painting the walls black as they retreated) evidence stands for the contrary. Again we weren’t supposed to take photos down here but me being the cool lad that I am, I was able to get a few shots although nothing special.

Maccas was supposed to be behind these trees but it wasn't! *cry*

And that was basically the end of the Tour, they took us to some amethyst gem shop afterwards but it was hardly of importance or interest to anyone and as I had to be at the port in Incheon to catch my ferry to Tianjin I had to get going. After what seemed like an age on what I can only think of as a local train and having to endure a public rant by a guy with one leg I finally made it to Incheon train station and then onto ferry terminal, a whole 3 hours early. To spend my time I went off in search of food and found a McDonalds sign only to find on the other side of the sign was no maccas, feeling disheartened I asked a group of political supporters and they were able to point me in the right direction. I imagined what a sight I was, the poor old white gaijin looking for the only food in the world I eat, a Big Mac but alas I found it and I did enjoy a certain burger that doesn’t end in Mac. Before long I was on my ferry to Tianjin, but that’s another story.