Luke: Well where to start? It's certainly been an action packed couple of weeks, with my friends and hosts proving their worth as tour guides in and around the immense city of Seoul and surrounding areas. It's truely a huge place, making someone who's spent their formative years in the 'Big Smoke' of London feel very humble. The best way to describe the amount of people there are in Seoul every where you go, would be to say it's like Christmas Eve in a busy English town with a 75% off everything sale on. The rules are different in Korea but it doesn't take a leap of imagination to see yourself fitting right into them (eating food really loundly, pushing by people, drinking a hell of a lot) although putting pickled cabbage covered in red pepper sauce in the middle of a doughnut will always be quite simply wrong. My first full day in Korea saw Joel, Rakhi and myself take a trip around Olympic park. Now I don't want to enforce any stereotypes people may harbour of Korea or Koreans but as I innocently went to throw a bit of rubbish into a park bin I was confronted with the shocking sight of a dead dog in there. I wasn't sure at first if it was dead or maybe just sleeping but on closer inspection it certainly was irafutably dead. Of course I took a picture but the founders of this blog have deemed it unsuitable to be posted on the site but anyone who knows me can always ask for a butchers. In hindsight this incident taught me a valuable lesson for my stay in Korea, not to take anything for granted. It also gave me a very good yard stick to gauge things by "There's a load of pigs heads in a basket" "Look at those dozens of octopuses in a tank waiting to be eaten" Well it's not like it's a dead dog in a bin. I'll stick to the highlights now although I have to say and not just because it's their blog that Rakhi and Joel have been fantastic these past weeks and I've seen and experienced so much that it's hard to scale it all down, which I sincerely thank them both for. Now I've had some memorable New Years Eve's in London, the millenium being a particular one, but I have to say Seoul rocked on New Years Eve and so did we. Preparing ourselves in the most suitable way with a few beers in various bars of Hong Dae we made our way down to the bell ringing ceremony in the centre of Seoul with a few of Joel and Rakhi's friends. The place was buzzing and full of coppers although I think they were there for the more mundane aspects such as stopping traffic. Armed with hand held fireworks the sky was a sea of red and green flashes and ash rained from the sky. On leaving the bell ringing we made our way down to a packed subway platform where I promptly announced a "Happy New Year" to everyone, this was greeted by hundreds of Koreans staring blankly at me but it felt good anyway. We eventualy found ourselves in a club where everyone was a bit too cool for school so it was left up to us to show them what dancing was all about. My freestyle moves were good, Rakhi kicked arse with some crazy break beat fusion dancing and Joel cleared the floor with his own particular brand of 'Wacko Parry' breakdancing. We were a sight to behold.
We obviously spent a day in hibernation but nothing could stop us from going sking later in the week. There were three distinct styles on display again. Rakhi's consumate professional, just effortlessly traversing the slopes (not falling over once). Joel's rookie, not silky smooth but acomplished and improving all the time. Finally my style the kamikazee, with out a fear for my own safety and that of others. I was dubbed 'The Silver Bullett' on account of my attire and from what I am told my great speeds reached. It was a lot of fun but it became very painful for me as I may have reached great speeds but I also crashed at great speeds too, and to be honest I'm not sure how I made it off the slopes in one piece although I do have a possible broken rib.
We have managed to fit so much in it's been a brilliant couple of weeks. Going to an ice festival and seeing children catch and kill fish with their bare hands in a freezing cold pool. Visiting various historical sights most having been rebuilt on account of the Japanese burning them down. We've been up towers and drank beer on the 59th floor of a giant building and felt just a bit like Donald Trump. Cruised on the Han river and visited countless bars and eaten in some beautiful resteraunts. I also discovered the glory of No Rae Bangs (rooms devoted to kareoke) where you can sing with your friends until your heart is content or your booze runs out. I never knew how well we all could sing we were probably as good at singing as we were at dancing so we were pretty sensational. All in all 'Joel and Rakhi Tours' is well worth checking out,it's been funny, insightful,boozy, and at times dangerous, it's been a great couple of weeks in some very good company and I only have one last thing to say "gamsa hamida"(thank you)