I read on the 'sleeping in airports' site that Helsinki Airport was a good airport to sleep in. We saw a bunch of people in Athens airport with sleeping bags and such, but here at Helsinki, you don't even need a sleeping bag. The seats are perfect for sleeping on -- well-cushioned and no armrests or gaps between connecting seats. Not only that, but they turn out the lights in the check-in area, so there's little ambient light to disturb your quality of sleep (and no middle-of-the-night announcements either). By the time we arrived (nearly 2am), the check-in area was pretty much full, but I did manage to find probably the last set of three connecting seats. Using K's fluffy jacket as a pillow and bundled up in my own jacket, I slept for a few hours until the lights turned on and the airport 'woke up'. Our check-in counter was still unmanned, so I joined K at the cafe.
Helsinki to a connection in Dusseldorf to Zurich. Air Berlin served drinks and a sandwich on both legs of the flight ^-^ Everything balances out... our suitcase was the 2nd one of the shoot at Zurich at the start of our trip months ago; this time, it was the 2nd to *last* one out of the shoot ^-^''
Rather than playing the standard "ding" to indicate a stop has been reached, the shuttle line that runs between the different terminals in the Zurich airport plays "mooo". Also, you can "watch" the various Swiss mountains "passing by" as you look out the shuttle "windows" ^-^
Our apartment is a 6-bed, 3-bath, much further out of the center this time. K's commute is going to be half an hour or so on the tram. The nearest grocery that I could find is a few tram stops away and it closes at 7pm. By the time we got to the apartment, ate a late lunch, and settled in, I was tired again. K napped and I fell in right after him, not waking up until after 7pm. Remembering the Migros in the train station was open during a holiday day last time when all the other groceries were closed, and knowing that shops in train stations don't have to follow the 'shops must close by 8pm' law, I took the tram all the way to the train station. Migros is open until 9pm ^-^
Showing posts with label sleeping. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sleeping. Show all posts
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Day 11.9: Tokyo, capsule hotel
We flew into Narita via Korean Air. They fed us a yummy meal of eel, vege maki, inari, tamago, and lotus root. The best part of the meal was the soy sauce, in a tiny fish-shaped bottle...
Our first encounter with state-of-the-art Japanese bathrooms. This was probably the handicapped bathroom. It had three stalls, each one quite spacious and containing a multi-function toilet and changing table. The door to the stall was a button-operated sliding door. You would assume the button would not open the door from the outside of an occupied stall; designs guard against human error, right? But K discovered quite accidentally that this was not true. He managed to miss the 'occupied' indicator on the button he pressed, opening the door on some poor chap.
Our first night in Tokyo was at a capsule hotel. Usually capsule hotels are used by people who missed the last train or for some other reason are not returning to their usual homes that night. Most capsule hotels are men-only, but I managed to find one that has a floor for women (the other floors are men-only). Yes, this meant K and I were actually on different floors. But we were pretty much going right to sleep anyways.
Explaining the layout of a capsule hotel floor is easier with a picture; the women's floor...
To pay for the night, we used a vending machine...
They provide towels, pajamas, and a toothbrush (and slippers since shoes are not allowed on the premises). But you can also pay for other amenities via the above vending machine (even various clothing items, since most people stay there unexpectedly). Each person also gets a combination locker (on the same floor as their capsule), and they allowed us to store our suitcase in the backroom, where we saw many other suitcases. Guess there's quite a few other travelers.
I met a few of these other travelers during the night. Two girls had been there for two previous nights already. It was from them that I learned why toothpaste wasn't also provided with my toothbrush. The toothpaste was in the brush itself already! (Entirely Japanese to think of doing something so ingenious!)
Another couple of girls returned from partying at 2am, Australians who apparently had a blast introducing sake bombs to some Japanese men. They themselves had discovered sake bombs during a trip to California. (Brings back fond memories of my one encounter with food poisoning.)
A bunch of floors for men, the 8th floor for women, and communal shower/baths on the 9th floor (with separate ones for men and women, of course). Since I went up to take a shower quite late, I only encountered one other person, who was leaving as I was entering. I had mentally prepared myself for showering in front of others, but I was quite happy that I didn't actually have to. A couple of things to note about Japanese shower/baths -- you shower and wash well *before* entering the bath, which is blazing hot but should temporary soak away all your cares.
Each capsule is equipped with a pillow, blankets, privacy screen, dimmable light, alarm clock, radio, and TV (and pay-for-porn supposedly).
The futon pad was kind of thin but I managed to sleep alright.
K didn't like it much and this will probably be our only time ever staying in a capsule hotel, but I think it's ok for entirely-non-pampered, single budget travelers (oh, and you must be ok with the communal shower/bath or intend to not shower).
Our first encounter with state-of-the-art Japanese bathrooms. This was probably the handicapped bathroom. It had three stalls, each one quite spacious and containing a multi-function toilet and changing table. The door to the stall was a button-operated sliding door. You would assume the button would not open the door from the outside of an occupied stall; designs guard against human error, right? But K discovered quite accidentally that this was not true. He managed to miss the 'occupied' indicator on the button he pressed, opening the door on some poor chap.
Our first night in Tokyo was at a capsule hotel. Usually capsule hotels are used by people who missed the last train or for some other reason are not returning to their usual homes that night. Most capsule hotels are men-only, but I managed to find one that has a floor for women (the other floors are men-only). Yes, this meant K and I were actually on different floors. But we were pretty much going right to sleep anyways.
Explaining the layout of a capsule hotel floor is easier with a picture; the women's floor...
To pay for the night, we used a vending machine...
They provide towels, pajamas, and a toothbrush (and slippers since shoes are not allowed on the premises). But you can also pay for other amenities via the above vending machine (even various clothing items, since most people stay there unexpectedly). Each person also gets a combination locker (on the same floor as their capsule), and they allowed us to store our suitcase in the backroom, where we saw many other suitcases. Guess there's quite a few other travelers.
I met a few of these other travelers during the night. Two girls had been there for two previous nights already. It was from them that I learned why toothpaste wasn't also provided with my toothbrush. The toothpaste was in the brush itself already! (Entirely Japanese to think of doing something so ingenious!)
Another couple of girls returned from partying at 2am, Australians who apparently had a blast introducing sake bombs to some Japanese men. They themselves had discovered sake bombs during a trip to California. (Brings back fond memories of my one encounter with food poisoning.)
A bunch of floors for men, the 8th floor for women, and communal shower/baths on the 9th floor (with separate ones for men and women, of course). Since I went up to take a shower quite late, I only encountered one other person, who was leaving as I was entering. I had mentally prepared myself for showering in front of others, but I was quite happy that I didn't actually have to. A couple of things to note about Japanese shower/baths -- you shower and wash well *before* entering the bath, which is blazing hot but should temporary soak away all your cares.
Each capsule is equipped with a pillow, blankets, privacy screen, dimmable light, alarm clock, radio, and TV (and pay-for-porn supposedly).
The futon pad was kind of thin but I managed to sleep alright.
K didn't like it much and this will probably be our only time ever staying in a capsule hotel, but I think it's ok for entirely-non-pampered, single budget travelers (oh, and you must be ok with the communal shower/bath or intend to not shower).
Friday, October 24, 2008
Day 6.8: Busan, best value hotel
Was it this bustling in Seoul?
We should have eaten at the bus station but we didn't. (So much yummy-looking & inexpensive food!) We wanted to drop off our things at the hotel first.
I initially came across this hotel on a traveler's blog when I was actually searching for stuff about Gyeongju. At the time, I made a mental note to look at it in more detail whenever I'd get to planning Busan. With the couple's comment on their travel blog that it "was possibly the best value hotel we've ever gotten of all 51 countries we've traveled to" and seeing it in the Lonely Planet guidebook (probably also where they themselves had heard about it), I knew I just had to stay there.
LP gave the local number, to which I had to prepend the international code (011), the country code (82), and the 'area' code (forgot what it was). It took a couple of tries to get exactly right, but eventually I got through to a person. But I didn't get past '영어 하세요?'... 'do you speak Korean?'. After my third call, I opted for a different strategy. If I was in a better frame of mind, I probably could have successfully completed the reservation myself (at least I'd like to think so). But at the time, I didn't know the word for 'reservation' and I didn't know my dates, and, the little Korean I did know had been left to rot for six months (not that I knew much from the maybe two months of self-studying I did). Plus, the lady spoke so *fast*. All I could muster at the end was '죄송합니다. 감사합니다.' 'sorry. thank you.'
I emailed S and asked her for a favor. She probably thought I was a bit odd -- this hotel was a love motel, and I wasn't even sure if they took reservations. S says she thinks she was successful in making one.
It takes a while to navigate the flaky directions and find the place. White with a poem on the side of the building ('How do I love thee?'). Through the beads in the entrance with our luggage and up to the little window that the guy opens, bends down, and looks through. 'Um. 예약 있어요.' 'I have a reservation.' The guy pulls out a little post-it from next to him. '메리사?' 'Melissa? (phonetically)' Of course, it must be the only reservation for the night. He tells us the price (a whopping 30000-won for the night... less than $25), we pay in cash, and he gives us the key. But, we do need a place to store our luggage the next day after we check out, so I ask him about that. Silly travelers.
Is it the best value hotel in all 10+ countries we've traveled to? Maybe. Siem Reap in Cambodia would be a close rival. At a little more than $30 a night, our Siem Reap hotel had both a bigger room and bigger bed. Is that what the extra $5 accounts for? But this hotel has a nicer bathroom.
It doesn't really look much different from a normal nice hotel room. Some nicely tinted windows, a small table with some tea, and a bathroom separated from the room via glass (even the door itself was glass). Ok, maybe the bathroom was a bit different. It did have fully-functional curtains within the bathroom itself though. For the shy ones. Oh, and there were some amenities for freshening up... packaged toothbrush kit, comb, lotion, razor, etc. Oh, and condoms. Also, some videos next to the elevator.
K went out to look for some food, while I stayed to rest. And lucky me, this was the only time during our stay that love motel 'noises' came through. Some ceiling shake. Furniture-moving sounds. Other sounds. I continued scribbling away in my little journal. The excitement exhausted itself shortly before K got back. There are certain possible risks one must accept for that best-value-hotel.
This was the first time we got robes/pajamas/yukatas as part of the room on our trip.
Busan, at least this particular section, had even more flashy buildings than what we saw in Seoul...
We should have eaten at the bus station but we didn't. (So much yummy-looking & inexpensive food!) We wanted to drop off our things at the hotel first.
I initially came across this hotel on a traveler's blog when I was actually searching for stuff about Gyeongju. At the time, I made a mental note to look at it in more detail whenever I'd get to planning Busan. With the couple's comment on their travel blog that it "was possibly the best value hotel we've ever gotten of all 51 countries we've traveled to" and seeing it in the Lonely Planet guidebook (probably also where they themselves had heard about it), I knew I just had to stay there.
LP gave the local number, to which I had to prepend the international code (011), the country code (82), and the 'area' code (forgot what it was). It took a couple of tries to get exactly right, but eventually I got through to a person. But I didn't get past '영어 하세요?'... 'do you speak Korean?'. After my third call, I opted for a different strategy. If I was in a better frame of mind, I probably could have successfully completed the reservation myself (at least I'd like to think so). But at the time, I didn't know the word for 'reservation' and I didn't know my dates, and, the little Korean I did know had been left to rot for six months (not that I knew much from the maybe two months of self-studying I did). Plus, the lady spoke so *fast*. All I could muster at the end was '죄송합니다. 감사합니다.' 'sorry. thank you.'
I emailed S and asked her for a favor. She probably thought I was a bit odd -- this hotel was a love motel, and I wasn't even sure if they took reservations. S says she thinks she was successful in making one.
It takes a while to navigate the flaky directions and find the place. White with a poem on the side of the building ('How do I love thee?'). Through the beads in the entrance with our luggage and up to the little window that the guy opens, bends down, and looks through. 'Um. 예약 있어요.' 'I have a reservation.' The guy pulls out a little post-it from next to him. '메리사?' 'Melissa? (phonetically)' Of course, it must be the only reservation for the night. He tells us the price (a whopping 30000-won for the night... less than $25), we pay in cash, and he gives us the key. But, we do need a place to store our luggage the next day after we check out, so I ask him about that. Silly travelers.
Is it the best value hotel in all 10+ countries we've traveled to? Maybe. Siem Reap in Cambodia would be a close rival. At a little more than $30 a night, our Siem Reap hotel had both a bigger room and bigger bed. Is that what the extra $5 accounts for? But this hotel has a nicer bathroom.
It doesn't really look much different from a normal nice hotel room. Some nicely tinted windows, a small table with some tea, and a bathroom separated from the room via glass (even the door itself was glass). Ok, maybe the bathroom was a bit different. It did have fully-functional curtains within the bathroom itself though. For the shy ones. Oh, and there were some amenities for freshening up... packaged toothbrush kit, comb, lotion, razor, etc. Oh, and condoms. Also, some videos next to the elevator.
K went out to look for some food, while I stayed to rest. And lucky me, this was the only time during our stay that love motel 'noises' came through. Some ceiling shake. Furniture-moving sounds. Other sounds. I continued scribbling away in my little journal. The excitement exhausted itself shortly before K got back. There are certain possible risks one must accept for that best-value-hotel.
This was the first time we got robes/pajamas/yukatas as part of the room on our trip.
Busan, at least this particular section, had even more flashy buildings than what we saw in Seoul...
Day 6: Gyeongju
Wake 8:30am. Our room, from the inside...
It's a traditional Korean-style room with heated floors (ondol). Heated floors feel *really* nice in the morning. Looking up, we notice some of the wood 'beams' are quite curvy...
All the rooms have bathrooms, which is not typical. K hypothesizes the bathrooms were later additions. Incidentally, all the bathroom sinks in Korea seem to be quite low...
Our room, from the outside...
The door in the back right side is the door to our bathroom. And yes, that really is all our luggage, one small-ish suitcase + 2 backpacks.
Bus to Bulguksa temple. As we get off the bus, some lady comes up to me and asks something a few times, to which I reply 'I don't understand' in Korean, shake my head and walk away. But I do know what she's saying, or rather, I know that I *should* know what's she's saying but I just can't decipher it. It's only after we walk away that I realize she's asking 'にほんじん です か'... 'are you Japanese'... but in *Japanese*. The whole time I was trying to decipher *Korean*. My expectation was to hear Korean, Chinese, or English but it wasn't any of those. The being-spoken-to-in-Japanese thing occurs a second time before we leave the temple.
Yet again, more kids. But there seem to be a bit less of them today. Back in our middle school days, we had small disposable cameras or maybe large film cameras. These days, digital is all around...
After Bulguksa temple, K talks me out of hiking up the mountain to Seokguram. So we end up taking the bus. Very windy road up the mountain. Definitely would have been a strenuous hike. It's a bit of a walk up to the temple building itself from the bus stop anyways...
The Buddha statue is impressive. Unfortunately, no pictures are allowed and it's behind glass, so you can't go in and actually see it up close, and we don't even get a glimpse of the supposedly dozens of guardian statues surrounding it. Somewhat of a disappointment.
The views down are nice though...
K talks me out of hiking down the mountain back to Bulguksa. So we take the bus again. And then another bus back into the 'city'.
An interesting building (the pagoda outline goes all the way through the building)...
Supermarket stop. It takes some time to make our choices, but we finally walk away with some late lunch / early dinner goodies (the same aloe drink I buy in the U.S.!)...
Eat back at Sarangchae. Say goodbye. Grab our stuff.
Taxi to the intercity bus terminal. Some short exchanges with the taxi driver, ticket person, and info person to figure out which bus terminal we want -- intercity bus terminal is it, not the couple-blocks-apart express bus terminal because, if I correctly interpreted what the taxi driver said, the intercity one has more frequent trips to Busan.
Bus to Busan.
It's a traditional Korean-style room with heated floors (ondol). Heated floors feel *really* nice in the morning. Looking up, we notice some of the wood 'beams' are quite curvy...
All the rooms have bathrooms, which is not typical. K hypothesizes the bathrooms were later additions. Incidentally, all the bathroom sinks in Korea seem to be quite low...
Our room, from the outside...
The door in the back right side is the door to our bathroom. And yes, that really is all our luggage, one small-ish suitcase + 2 backpacks.
Bus to Bulguksa temple. As we get off the bus, some lady comes up to me and asks something a few times, to which I reply 'I don't understand' in Korean, shake my head and walk away. But I do know what she's saying, or rather, I know that I *should* know what's she's saying but I just can't decipher it. It's only after we walk away that I realize she's asking 'にほんじん です か'... 'are you Japanese'... but in *Japanese*. The whole time I was trying to decipher *Korean*. My expectation was to hear Korean, Chinese, or English but it wasn't any of those. The being-spoken-to-in-Japanese thing occurs a second time before we leave the temple.
Yet again, more kids. But there seem to be a bit less of them today. Back in our middle school days, we had small disposable cameras or maybe large film cameras. These days, digital is all around...
After Bulguksa temple, K talks me out of hiking up the mountain to Seokguram. So we end up taking the bus. Very windy road up the mountain. Definitely would have been a strenuous hike. It's a bit of a walk up to the temple building itself from the bus stop anyways...
The Buddha statue is impressive. Unfortunately, no pictures are allowed and it's behind glass, so you can't go in and actually see it up close, and we don't even get a glimpse of the supposedly dozens of guardian statues surrounding it. Somewhat of a disappointment.
The views down are nice though...
K talks me out of hiking down the mountain back to Bulguksa. So we take the bus again. And then another bus back into the 'city'.
An interesting building (the pagoda outline goes all the way through the building)...
Supermarket stop. It takes some time to make our choices, but we finally walk away with some late lunch / early dinner goodies (the same aloe drink I buy in the U.S.!)...
Eat back at Sarangchae. Say goodbye. Grab our stuff.
Taxi to the intercity bus terminal. Some short exchanges with the taxi driver, ticket person, and info person to figure out which bus terminal we want -- intercity bus terminal is it, not the couple-blocks-apart express bus terminal because, if I correctly interpreted what the taxi driver said, the intercity one has more frequent trips to Busan.
Bus to Busan.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Day 5: Gyeongju
7:40 am train out of Seoul today. We managed to grab a taxi, get to the train station, and make it on the train just a few minutes before departure. It's a good thing I asked the ticket lady yesterday where the boarding platform was.
The train is a KTX samuel express train and it'll take us five hours to reach Gyeongju. Most of the trains to Gyeongju are samuel but there are a couple of slower ones -- they take 11+ hours -- so the choice was an obvious one for us. We slept most of the way, but I did look out and admire the colors of the countryside zooming by for a bit...
Gyeongju - a capital during the Silla dynasty (the dynasty that 'unified' a bunch of the Korean peninsula) back in the 7th-ish century. On a cursory glance of being an old capital, I'd liken it to Nara in Japan, which we'll be visiting in a few weeks. Interestingly (to me, when I compare it to Chinese history), there were only two ruling dynasties after Silla, Goryeo and Joseon. Joseon's the one that used the palaces we visited back in Seoul.
Upon our arrival in Gyeongju, we stop by the tourist info booth for a bit and then take a taxi to our hotel. It's not really a hotel, but it's not a hostel either since both terms sort of carry a certain image in most people's mind. I guess I'll just call it a yeogwan, a traditional Korean-style hotel/motel/hostel, even though I'm not sure if it is. The entrance...
The courtyard with rooms surrounding it...
It even had a well, though we're pretty sure they no longer use it...
The landlady is really nice and gives us directions to a convenience store. We head there to buy some goodies for lunch before we start exploring. Ramen bowls, which we eat back at Sarangchae (our 'hotel'). Somehow I manage to pick the spicy one whereas K picks [the only] one that's not, so we switch our sauce packets with each other. The convenience story lady is also really friendly. She seemed surprised when I asked her for a bag (to carry our ramen bowls) in Korean, even though my pronunciation is off and I'm pretty sure I'm using the wrong word for 'bag'. So she asked if I spoke Korean, to which I responded 'only a little bit'. And then she inquired into our nationality (born in China, but live in America) and our relationship with each other hehe. It's these sort of friendly exchanges that makes me want to always learn at least a little bit of the language for wherever we travel to.
Let's start exploring! Walk to Tumuli Park. When K heard it was a park of tombs, he definitely didn't expect all these grassy mounds; I had a slightly different image in my mind as well. Some of the mounds were really huge! We didn't see any signs saying we couldn't go up on the mounds, but we didn't try either.
Lots of schoolkids on field trips, especially near the one tomb that's open for people to enter. A *huge* line, but we followed the suggestion of the nearby park info booth and asked the main 'teacher'/'coordinator' at the front of the line if we could skip ahead of the kids and he said yes.
Aside from there, it was mainly peaceful throughout most of the rest of the park.
It seems all the electrical boxes here are covered pretty well...
Walk walk past Cheomseongdae astronomical observatory (just a stone structure) and then to Anapji pond. Lots of flowers lining our path...
We managed to have one of the guides-for-hire ask the entrance guy if we could use our ticket now and then return later at night and use the same ticket again. After some explaining, the guy agreed. Woohoo! Mandarin was useful here; there were no English speakers.
Like Tumuli Park, there were way too many schoolkids on field trips, which I find a bit annoying and K entirely dislikes. It would be semi-ok if they were young and cute little kids; unfortunately, they were beyond the cute age.
Walk to Gyeongju National Museum... lots of history and art from the Silla period. More schoolkids. Pretty cool steps...
Walk to Bunhwangsa Temple but we reach it after it's already closed =( It's supposed to close at sunset which apparently means 5:30pm these days. We did enjoy a semi-quiet road along the way that was lined with [what we think are] rice patties...
After being on our feet for so many hours, they're no longer being so cooperative. We wait for a taxi to take us back to Anapji pond, but to no avail. Finally, we decide to walk and hopefully encounter a taxi along the way. And at the next intersection, we do -- yay! (though by this point we've already traveled 1/3 the distance) Incidentally, taxis are amazingly inexpensive in Korea. In Seoul, we sometimes took taxis because it would end up being cheaper than both of us taking the subway!
We didn't think there would be many people at the pond at night, but we were wrong. Very wrong. Whereas the day crowd has middle-school-aged kids, the evening brings groups of teenagers on their school field trips, even worse. We do find some spots of peaceful quietness to admire the lights though...
Dinner... ssambap... meat wrapped in leaves of various types and lots of side dishes (of which you could get more). They gave us lettuce, cabbage, seaweed, and other greens. Too bad we liked maybe only a third of the side dishes though...
Back at Sarangchae, we fell asleep very early... well, earlier than usual for us (before 10pm).
The train is a KTX samuel express train and it'll take us five hours to reach Gyeongju. Most of the trains to Gyeongju are samuel but there are a couple of slower ones -- they take 11+ hours -- so the choice was an obvious one for us. We slept most of the way, but I did look out and admire the colors of the countryside zooming by for a bit...
Gyeongju - a capital during the Silla dynasty (the dynasty that 'unified' a bunch of the Korean peninsula) back in the 7th-ish century. On a cursory glance of being an old capital, I'd liken it to Nara in Japan, which we'll be visiting in a few weeks. Interestingly (to me, when I compare it to Chinese history), there were only two ruling dynasties after Silla, Goryeo and Joseon. Joseon's the one that used the palaces we visited back in Seoul.
Upon our arrival in Gyeongju, we stop by the tourist info booth for a bit and then take a taxi to our hotel. It's not really a hotel, but it's not a hostel either since both terms sort of carry a certain image in most people's mind. I guess I'll just call it a yeogwan, a traditional Korean-style hotel/motel/hostel, even though I'm not sure if it is. The entrance...
The courtyard with rooms surrounding it...
It even had a well, though we're pretty sure they no longer use it...
The landlady is really nice and gives us directions to a convenience store. We head there to buy some goodies for lunch before we start exploring. Ramen bowls, which we eat back at Sarangchae (our 'hotel'). Somehow I manage to pick the spicy one whereas K picks [the only] one that's not, so we switch our sauce packets with each other. The convenience story lady is also really friendly. She seemed surprised when I asked her for a bag (to carry our ramen bowls) in Korean, even though my pronunciation is off and I'm pretty sure I'm using the wrong word for 'bag'. So she asked if I spoke Korean, to which I responded 'only a little bit'. And then she inquired into our nationality (born in China, but live in America) and our relationship with each other hehe. It's these sort of friendly exchanges that makes me want to always learn at least a little bit of the language for wherever we travel to.
Let's start exploring! Walk to Tumuli Park. When K heard it was a park of tombs, he definitely didn't expect all these grassy mounds; I had a slightly different image in my mind as well. Some of the mounds were really huge! We didn't see any signs saying we couldn't go up on the mounds, but we didn't try either.
Lots of schoolkids on field trips, especially near the one tomb that's open for people to enter. A *huge* line, but we followed the suggestion of the nearby park info booth and asked the main 'teacher'/'coordinator' at the front of the line if we could skip ahead of the kids and he said yes.
Aside from there, it was mainly peaceful throughout most of the rest of the park.
It seems all the electrical boxes here are covered pretty well...
Walk walk past Cheomseongdae astronomical observatory (just a stone structure) and then to Anapji pond. Lots of flowers lining our path...
We managed to have one of the guides-for-hire ask the entrance guy if we could use our ticket now and then return later at night and use the same ticket again. After some explaining, the guy agreed. Woohoo! Mandarin was useful here; there were no English speakers.
Like Tumuli Park, there were way too many schoolkids on field trips, which I find a bit annoying and K entirely dislikes. It would be semi-ok if they were young and cute little kids; unfortunately, they were beyond the cute age.
Walk to Gyeongju National Museum... lots of history and art from the Silla period. More schoolkids. Pretty cool steps...
Walk to Bunhwangsa Temple but we reach it after it's already closed =( It's supposed to close at sunset which apparently means 5:30pm these days. We did enjoy a semi-quiet road along the way that was lined with [what we think are] rice patties...
After being on our feet for so many hours, they're no longer being so cooperative. We wait for a taxi to take us back to Anapji pond, but to no avail. Finally, we decide to walk and hopefully encounter a taxi along the way. And at the next intersection, we do -- yay! (though by this point we've already traveled 1/3 the distance) Incidentally, taxis are amazingly inexpensive in Korea. In Seoul, we sometimes took taxis because it would end up being cheaper than both of us taking the subway!
We didn't think there would be many people at the pond at night, but we were wrong. Very wrong. Whereas the day crowd has middle-school-aged kids, the evening brings groups of teenagers on their school field trips, even worse. We do find some spots of peaceful quietness to admire the lights though...
Dinner... ssambap... meat wrapped in leaves of various types and lots of side dishes (of which you could get more). They gave us lettuce, cabbage, seaweed, and other greens. Too bad we liked maybe only a third of the side dishes though...
Back at Sarangchae, we fell asleep very early... well, earlier than usual for us (before 10pm).
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