Tag: photos

Seoul: Leeum Samsung Museum details

More info on the Leeum Samsung Museum in Itaewon.

This museum has 3 cool buildings of different architectural styles; 2 house permanent collections (inc. modern Korean and foreign art), and one has a temporary exhibit.

Highlights of the museum (IMHO):

  • 2 funky huge spider sculptures by Louise Bourgeois in the courtyard
  • Museum 1: some small but impressive ceramic vases
  • Museum 2 upstairs: a tall thin bronze woman statue (Susan would like this one!)
  • Museum 2 main floor: a shiny smooth blue egg with a pink-red bow on top (sculpture) by Jeff Koons
  • Museum 2 main floor: a large mosaic-like painting of a face
  • Temp exhibit: When I visitied, it was Joseon era paintings, including surprisingly explicit erotic art, as well as:
    a 1760 painting of the Cheong-gye-cheon (canal) being uncovered and cleaned up (recall that this was just done 5 years ago, so history does repeat itself!)

Misc notes:

  • Cool technology: touch-screens that let you scroll and zoom in on digitized versions of some fragile paper art
  • the light in the temporary exhibit was so dim you could barely read the descriptive signs

Unfortunately no photos were allowed inside, but here are the spiders in the courtyard:

Louise Bourgeois’ Spider Statues

Cost: W13000/$11.50 for all 3 museums

Directions: M6 to Hangangjin station x1, go south and then follow signs to “Leeum Museum”

Seoul: Days 5-6 summary

It seems with each passing day I saw fewer and fewer sights each day…

Day 6:

  • Dongdaemun gate/market/design plaza and fashion district: market overload and it wasn’t even in full swing (busier as a night market!).
    The Dongdaemun Design Plaza’s contest-winning design is a Gehry-esque fluid building and green space designed by an award-winning female Iraqi architect
  • Enjoyed a nice grilled fish lunch (W6000/$5), where the big water bottle on the table was “Kirkland Signature” (i.e. Costco!)
  • Worked for a few hours :-(
  • Kalbi dinner (beef on a table top charcoal grill) with the hostel owner Mr. Kim and one staff member.

Day 5:

  • Inwangsan (mountain): hike up the 338m for shamanist shrines (part way up), old castle city walls and views of Seoul (south towards old part of town and Seoul Tower)
  • Dongnimmun Park with the Independence gate and park
  • Gyeongbokgung (palace): huge grounds with lots of buildings. too many beyond the first few… also a colourful changing of the guards ceremony at the top of each hour during the day.
  • Pork grill on table top hotplate with the hostel owner Mr. Kim, 3 staff and a few guests (going away dinner for a Canadian guy who stayed there for a month)

Also updated the map.

Seoul: unreadable Starbucks name

Supposedly this is the only Starbucks in the world that has its name written in other than English (I don’t mean all of the stores here, just this one location by Anguk metro station)

I can recognize a fair number of Hangul letters but this is in a funky script that is mostly unreadable (to me).

It does in fact say Starbucks Kopi (since Kopi = Coffee)
And yes, it really was that cold outside (I had gloves on too, just not in the photo).

Though it does seem wrong to pay almost as much (W 4600/$4.05) for my grande soy latte as for my filling lunch (W 5000/$4.40 – tax included and no tip here as that would be insulting in this culture)

Starbucks Coffee in Hangul (Korean language)

Guam: 1/2 day

(on my way to Korea last week, I had a one-night layover in Guam)

My hotel was up the hill near the north end of Tumon Bay, a west-facing horseshoe bay with a narrow beach and lined with hotels (about 10 minutes from the airport). I had a view of the water, and fast Ethernet internet access. No wi-fi in the room, which meant I couldn’t use the internet on my smart phone, only on my laptop computer – and here I was beginning to think the smart phone almost made the computer useless!

The road, on the inland side of the hotels with no view and no real breakfast options, was full of high end shopping malls and low end strip malls, bars, massage parlours and strip clubs. And lots of typical American chain stores and restaurants (ABC Stores, Subway, Burger King, Circle K, Outback Steak House, etc.) In other words, not very pretty or exciting once away from the beach. Not surprising, given that Guam is a US territory (and uses US$).

Apparently they get a ton of Japanese visitors, with an increasing number of Chinese visitors. To wit: I recognized the cold Mr Brown’s Coffee cans from Taiwan (recall, that’s the one whose logo reminded me of a Simpsons’ style Mexican caricature).

There were a few public beach access points, and I meandered up and down the beach (only 15-20 minutes to walk most of the length of it, in one direction). The beach wasn’t terribly wide, but adequate. The water was warm, shallow and calm due to the protecting reef. There is some algae, and some rocks. Parts of the beach are better than others.

The native culture is called Chamorro, whose language has a Spanish influence due to 300 years of Spanish colonial rule. You see Hafa Adai (“hello”) everywhere (e.g. at airport and on restaurant menus).

Well, it was a nice break to my long flights. Unfortunately on the way back my layover is 4.5 hours in the middle of the night!

Tumon Bay, Guam

Seoul: Quick 4 day summary

Here’s what I’ve seen so far (more details to follow):

Day 4 (sunny but c-c-c-cold!):

  • 63 City (tower): good views of Seoul from the south bank of the Han River
  • Leeum Samsung Museum: a few interesting pieces in a cool trio of buildings
  • N Seoul Tower: better views of Seoul (around sunset)
  • Namdaemun Night Market: only a quick walk-through the main street as not much was open on Sunday
  • Silloam Fomentation Sauna: hot tubs too, so even better than the Turkish Bath (plus much cheaper and lots of facilities!

Day 3:

  • Changdeokgung (palace) and Secret Garden: the latter was even more impressive than the World Heritage listed palace, especially with fall foliage!
  • Yongsan Electronics Market: overwhelming!
  • Itaewon: the foreigner district (saw 4 Turkish döner shops!)

Day 2:

  • DMZ tour: very interesting! (long day from 7:30 to 15:30)
  • Cheong-gye-chon (stream) stroll: lantern festival

Day 1:

  • Bukchon Hanok Village: scenic traditional houses in neighbourhood near little art galleries
  • Traditional Korean meal in a resto on main Insa-dong road
  • War Memorial Museum: overkill! But the turtle boat replica was cool
  • Dinner at Gwangjang Market: small market with small food section
  • Went to JUMP show: fun comedic martial arts show

Also updated the map.

Seoul: First impressions

Subway: super convenient, efficient, easy (English on signs), cheap (less than a $1 per ride), clean and goes everywhere! Impressive!
Food: tasty and cheap (both street vendors and small restos)
People: lots of them. Mostly looking at their smart phones. But friendly.
Weather: cool. High of 12 C / 54 F. And going to get colder.
DMZ Tour: very interesting (and I got to step into North Korea, inside a little building).
See map in progress

More on everything tomorrow.

S. Korea: overnight hotel in Guam on way

Got a good night’s sleep, though I was awake before daylight. Now I can see the ocean from my room – will be walking down the hill for breakfast and a swim soon. Not surprisingly, it’s warm and humid here in tropical Guam.

Then I should book a room in Seoul, as well as a DMZ trip which seems to be selling out fast (it doesn’t run daily), before I head to the airport. The internet connection is quite fast at the hotel, so I can easily make some skype calls.

As an unexpected bonus, I’m on the upgrade list (currently #2 of 8 with 5 business seats available) for the 4hr Continental flight to NRT today – unexpected because I didn’t think flights in/out of Guam on CO were eligible for upgrades.

Equally surprising was the lack of free alcoholic drinks in economy on the UA flight to Guam from Honolulu, and this CO flight out of Guam. I thought all international flights provided drinks in economy.

Guam view of ocean from my hotel room (there is a beach hidden by the hill and those buildings)

Istanbul: Day 5 Summary – Bosphorus Cruise, Basilica Cistern

Highlights:

  • Visited the Basilica Cistern (Yerebatan Sernıcı) – highly recommended!
  • Did a 6 hour Bosphorus cruise, almost all the way to the Black Sea – highly recommended!
  • Enjoyed a cheese börek and çay (tea) for a whopping TL4/$2.30 at lunch today
  • Enjoyed a large vegetarian dinner at a lokanta just off of Istiklal Caddessi for TL8/$4.60 – and they actually had whole wheat bread, a rarity here

Details:
Basilica Cistern (Yerebatan Sernıcı):

  • TL10/$6, plus an optional audio tour for TL5/$3 (I was in a rush so I skipped that)
  • Cool! (literally and figuratively)
  • Huge 200x70m underground water “tank” with a few hundred Greek temple sized columns holding up the roof
  • Two carved Medusa heads used to prop up two pillars. One head is sideways, and one is upside down
  • Carp swimming in the water
  • History: fell into disuse and was discovered in 16th century by a French archaelogist who noticed locals fishing by lowering a bucket through holes in their floors!

Bosphorus cruise:

  • TL15/$9 or TL25/$14 round-trip, plus an optional audio tour for TL5/$3 (remember ID or TL100 deposit)
  • The basic (public) ferry run starts at 10:30am and takes 90 minutes to reach the furthest of 6 stops: Anadolu Kavağı on the Asian side.
  • 3 hours later, the ferry does the 90 minute multi-stop run back to Eminönü
  • You can get off at any port and catch the return ferry, or take a bus back to town
  • The audio tour added extra info, as well as showing images of the insides of buildings you cruise by, so it’s worth getting.
    Tip: if you have good or noise cancelling headphones, you might want to bring them as the headsets I received flopped a little on my ears (rectified when I put my toque on, as it was cold on the outside deck) and there is a lot of background noise from all the passengers.
  • Tip: show up early to get a good seat on the outside edge of the ferry for easier photo taking.
  • So what do you see? A few palaces and lots of palatial waterfront homes. Wow. In various architectural styles. And of course mosques, neighbourhoods on the waterfront and on the hills behind them, the boats, the fishing villages, tower ruins, go under 2 bridges connecting continents, etc.
  • At the far end you see the Black Sea where the Bosphorus river begins (apparently the Sea of Marmara by Istanbul old town is 30cm lower than the Black Sea, so you always get a current heading south. And the water does look pretty clean, despite seeing cargo ships and cruise liners.
  • I ended up taking a bus from small Anadolu Kavağı (lots of fish restaurants, and not much else) to Kanlıca (which is the 2nd ferry stop, about half way time-wise up Bosphorus), though there wasn’t much more to see there, before re-boarding the ferry as it headed back, 3 hours later. The bus ride followed the Bosphorus a fair bit through other neighbourhoods, so it was interesting enough and different view than the ferry.
  • There is a “famous” yoghurt made in Kanlıca though I didn’t find it to be anything special (sweet and 3.75% fat). You can buy it on shore or on the ferry.

Photos:

Istanbul: Day 4 Summary – Topkapi Palace

Strange day – sights very crowded, e.g. Topkapi and Blue Mosque, but Grand Bazaar and Spice Bazaar closed (due to muslim holiday). But Eminönü still very crowded, with traffic jam going northwards over Galata Bridge.

So all I managed today was:

  • Topkapi Palace (overly crowded today – took 3.5 hours, and I skipped some things like the thrones room). The harem was interesting – contrary to popular western belief, it’s where the sultan and his family lived, not just the girls. And the sultan’s mother cracked the whip, so to speak, even telling the sultan which girl he would sleep with when.
    Great building and vistas, but tough place to photograph.Tiring crowds.
    Tip: remember to bring ID for the self-guided audio tour, or an extra 100 TL (I had no ID and only 85 TL extra and had to beg the guy into treating that as enough of a deposit)
  • Took a closer look at the obelisk in the hippodrome
  • Ate (deep)-fried hamsi (anchovies; better than expected with arugula, raw onions and bread) and çerekop, a small blue fish that’s currently in season.
    Hamsi was TL6/$3.50 for a big plate (normally 8 TL) next to Galata Bridge in Karaköy;
    Çerekop was TL10/$5.75, though really, the hamsi was enough of a meal (well, not enough veggies of course).
  • Visited the Blue Mosque (small line this evening) but really need to go back in the daytime
  • I tried to go to the Grand Bazaar but it was closed
  • I tried to go to a hamam but decided on the full monty (inc. massage) and didn’t have quite enough cash with me for that (TL117/$67)

Coming up tomorrow: A cruise up the Bosphorous!

Istanbul: Day 3 Summary – Asian side

(I thought I’d get more blogging done tonight, but I got side-tracked reading up on Turkey tips, shopping and scams, as I believe 2 guys were setting me up for the “let’s have a drink scam” tonight, which I politely declined as I sipped a çay (tea) this evening on a bench between the Aya Sofya and the Blue Mosque, both of which are lit up at night)

Today was Sunday and a muslim holiday, so the city was quieter than usual.

Partly due to another late start, the only things I managed to see were:

  • Walked through Gülhane Park next to Topkapi Palace
  • Peeked inside the Istanbul train station, where the Oriental Express used to terminate
  • Took a ferry to Kadiköy on the Asian side, and after a bus ride, back from Üsküdar
    Admittedly I didn’t explore much, but the Asian side was a little disappointing, i.e. it didn’t feel like Asia or particularly different, besides the lack of historical sights; though it did have a fine view back at European side of Istanbul
    Side note: there are in fact two bridges across the Bosphorous linking the continents (one visible from old town), and they are currently building a tunnel as well.
  • Süleymaniye mosque
  • Aqueduct of Valens (large ruins of an aqueduct)
  • Tried some roasted chestnuts (better than I expected)
  • Caved and had a Starbucks latte for TL5/US$3
  • Walked at least 7km today (and no blisters!)

I wanted to take a ferry up the Golden Horn (Haliç), but when I arrived at the terminal it was almost an hour until the next ferry.

I’ve noticed that you can get a döner for as little as TL1.5/$0.86, or as little as TL2/$1.15 with an ayran (yoghurt drink).

There was a kerfuffle at (included) breakfast this morning, which goes from 8:30 to 10:30am. I showed up at 9:45am and the mini buffet was put away! The surly woman simply said “breakfast over!” There were several of us who complained to the front desk guy who argued with her, then put the breakfast stuff back out for the 8 of us (by that time) who would have missed out.

And of course I updated my Istanbul map