On our last day in Korea, we checked out of the hotel at 9.00am.  We didn’t need to check in for our flights until 3.00pm.  Six hours were left then, to explore Korea.  We handed over our bags at the left luggage store at Incheon International Airport.  We said that we’d be back round two o’clock (later, looking at the receipt, it seemed that had been understood as we’d be away for two hours – luckily everything was still there when we got back). 

While Incheon may have seemed the logical city for a short visit from Incheon International Airport, it still took three train changes and over an hour and a half to get there.  That said, the Korean public transport system, especially the new A’Rex commuter train to the airport, has to be one of the best that I’ve experienced.  Those A’Rex trains are wide, there are seats reserved for the elderly or disabled that no one else sits on, the stations are clean, new, and suprisingly empty.  And, if you speak English to the ticket agents or use the English version of the ticket machines, you hear ‘thank you’ as you go through the gates rather than the Korean ‘

Incheon is at the end of Subway Line 1.  However, when all the Koreans got off the train at the stop beforehand, I got the feeling that Incheon itself is largely a tourist destination.  Indeed, rather than being a particularly Korean destination, the small bit of Incheon that we saw seemed to pay homage to two other countries: China and America.

We were worried that we wouldn’t be able to find anything.  We didn’t have the Lonely Planet chapter on Incheon, and were only going on what I remembered reading on the internet the night before.  Luckily, the gate to Chinatown was just across the road from the station – and so we walked up the hill through Chinese restaurants and Chinese characters and shops selling lanterns, swords and slippers.

At the top of the hill was Jayu Park, where we could look out over the city and its port.  One of Incheon’s claims to fame is being the place where General MacArthur and his American troops landed during the Korean War.  He’s commorated with a statue in the park, along with another rather large and spiky monument celebrating 100 years of friendship between America and Korea.

On the way back down the hill, we were invited into a Chinese restaurant.  It ended up being our most expensive meal in Korea (though, on conversion, it was probably only about 23 pounds, 47,000 won sounds so much more).  However, it was probably the best Chinese I’d ever had.  Loved the spicy chicken that Matt ordered.  Also loved the Korean plum wine.

After that, it was back to the airport and goodbye to Korea.  After living there for several weeks all those years ago, it was quite surreal to return as a tourist.  I got the feeling that, despite the palaces and the city tour buses, it was a city designed for locals rather than visitors (which I guess makes sense).  Apart from on the English language tour at Changdeokgung Palace and on the tour bus, it was rare to see anyone else with a camera and a map.  That said, I enjoyed it.  The language barrier and the noise, the confusion over where and what to eat, the cultural difference and the friendliness of the people – of such stuff, novels are made.

Tash

In between yesterday’s shopping and sight-seeing, we were drawn in by the smells of the street food stalls around Dongdaemun Market.  We stopped in front of one, and ordered two savoury pancakes, two lots of spicy-chicken-on-a-stick.  In broken English, the vendor asked us if we intended to eat it at the stall or take it away.  And we said ‘take-away’, and that was our mistake. 

Because, we soon found that, amongst the stalls and streets and people of Seoul, there weren’t very many places to stop and have a picnic.  And looking around, it seemed that eating and walking just wasn’t the done thing.  In fact, most of the Korean who were eating things-on-sticks seemed to be eating them at the stall.  But we were on our way to Changdeokgung Palace for the 1:30pm English language tour, and didn’t have time to go back. 

We wandered the streets.  Our pancakes were getting cold.

Eventually, we found a park.  Wandered in.  Found a seat.  Ate a few pieces of chicken which burned my mouth.  Looking around, we seemed fairly out of place.  The park was fill of elderly old men, many of them playing baduk (a Korean game with black and white stones).  As we ate, one of the men came up to speak to us.  He asked in English where we were from.  Whether we were students.  And told us we were in a Korean Seniors Park.  I’m not sure whether he was just trying to tell us about the place or let us know that we shouldn’t be there. 

We were running late for the palace anyway.  There were a lot of old men.  We only ended up finishing half a pancake.  Next time, we eat at the stand.

Of course, next time may be another seven years from now, as we’re flying on to New Zealand tonight.  Better go pack the bags…

Tash

There’s a chapter in Lessons to Learn called ‘On Arriving’, set in a Korean airport.  It’s full of Christmas music and boy scouts speaking in broken English, two men called Mr Park, an INFROMATION DESK and a young English teacher struggling to take it all in. 

Seven years later, I’m back here.  This time, I’m sharing the trip and the soju with Matt.  This time, I’m flying in from another big city, a home called London.  But the language here is still foreign and the neon lights are as shiny as ever.  We’re staying in Incheon Airport Town: another of those places which springs up from nowhere, another of those places which is surrounded by nothing.  Our hotel room has a spa bath, heated floors, a computer (with a wireless connection) and an ultra-violet ray sterilizer. 

We wandered a couple of blocks earlier, browsing the choice of restaurants – and were slightly alarmed by the claw machine which appeared to let you win a live lobster.  Eventually we settled on Korean barbeque, where the owners cooked beef and bulgogi on a hotplate at our table.  On the plane, we were served bimibap, along with instructions on how to mix all the various ingredients (rice, hot pepper sauce, mushrooms, cucumber, etc) together.  On our way back to our hotel this evening, we stopped at the convenience store for chocolate snacks and green tea icecream.

While we could probably spend our three days here eating non-stop, tomorrow we’re heading out to explore Seoul.  I’m taking a Bookcrossing copy of Lessons into the city with me.  This is where it started.  It’s strange to be back.

Tash

We’ve just got back from dinner at the Coal Grill and Bar in Wimbledon, and saying farewell to another friend who’s heading home (home, in this case, being Canada).  Goodbyes are sadly an all-too-frequent part of our life here in London, and I’ve got a mouth ulcer and this could rapidly become a totally miserable entry.  To prevent that happening, I’m going to focus on the restaurant itself.

We’ve gone to Coal for breakfast a couple of times now, most recently last weekend.  With pancakes and maple syrup, eggs and bacon (£4.85) and a better than average hot chocolate, it’s definitely a step up in quality compared to the breakfast menus of your standard English pubs.  On our last trip, they also gave us two vouchers for £10 off when you spend £20 on food, to be used by November 30.

So we went back tonight, and Matt had a Prime Scotch Beefburger (£8.95) and I had a Sicilian Pizza (£6.25), and our friend – who was fitting in goodbyes to several people in one evening – had already eaten, so she didn’t eat at all and so we didn’t make the £20 threshold.  So now we have five £10 vouchers to be used by November 30. 

Anyway, I’m getting side-tracked.  Coal Grill and Bar isn’t super-fancy, but it’s a nice place to eat.  It seems warm there when it’s raining, but that may just be a psychological side-effect of the fact they’ve got decorative coal-behind-orange-plastic in the walls.  The Sicilian Pizza was a fantastic mix of olives, salami, parma ham and mozzarella.  And it was delicious… even to a tired 27-year-old with a mouth ulcer who was once again saying goodbye. 

We’ll go back again – who knows, maybe even sometime in the 20 days left in November.

Tash

Today, after work, we had cocktails and a President Obama cake.  I love working in a place where these things matter, are talked about, are celebrated.  Where I wasn’t the only person taking a picture on her mobile phone.

I’m pretty sure the cake was ordered from Lola’s Kitchen, a North London company which specialises in cupcakes.  While the Democrat blue icing might seem a bit off-putting at first, it was absolutely delicious – as was the chocolate cake inside.

I have to admit that cupcakes weren’t something I paid a lot of attention to before coming to London, but there are a few places here that do them very well.  I love the red velvet cupcakes from The Hummingbird Bakery in Notting Hill and the ’six packs’ of tiny cupcakes which are sometimes sold in egg cartons at the Whitecross Street Market on a Thursday or Friday.

And people say that there’s no decent food to be found in London…

Tash

According to elections.org.nz, there is 23 hours, 31 minutes and 13 seconds until Election Day in New Zealand.  Here in London, I’ve already voted.  I took the tube across London at eleven o’clock this morning.  There were free seats, and when I arrived, Piccadilly Circus was surprisingly quiet.  Only one person handing out flyers for cheap theatre tickets, and I think I only walked through one tourist photograph.  For the first time, I really noticed how grand the buildings are rather than being distracted by how annoying the crowds of people are.

But, with my early lunch break ticking away, it was on to Haymarket and to New Zealand House.  There was a sign in the window saying that New Zealanders  overseas could vote in the elections by downloading their voting papers and then faxing them back.  That just doesn’t seem like real voting to me.

So, I went in and there were the orange signs and the white ballot boxes.  The girl behind the desk almost gave me North Shore papers by mistake.  To be honest, I’d probably be more familiar with the candidates on the North Shore than the ones in Wellington Central, my current electorate because it’s the last place we lived in.  I filled in my name, address, job title, signed a declaration and then went into the boxes and made my two ticks.  Given our experience with the postal system, I doubt they’ll make it back to New Zealand before the winner is announced – but I’ll be watching the results come in on Saturday regardless.

While I was in the area, I also stopped in at Kiwifruits, a New Zealand store in the Royal Opera Arcade behind New Zealand House.  It was great to see a book by a fellow MA on the New Zealand fiction shelves… but what I was really there for was the Pineapple Lumps.

Judging from the faces of some of my colleagues this afternoon, the bubblegum textured squares of pineapplish goodness covered in chocolate may never catch on in England.  Without a ready supply in the corner stores, we must limit our Pineapple Lump consumption to the packets sourced on the rare trips home, the rather squashed bags that arrive in packages from the parents, and those sold at Kiwifruits.  There the rarity is reflected in the price: £2.75 a bag!

(That said, I still bought two bags.  I did intend to save at least one for Saturday, to eat as I watched the election coverage.  However, that second bag has, somehow, in the time since I arrived home tonight, opened itself and is half empty already).

Tash

After having a Cornish Pasty in Cornwall, the next logical step was to have a Devonshire Cream Tea in Devon.

The only thing standing in our way was time. We’d already driven all the way from St Ives, I needed to be at Exeter Central train station by 4pm, and we still had all of the Dartmoor National Park to cross.

We stopped at Tavistock for some local advice on which roads a caravan shouldn’t attempt (having learnt through recent experience not just to rely on our TomTom). There wasn’t time for a cream tea there. In fact, it was the tourist information officer himself telling us to hurry or we wouldn’t make the train.

So we drove on through Dartmoor National Park. It’s a rather bleak place, kind of like Desert Road in New Zealand, but without the mountains. Just openness and scrub, and sheep with spray-painted markings who sometimes choose to lie in the middle of the road.

In Princetown, there was a prison but no obvious sign of cream teas on the the road through town. In Postbridge, we stopped and parked, but we could only find a place which sold ‘takeaway cream teas’, which we thought might detract from the experience somewhat.

We continued driving, and as we did, I saw a small sign advertising a castle where you could have cream tea on the ’south-facing terrace’. Of course, by the time I told Dad, we’d already driven past. So he pulled into a small lane, turned around, and back we went. The path to the castle was through a golf course. Through stone gates, and we arrived at a large manor house. The carpark obviously wasn’t intended for caravans, and we were all feeling a bit scruffy after two days of travel – so it was back through the golf course, and back on the road.

We finally found our cream teas in the little village of Moretonhampstead. The epic struggle over many miles faded from our memories as we were presented with individual pots of tea, strawberry and raspberry jam and clotted cream. Yum.

Tash

Last night, we celebrated Caitlin’s birthday at Abeno Too – a Japanese restaurant on Great Newport Street, near the Leicester Square underground station.  When I’ve thought of Japanese food in the past, it’s been sushi and tempura and restaurants like Feng Sushi in Borough. 

Abeno serves up a rather different fare.  The specialty here is okonomi-yaki: variations on the theme of omelette.  We shared a delicious Osaka mix, which included pork, kimchi (an old favourite from Korea!) and prawn, along with the traditional eggs, dough, ginger and spring onions.  We also got to sample a vegetarian om-soba (fried noodles wrapped in omelette), and some very tasty aubergine and squid side dishes.

Abeno Too isn’t a particularly large restaurant.  Arriving at eight o’clock on a Saturday night, we had to queue outside for a table for five to become available.  Bags and coats were stored inside the bench seats, and the omelettes themselves were cooked on hotplates in front of us.  Unfortunately the small space, the close proximity to other dinners and the hot-plates soon made the temperature inside the restaurant just a few degrees to high to be totally comfortable.

That said, the staff were lovely and the food was something quite special.  Starters, mains, dessert and a couple of glasses of plum wine squash came to about £20 per person.  Apparently the other Abeno branch (located near the British Museum and know as ‘Abeno’ rather than ‘Abeno Too’) is quite a bit bigger, so hopefully we’ll get the chance to check that one out sometime soon.

Tash