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.

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).