Sokcho

Sokcho is a small beach town on the east coast of South Korea.  It is one of the primary holiday destinations within the country, and for a very good reason.  The beach is right in the centre of town, the seafood is fresh and delicious, Seorak Mountain is but a short bus ride away and the town itself is only a few hours from the capital Seoul.

My trip to Sokcho can be summed up very briefly, but the memories that I will take from that place will remain with me for a long time to come.  I went with someone who grew up in the town, so he knew every nook and cranny within it.  We ate at a pojang macha where they sold fresh seafood right next to the ocean.  We went to Seoraksan and ‘climbed’ the mountain, (okay, so we took the cable car, but it was raining really heavily).  We went swimming in the ocean even though it was really cold and we stayed at a really great pension right on the beach front.

Sokcho is so similar to the typical beach places in the United Kingdom, think Weston Super Mare but without the four mile trek over thick sandy sludge to get to the water.  Many South Korean’s love to go to Sokcho for their vacation and it is clear to see why.

Although our trip was hampered by rain, we still managed to do many things.  My main tip would be to get the bus to Seorak Mountain.  All of the bus signs are in English and if you walk from Sokcho pier right down to the other end of the beach then you will find a small ‘village’ of old hanok style buildings and great naengmyeon restaurants.

Wandering through this village is a marvel in itself, you will see the old small town Korea and the peacefulness of it really is in stark contrast to the hazy lights of Seoul.  Wandering through this town will lead you to the main road of Sokcho, and on the opposite side of this road is the bus stop to Seorak Mountain.  The bus will ride up through the winding hills of Korea, and take you past farm houses and ravines.  The mountain is the last stop, and once there it is easy to find your way to the cable car, or for the more adventurous the mountain paths to the peak.

Admittedly once at the peak you are kind of let down by a small cable car terminal with a tiny cafe, and if its raining (like it was with us) then you won’t have much of a view.  But on a clear day this place is glorious, and its easy to see why this is the most talked about mountain within Korea.  Its peaceful, beautiful and quite typically Korean.  Plus, being so close to the town of Sokcho it is easy to alternate your time between the sandy beaches and the leafy peaks.

Sokcho:  I want to return to you soon.

삼계탕

Samgyetang, (or Korean chicken soup) is a variety of broth that is usually eaten over the summer in South Korea.

Made up of ginseng, garlic, ginger and a whole chicken (yes, thats right, a WHOLE chicken!) this broth is soothing, fragrant and quite delicious.

Recipes vary from place to place, with herbs and fruits added into the mix, but my favourite part of this yummy broth is the glutinous rice that you eat at the end with the remaining pieces of chicken.  Sometimes this rice is stuffed into the chicken, so that when you crack open its shell you can find it inside.  Its the kind of food that I like to eat on a lazy summer’s day, usually when I am a little hungover from the night before and always when I am craving something comforting.

Korean food is known for its spiciness, but this is anything but.  If you are craving something fragrant and light then I highly recommend this.  My favourite restaurant for this, (or at least the restaurant across the street from me) is called Nolboo.  This chain of restaurant sells many different kinds of food, but Samgyetang is arguably my favourite.

Samgyetang is another reason why I love, love, love Korean food.  If you ever have the chance to try it then seriously do, as how can you turn down an experience to eat a WHOLE chicken inside of your soup?!  Its an experience if nothing else.

Hiatus

Its been a long time since my last post, but now I am back and with a slightly new direction for my blog. Stay posted for more updates soon.

Prague’s Old Town

Prague’s Old Town is a place that has been photographed to death. But the first time that I went there I was just fifteen, perhaps not even that, and I had never seen a picture of the place.

So when I first saw it I was completely shocked, and I instantly fell in love with it. I went there when it had only just come out of communism, before it was cool for Brits to come and spend their stag do’s in the cheep bars and before it became so popular.

My Prague will always be the Prague that I first set eyes upon when I was a teenager. The Prague of the Old Town. Because the Old Town is breathtaking. It’s like it has fallen off the pages of a Hans Christian Anderson story. It’s a fairy tale.

The painted buildings, the statues and gargoyles and the tall, dark towers have inspired me to write many stories, and I now love the gothic novels of Stoker and Peake. In fact Prague inspired an entire novella for me.

The Charles Bridge, which is close to the Old Town, is a gothic masterpiece. In the winter the snow that rests on the old buildings, the trams and the cobbles, transforms the city completely.

It’s a must see of Europe, and although the Astronomical Clock in Old Town Square is a bit of a let down, whenever I think of Prague I always think of the Old Town. />

Don’t wrong though. The shopping in Mustek is great, and the small town that my Dad now lives in, in Prague 9, is so beautiful. But during my month of taking the CELTA course at International House, I would spend hours wandering the streets of the Old Town when I probably should have been studying.

I know those streets like the back my hand. I can walk from the square to the bridge, and the small streets stuffed full with marionette shops will always hold a little piece of my heart.

As someone who loves to write novels, and who is inspired by architecture, the city of Prague is one of the most inspirational cities to me. Closely followed by that of my home city of Bath.

Because nothing quite compares to standing at the top of the hill next to Prague Castle, and seeing the blanket of red bricked roofs span out in front of you.

Prague is a top travel destination for me, the Old Town is the main reason why.

On Relationships.

The end of a relationship is always the hardest for me.  The saying of the goodbyes, and the knowing that you may never see each other again is something that I am really bad at.  I tend to cling on until the very end, despite the fact that I know its over, and I try my hardest to make it work.

Because in spite of everything, in spite of the fact that I know that something can be bad for me, I still want it to be a success.  I don’t know where this comes from, perhaps it comes from the fact that I grew up with the bare bones of a family.  People kept on leaving me, family members were constantly renewing themselves, and I had to keep making it work.

So now when I am in a relationship that I know is failing, I try everything to make it a success.  Because I don’t want people to leave me again.

*

It was my first serious relationship in Korea.  We had known each other for such a short time, and this relationship had been a short, sharp burst of … intensity.  Everything had happened so fast, he gave me everything that I had needed at that time.  He gave me security.  Before him I had been in a weird, no strings attached relationship with a guy that I knew was bad for me, but whom (as usual) I couldn’t let go of.  He was everything that was bad for me.  He couldn’t commit, he only wanted the bare minimum from me, and I allowed him to use me.

So when I met this guy, with his big eyes and utter ‘devotion’,  I let myself fall.

‘It will last’, he had whispered into my ears the first night that I had met.

Initially I had pushed him away, and I had responded with a: ‘Not tonight.’

But I couldn’t help myself, there was something about his persistence and his reliability that made me feel so safe after the disaster and uncertainty of my previous relationship.

Within three months he had moved in with me.  He had muttered something to me about ‘family’ on the doorstep of my house when he had turned up with nothing but a backpack and big, puppy dog eyes.

‘Can I stay?  Just for a few nights?’ he had asked me so innocently, so sweetly.

‘Sure,’ I replied.  Because really, what else was there to say?

‘No, now fuck off?’  

‘Okay, but only for the night?’

No.  That would have been too cruel.

So I let him into my home, and for oh, at least two weeks, everything was perfect.

He soon became distant, we eventually stopped talking to each other, and we stopped sleeping in the same bed.  He would spend most of his time outside of the house, and then when he came back he just fell to sleep.  He grew angry and spiteful.  Everything was falling apart.

But of course, like a true pro, I tried to make it work.  I thought that we just needed some time, that everything would be okay once he moved out.

He did move out of course.  He blamed it on me.  He said I was too untidy, too stupid, that I watched the wrong television programs, that I didn’t study enough and that I was too lazy etc.. etc..

It takes a lot to get me pissed off, but one night in a mad text messaging frenzy (as all good bitch fights with ex-boyfriends should be) I retorted with similar attacks.

He was too boring, he studied too much, he was cruel and mean and selfish.  He took everything from me. He took my rent, my blankets, my food, the space on my bedroom floor, my happiness and my self esteem.

But he wasn’t finished.  He came back to take some more.  After one month apart, he pleaded poverty, saying that he was bankrupt and needed money.

God knows what came over me, but being the true pathetic idiot that I am, I gave the money to him.  He came round to my apartment and he made me think that we would get back together.  He then took the money, a little bit more of my dignity, and then left.

I haven’t seen him since.  Thank God.  If I did then I would tell him what a prick he actually is.  I would also ask for my money back.  (It wasn’t a lot, but its the principle more than anything.  He preyed on me when I was most vulnerable, and I’m pissed mostly at myself for letting it happen.)

So why am I recounting this tale on a travelog?  I guess because this makes me realise that saying ‘goodbye’ is really hard for me.  I have mentioned it before, of the ‘change’ that I hate.  Of the moving to a new place, a new country or a new city, and having to start again.

Its the same with relationships.  Of starting a new one, or the ending of an old one.  Change is tough, its hard. But its also necessary.  If I hadn’t have had that failed relationship then I wouldn’t have found this new one.  Likewise if I hadn’t have left Hong Kong, (which was so hard and so sad) then I wouldn’t have eventually found Seoul.

Everything has its purpose I suppose, and without sounding like a huge cliche ridden cheese-ball, I am happy for everything in my life.  Good and bad.

I guess because it makes you appreciate the good so much more.

This is Youth.

Okay, so I will admit that this will be a cheesy cheese fest of a post. So you if you are prone to vomiting from said cheesyness then I suggest you stop reading.

Like now.

No? Okay then.

For some reason most of my traveling experiences, or at least the most important ones, have been about insignificant things. Take the sunlight reflecting off the water in the crossing between Shekou and Hong Kong. It was beautiful to me, I wanted to frame the sunlight and remember it forever. What can I say? I am prone to ridiculousness sometimes.

I’ve mentioned a few of these ‘moments’ already. Some I have yet to take the time to tell, and others haven’t happened to me yet. But I have to take the time to mention my ‘this is youth’ moment in Hong Kong, because as cheesy as it sounds, it really happened.

I had just escaped from China. I was 21. Wow, I was so young. I was so naive about travel, about men, about everything. I hadn’t really seen much of the world, nor had I really decided just what I wanted to do with my life. In fact I am still figuring this one out. But there was something in that moment when it really hit me that I was experiencing something great.

I should back up a little and explain my reasons for being in Hong Kong alone in the first place. I had been working in Shenzhen, China for a few weeks before I decided that I couldn’t live there anymore. I quit my job and left my apartment super early to get to the first ferry leaving for Hong Kong. I arrived at my Hostel in Hong Kong relatively unscathed, (save for some bad direction to a taxi driver in Shenzhen) and decided to go and explore the city some more.

I was standing at the SOGO crossing in Causeway Bay, (this was where my hostel was, and which I have consequently returned to a few more times since) and was waiting for the light to turn green. If anyone has been to Causeway Bay in Hong Kong, then this crossing is notoriously busy. Its not quite like the crossing in Shibuya, Tokyo but its most definitely similar. I was standing at this crossing, the lone white person amongst a sea of Asians, and I began to realise something.

I realised that was I was doing at that very moment was (for want of a better word) youth.  It defined everything about being young, carefree and a wandering spirit.  I knew that I would be heading back to the UK in a few days, perhaps to never travel again, and so for a while I thought that my moment at the SOGO crossing, (when everything stopped still movie-like, and I really realised just what I was accomplishing) would be my Defining Moment of Youth. That I could tell my grandchildren about it when I grew old:  I was in Hong Kong.

Obviously, we all know that this was not to be my only great moment in travelling.  It most definitely makes the top ten so far though.  I naively thought though that youth was defined through one moment.  One single event.  But now I have begun to realise differently.

It takes me back to the movie The Hours, where Meryl Streep’s character talks of her moment when she thinks that ‘this is perfect, this is the beginning of happiness’ when she actually comes to realise that it was the end.  Or something like that.  My moment was similar, except that mine was in reverse.  I thought my time at the SOGO crossing was the end of my happiness and of traveling, but in actual fact it was at the very, very beginning.  I’m not the same person that I was back then, I have grown and matured.  But I am the same traveler that I was back then, and I guess that is all that really matters.

/end of vomitous cheesy post.

Culture Shock

I remember the first time that I felt culture shock. Before that moment it hadn’t really occurred to me, or I hadn’t really thought too much about it. Even when it hit, it took me a while to understand just what it was and why I was feeling this way. But anyone who travels to far off places probably has been hit by it at least once in their life.

My culture shock hit me once and it hit me hard. After that every new country that I visited paled in comparison to my first time entering China.

I lived in a city called Shenzhen. It isn’t a small city by any means. It is (or maybe was at the time) one of the fastest growing cities in China. Mistakenly I thought that this would mean it was developed, that people would speak English, that it would be (if only a little) western.

My naiveness was a sign of the fact that this was my first time traveling alone and outside of Europe. Before that I had spent a month in Prague studying for my CELTA. This was my first big adventure, and it didn’t go too well.

After about a week it hit me. It was almost like a sickness, where I could hardly face going out of the house. Everything around me was exhausting. I was tired and bewildered and I just wanted to escape.

Things that should have been easy, like going to the shops, became something that I just didn’t want to face. It wasn’t even because of the language barrier, although that was a factor. It was deeper than that, I just didn’t even want to do those basic things. I just didn’t have the energy.

I knew pretty much from the start that Shenzhen wasn’t for me. The culture shock being the main reason why, but not the only reason. I think that if the shock had been tempered with positive things such as friendly people and a nice roommate then I could have stayed longer. But everything about the experience was exhausting, and I knew that I had to leave.

The culture shock hit me so hard that I didn’t travel for a year and a half. The experience was so negative that it halted all of my grand plans to see the world. I went back to England, and for a while I thought that perhaps I wouldn’t travel again.

I did, of course. Travel that is. I learned a lot from that experience though. I learned that I need a big city in order to survive. A capital city perhaps, and so I have mainly lived in capital cities since. Take Warsaw, Hong Kong and Seoul as the leading examples of that. I have also never felt that bad again. Heading to Hong Kong was a piece of cake, Bangkok was a walk in the park, and I felt nothing about coming to Seoul.

I am a little sad that I no longer feel culture shock in Asia. Perhaps another continent would surprise me more, I have never been to South America for example. I don’t know. But I do know that although entirely hideous, I will never go through that again.

Well, touch wood.

Travel tip #6

Gah, until I get my laptop fixed this blog is confined to trips to the free wifi in coffee shops on my iPad. Hence the lack of posts.

So travel tip number 6 will be consequently short and sweet. And it’s kind of an obvious one really, and something that I will go into greater detail when I can a actually type without using a touch screen.

It’s about Africa, and it’s about a safari. Yup, that’s right, it’s the safari style trip I did for three days in the Kruger National Park in South Africa. It was awesome, we saw 4 of the Big 5, (aka giraffes, hyenas, rhinos and elephants. But no tigers, boo). We camped under the stars, and were told frightening stories to keep us in our tents. Such as the guy who went outside to pee, and never returned. No one found his carcass or his bones. Nothing. Nada.

Yeah, the safari isn’t for the faint hearted. The hyena stalked our van for well over an hour. I freaked and thought we were all going to die. Our van also began to resemble a trash bin considering the amount of time we spent in it.

But the fireside stories and the animals, and the views were freaking amazing. Everyone should safari once in their life, and the safari at the Kruger isn’t a bad way to go about it!

Travel tip #5

DO:

Go to Guilin in China. Mainly because it is awesome, but mostly just because it is awesome. Friends of mine from HK used to go there all the time because it was close, cheap and had spectacular views.

I personally haven’t been.  So how can you recommend a place that you haven’t been to? I hear you all cry.

To which I will respond with just one thing. Have you seen the picture above? Like seriously. If that isn’t enough to persuade you then I don’t know what is.

China is one of the places I want to discover more of. Guilin is the number one reason why.

Go, go, go!!

The Downside:

I feel like I need to write about this at least once, because it’s the one thing about traveling that is rarely mentioned. Perhaps it’s because I am currently feeling this way right now, or perhaps it’s just one of those things that I feel the need to address; but it’s something that I am sure affects everyone who has been traveling for a long time.

It’s the isolation. The fact that you are a million miles away from your family, and probably won’t get to see them again for a year or two. That you have to make new friends, which is always great; but also intimidating too.

Because as much as expats say: ‘yes it is hard to be so far away from home’, and that: ‘Yes, you do sometimes miss your family’, it compares nothing to spending Christmas Day with someone who genuinely doesn’t have a clue as to how homesick you’re feeling. It’s the moments when you just want to speak to your mum, or when you really couldn’t wish for anything other than being in your family home, vegging out on the sofa, watching crap TV and eating your body weight in good, greasy food.

So then people say: ‘why should you complain, you’re seeing the world’, or: ‘why not just come home then?’ Which is kind of pointless, as doesn’t everyone in their life have things that they aren’t happy about? The positives do outweigh the negatives after all.

As anyone who has anything that they love, be it their job, a significant other, or whatever, you take the good with the bad.

Because the good is so worth it.