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.

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.

With that bit of weather pitch over its time to move onto the more interesting details of today’s journey, or at least just a recap. As I’m actually having weekends off while over here it makes it thankfully quite easy to plan when and where to go out to and today’s plan was to explore the CBD and head out and run around Kings Park, a giant bit of park land just over the Mitchell Highway from the city (seriously have a look at the size of it and its location to the CBD on a map, its rather impressive).

The CBD itself reminded me a lot of Brisbane, most people packed into some key areas with the streets around the edges of the CBD rather quite, whether this means anything I’m not sure I just found it rather interesting. First stop though was to check out the Swan Bells at the Bell Tower sitting along side the quite beautiful Swan River. The bells themselves have an interesting history to them but I passed on heading into the tower due to the cost of entry and well… It didn’t look like it would have much in it for the price.

After that detour I headed back into the city to make my way down to Kings Park along the way finding the lovely St George’s Cathedral hidden away between some giant sky scrapers. Eventually I made it to the base of the hill upon which the entry to Kings Park is. The hill I found though was a street named Mount St, which by the seems of things was where some of the wealthier families of Perth lived (some gigantic houses and fantastic cars here) and where all the fit people go to run up and down a steep hill. At the top of the hill is the entry to the Kings Park grounds  (while not really an entry its more the main point for cars to enter in and where people wander up). I proceeded to follow the crowds of people and work my way around the grounds until I found the walking trails and went exploring.

From that point onwards there isn’t much else to mention really except that the scenery is fantastic, the view of the city is incredible and the grass so well maintained and inviting in the afternoon sun on a day like today. Such a beautiful place and so close to the city its absolutely fantastic.

Other then that I worked my way eventually back into the city and to the hotel where I’m currently sitting here writing this blog rather then packing. I’m changing hotels tomorrow to something a bit cheaper to keep the budget down. Because fo this though I’ll have everything in the car and be cruising out of the city to discover some of Western Australia a bit more. I’m thinking to the north of Perth this time…

As usual photos below. Theres also an extra panorama included of the Perth CBD and the Swan River taken from Kings Park that I’m really happy with (note to self, consider printing this one).

Now with that out of the way on with the information on Sapporo. The main thing on Sapporo is its cold, its one of the few cities in the world to have the population it does and the average temperature it gets (average is 8.5c) and an average snowfall of over 6m per year. While I was there it was about -9 to -4 degrees each day which according to my friends is one of the coldest winters in a while (it definitely felt like it). Overall though it was beautiful to walk through the city with all the snow falling but its understandable why not many people go outside.

Well they do go outside, but only when the underground paths no longer go anywhere. One of the incredible things in Sapporo is the network of tunnels under the city which house all kinds of shops, restaurants and subway entries making it easy to walk from one section of the city to the next all under the ground and in heated corridors making it easy to escape the cold. Then again for the mad ones like myself it is quite pretty to walk above ground in the falling snow (then again I’m sure if I had to do it daily I’d take the underground path).

So what was my main reason for going to Sapporo? Well back in March 2010 I went to Sapporo to work in the Airport on the new terminal that was being built. While there I made good friends with the local staff who would run the products in the airport. At this point I made a promise that if/when I returned to Japan I would come visit and catch up. Simply put I was true to my word and returned to see them all!

Highlights include going out to dinner for Shabu-Shabu (hot pot), seafood (honestly so many different types I’m not sure if the place had a specific name/speciality) and checking out the view from both the Sapporo Tower (a mix between Tokyo Tower and the Eiffel Tower) and the JR Tower which sits above the train station. For anyone heading to Sapporo I highly recommend the JR Tower its view is from smack bang in the middle of the town and at night they dim the lights in the observatory to make it easy to see all of Sapporo light up, its very very impressive.

Once again that’s enough rambling here are some photos and its time for me to get some sleep. First day of working tomorrow so need to be rested.

After a big night out last night not much happened today so I went for a wander around Shinjuku and checked out all the cool buildings.

And thats it! Photos as follows as per usual. The night ones are from the Metropolitan building at night. Probably should’ve gone up before 10:30pm though as a lot of the big sky scrapers had turned off most of their lights by this point.