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 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.

First stop was the War Memorial on top of Monument Hill for a bit of rememberance and taking in the views that it offers (perfect day for it). Afterwards it was off into Fremantle itself to find the Fremantle markets and the streets that surround it which are famous for their coffee.

My first impressions of this area is that its very much like Melbourne, mainly in the amount of coffee shops and people on the streets and the mixed bag of stores thrown in every where between. After a quick break and a coffee (no photos, couldn’t be bothered to get the camera out though I really should have) I made my way further south to the city of Rockingham to catch a ferry to an island named “Penguin Island” to have a look at… Yup you guessed it penguins.

The island itself is a short 5 minute ferry ride from the mainland, while also accessable by walking across the sand bar the ferry is a far safer / dryer option. Once on the island I checked out the feeding exhibit where they feed their local penguins that are being rehabilitated before release back into the wild. After that there was a nice little walking path around the island (about 2km) which took be through the nesting area’s of the various birds on the island. At the time I went though it was peak season for the Seagulls, bit of a shame as they are such an annoying bird but at least their young were cute. Also discovered while walking around the island was a very relaxed and comfy looking sea lion basking in the sun on one of the beaches.

After getting back from the island I headed to my final location for the day, Lake Clifton to check out an attraction known as thrombolites (basically living formations of stone, I’ve included the info board in the photos) and to watch the sunset over Lake Clifton. Not really much to describe here except it was quite beautiful to watch the sun set like it did.

As usual photos are below. Hopefully I’m feeling a bit better by the afternoon and am able to get out and explore some of Perth. If not its a plan for during the week at some point or next weekend, depending on when I get my days off while working over here.