I’m still here, still in the same job from my last post (high travel in Asia), and still loving it all. Unfortunately though the job has not lent itself to much free time, let alone enough time to properly document where I’ve been and what I’ve seen in the details I’ve laid out previously.

So where have I been? Indonesia, China, Japan, Pacific Islands (wont be specific as its been a lot), Taiwan, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia… Basically name the country in Asia and I’ve probably been there by now.

Have I got pictures? definitely. I’m sitting on over 20k photos taken since my last update here, of which my favourites can be found on my photography dedicated webpage (https://seifert.com.au) and I have a small snippet of some of the most recent ones here below.

So what is the point of this? Well it’s a reminder to myself to update this page, and a general notice that I intend to do so as well. It’ll likely shift into a more abbreviated form of sites/things to see rather than hotel reviews (I’ve fallen for the Marriott chain of hotels, the benefits are just perfect). This means probably some more abbreviated posts with tips/tricks and a couple more happy snap kind of photos.

For now though, here’s some photos I like from an earlier trip this year.

Those of you who may frequent here or have read my previous posts will know of my love affair with Japan. This country is simply amazing and I wish I had more time to explore every nook and cranny of it, unfortunately though that isn’t possible so for now I’m having to make do with weekend roaming of places within reach of Osaka.

For the  first weekend off I’ve grabbed a work mate and we’ve dived into Osaka aiming straight for Dontonbori with the aim of two things, buy a new lens for my camera at the massive Bic Camera store and eat some takoyaki. All in all a rather full proof plan  that we pulled off quite successfully. After the lunch of takoyaki we headed in the direction of Tennoji to head through Osaka’s computer district and check out the zoo. We ended up skipping on the zoo due to the weather (just too hot to keep running around outside) and headed to some temples instead.

On Sunday the plan of attack was Osaka Castle and it’s surrounding grounds (whilst avoiding going in since we had both done it previously) followed by the Osaka Aquarium. All in all it was very good though unfortunately the aquariums main attraction (a large whale shark) was not there as it was receiving a health check-up.

As per normal photos are below. If anything else pops up during the week I’ll post it below but expect the next update next weekend.

After this I moved onto the Changdeok-gung Palace which has an amazing secret garden area as I got there though, closed! Turns out Monday isn’t the best day in Seoul if you don’t plan before hand.

On Tuesday with a bit more planning I headed out to Changdeok-gung and joined one of the guided tours in English of the secret garden section. It’s a rather long tour of about 90 minutes and can also be done in Chinese or Korean. It’s a simple 3km long walk around the closed off area of the grounds which the old kings used as their private area where access was by invitation only. I highly recommend the tour as its quite interesting and a lovely place to check out. If tours aren’t your cup of tea though the grounds can be roamed without a group in the summer months on a certain day of the week (not sure which one it is).

As usual there’s some photos below. We didn’t get up to much last night or today as we’re heading out of here tomorrow. We are off to the baseball tonight though so that should be fun!

Now onto Seoul itself. A good way to put it would be Tokyo but with wider streets and sidewalks (for the most part), a lot more Americans and far more drinking areas, all in all for a slightly cheaper price (though not on the same level as Taiwan). The hotel we’re staying in is actually a serviced apartments building smack bang in the middle of Insagong, an area that is fast becoming the major tourist section for Seoul. The hotel is called Fraser Suite Apartments and for three of us we have a three bedroom apartment and are paying about $80 USD a night which is just incredible (I’ll post photos of the joint before leaving… hopefully).

There was some other stuff I was going to say in the post but as I’ve been writing this over two days now I can’t remember most of it. Basically Seoul so far has been a relax and unwind and check out the occasional thing whilst enjoying the food and night life which hasn’t left too much time for the touristy bits. All I can say though the nightlife here is incredible with a huge choice of bars and very friendly locals who take any drunken opportunity to practice English or to “help you out”. Food wise its amazing with a huge choice of cuisines but for those who aren’t particular to spice its not a fun place, meanwhile for those who enjoy some spice it’s awesome. We have checked out some of the major palaces and gardens in the city for which there are quite a few photos beneath but I can’t promise too much more will be coming up post wise.

I’ll try and get a better post done next time though no promises. I can say though that on Mondays attractions in Seoul tend to be closed which is rather annoying but I did manage some good photos from the TV Tower here (known as the N Tower). I’ll throw those up some time in the next two days.

Jeju itself was easy enough to get through, a quick collection of bags then onto grabbing a taxi to get us to our hotel. This part was interesting as the driver didn’t know of our hotel or speak any English so after a bit of play we managed to get the GPS in his taxi pointing to what we thought was the hotel (it was thankfully). For the point the hotel is known to the locals as Noon Hotel whilst its sold on all the English hotel sites as Luxury and Boutique Hotel at Noon and the sign on the building only says Hotel at Noon… quite confusing.

The area we were staying in is known as Yeon-dong and seems to be the more night clubs and… other establishments area which means there’s plenty of good food and drinks around but also a few seedier places. We picked here though as the price was far better then staying in Jeju city itself and the city was only about 5 to 10 minutes by cab away.

As for the island of Jeju itself its rather small and pretty easy to traverse if you have your own form of transportation. If you aren’t hiring a car (I suggest to do so if you can its a heck of a lot easier to get around) Taxi’s are quite cheap and will happily drive to all the major attractions (they can also be rented for a full day as a private driver, quite the good idea too). Public Transport on the other hand is a struggle unless you can speak or read Korean. Basically the whole island is nicely connected by buses but the buses most of the time will only announce stops in Korean or have signage in Korean (if at all). Whilst there is English bus sheets they aren’t easy to follow. Also of note Google Maps navigation system doesn’t work for either cars, public transport or walking on the entire island so whilst it has the entire island fully mapped there is little English translation and there is no navigation unlike most other cities around the world now a days (coming from Taiwan this was quite the shock). So best point of advice on travelling around Jeju, hire a car or a driver for yourself, know Korean or plan the public transport beforehand.

So in terms of things to do? There is quite a bit but Jeju to my friends and I was a relax and unwind destination. We checked out the Lava Tube caves which are world heritage listed and a few of the main places in town and the black sand beaches. Are there other things to do? Most definitely but since its also Summer it was the wrong time of the year to attempt the hiking trails or a few of the outdoor places. The southern side of the island is covered in amusement parks which would be nice to check out but again middle of Summer it’s not the best place to be.

Overall its a lovely and very beautiful island. I wouldn’t mind coming back for a bit more then two days at some point and if I ever were to do so I would go the hire car route and explore the island in my own time, and preferably in Spring when the weather is nicer. All in all its a nice place to visit and worth the venture if you can afford the extra bit of time.

As always some photos below. Next up is Seoul. We’ve been here a bit over a day now but mostly just relaxed (yesterday was Liberation Day for South Korea) and explored the city a bit. I’ll do a post tomorrow probably covering the first two or three days.

Now for Taiwan itself, the city is incredible. The one thing I can fault it for is there isn’t enough simple casual bars. There’s plenty of restaurants you can drink in but in terms of just a straight bar we couldn’t find too much, then again this problem could’ve been overcome by researching it a bit better but I don’t feel you should need to research where to find a bar if you’re willing to wander. In all other terms though the city is amazing. It’s easy to get around and its incredibly cheap to do so (our huge trip to Tamsui was 55 TWD whilst a short trip to the 101 from The Grand Hotel was 23 TWD). If trains aren’t your cup of tea taxis are also incredibly cheap costing about 200-300TWD to get across the city the only problem being most taxi drivers speak very little to no English.

Hotel wise we kicked back in The Grand Hotel which there were a few photos of previously. The hotel itself is a tourist attraction and the dumpling place inside the hotel is quite delicious but the buffet breakfast isn’t anything spectacular. Overall the rooms are OK and for what we paid expected. Looking into the rooms with a view they are far better but come with a pretty hefty price tag.

Other then that Taiwan is just simply amazing. Whilst ridiculously hot in the summer it would be best to go in the other months for sure but summer is definitely still manageable just don’t plan on walking too much.

Next up Jeju. I’ll do a single post on Jeju from Seoul tomorrow.

So yesterday we went out with the main interest of finding and browsing through the technology markets area (Guang Hua Digital Plaza) to mostly check out the prices and browse. Whilst this was a success we didn’t exactly get any photos from it as there wasn’t anything interesting to get photos of and a write up of what technology I liked wouldn’t be very interesting.

After the tech area we stumbled into an exhibition area, what this place was called I’m not sure except it was near Huashan Culture Park. Whilst cool photography wasn’t allowed in a few of the exhibitions we went into so once again not much to write up about.

In the evening though we did head up north to the coast to a town called Tamsui. Here we enjoyed the old streets night markets which was incredible then caught a ferry up to the edge of the water at a place called Fishermans Wharf which has a cool bridge which gets lit up in all kinds of fancy colours (in the images below).

As for today it was more of a sleep in and relax day with lunch at the original Din Tai Fung building followed by a stroll around the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall grounds, an impressive collection of gardens and monuments/exhibits to one of the most important people in history here.

Tonight will probably be spent exploring one of the night markets we haven’t been to yet so maybe some photos from that to come but that wont be until we are in South Korea as we fly out shortly after midday tomorrow. I’ll do a wrap up on Taiwan soon as well but for now, here are some pictures.

So what have we gotten up to? Well we’ve hit up the famous Din Tai Fung dumplings restaurant (and now we want to go to the others dotted around Taiwan) for an incredibly affordable meal of some of the best dumplings we’ve ever had. Following the best lunch we moved onto The National Palace Museum, one of the must see attractions in Taipei and boy are are we glad we didn’t go on a weekend, the crowds were insane and that was on a Thursday. After wandering around the exhibit halls and looking at a lot of jade (we didn’t see much else besides jade) we headed outside and into the gardens for a bit of piece and relaxation before heading back to the hotel to cool down and get ready for the night markets.

The night markets we went to are the ones near by to our hotel called Shilin Night Markets. The place was absolutely packed with a vast array of foods and stalls (photos attached of the various foods on offer) all for very low prices. It was great fun just to browse around and do some quick shopping.

As for yesterday our plan was simple, head out to Jiufen (a town built onto the side of a hill over looking the pacific) to wander around. Our original plan was to tackle the Taroko Gorge but with the heat and the humidity none of us felt like the very early start required or proceeding to do the hiking trails through the area (we wanted to avoid the tour buses if possible) so we decided on Jiufen instead. To get to Jiufen we headed out from Taipei main station and took the train line out to the near by Ruifang. From here it was meant to be a simple hop on a bus and proceed out to Jiufen. Of course though we jumped on the right bus number but heading the wrong direction and ended up in Keelung, a port side town that was rather lovely but not quite our destination.

Eventually though we headed in the right direction and made it to Jiufen and proceeded to check out the old streets filled with their various stalls of food and other goods. We ate well and enjoyed tea with a beautiful view of the Pacific Ocean whilst the sun set and then grabbed some more food in the form of rice pancakes with grounded peanuts and ice cream inside (absolutely delicious). Eventually we headed back into Taipei where we dined on a lobster and Peking Duck for less then $30 Australian Dollars a head. All in all a pretty good day.

As usual images beneath. I’ve also fixed up the headers on these posts so they should now show up properly.

Now onto Taipei. To put it simply its amazingly cheap here. Food and services that are needed everyday are very very cheap. Think about $1-2 in Australian Dollars for a large drink anywhere and meals not much more if you eat like the locals. Public Transport is about 18 TWD which is close to 60c Australian to get across the town.

In regards to what we got up to today. We headed out to the Taiwan Fine Arts Museum at first and thought we could walk there, turns out the path to walk there wasn’t a straight line and we ended up walking in the heat and humidity for a good 30 minutes (hence the cool down drinks in the photos below). After that we journeyed across town to the Taipei 101 Tower to check out the lookout and see the surrounding shops and memorials. After all that and some occasional bites to eat we moved on back to the local night markets here near the hotel for a quick peek and a bite before passing out.

Tomorrow  we move onto National Palace Museum for a gander then onto one of the more major temples and its adjoining night markets. For now though here are the photos.

Note: I’ll be fixing up the thumbnails on the posts soon. I just need to make sure I set it up right again.