As I already wrote in my German blog, we have meanwhile reached Sydney. It took us roughly 10 hours to get to Seoul in South Korea, and when we were there, we had a seven hour stop over. We were traveling with Asiana, though, and they gave us a free voucher for a city tour of Seoul, a so-called Transit Tour. So we went on the tour to downtown Seoul where we looked at a palace and a market and had a nice Korean tell us all sorts of interesting facts. For example, in Korea when you are born, they count you as already one year old. Also, Koreans like going to the sauna, they have their New Year’s this year on Valentine’s Day and they are protesting the fact that the government wants to send South Korean soldiers to Afghanistan.
The city tour lasted quite long, what with driving downtown for an hour, and back again. Also, we were dressed for the Australian summer, not for the Korean winter, so we were cold. But it was still a good way to fill the time and for the remaining hour or so that we had to wait for the connect flight, we sat around at the airport, writing emails via their free WiFi.
After 10 more hours on the plane, we finally made it to Sydney – and it was raining like crazy. It still is. We took our heavy backpacks and paid 14$ per person for a shuttle bus to our hostel, and I think the money was well invested. We took a nap when we arrived (we hadn’t slept in 40 hours) but then we got up again so we can sleep tonight.
Our two bed room has a nice view of the Sydney skyline, but today the rain clouds are hanging low and it seems the rain doesn’t have any plans of clearing up. I don’t mind, though. At least it’s not too hot, even though it’s pretty humid. There was a pretty but noisy bird on the roof earlier today but it decided to leave meanwhile. I haven’t heard any other birds since and I’m curious whether it will want to wake us up early tomorrow. We shall see.
For completeness’ sake, let me tell you that the movies we watched on the plane were “Fame”, which was dull, “All About Steve” which was okay but silly and I slept through some parts of it, and “Post Grad” with Alexis Bledel, which was rather stupid. And by the by, the food on the Asiana was surprisingly good. It was rice with beef and rice with noodles and beef on salad and they gave us little manuals on how to eat the food properly.
We’ll soon go to sleep and I hope it won’t be rainy tomorrow!
Here are some photos:
Palace in Seoul
Market in Seoul
View from the hostel window
Australian bird
