Category Archives: tour
Live eats: octopus
Faced with my first plate of Live Octopus. The verdict? It may have well been my last, not because it tasted weird (tasted so excellently fresh, actually) but seeing live octopus compromised in any way makes me feel sad!!! waaaah!!!
But hey. I don’t regret trying it.
Healthful and Tasty!
In the land of serious shopping
Let’s say I can claim a certain degree of dedication to the sport.
Each building is a separate entity in the space-age shopping hub that is Dongdaemun, a neighborhood in Seoul that I happen to reside in at times (and not always for the purposes of retail therapy – my gramma’s house is located dangerously close). Each nifty building houses 9 floors, and, seriously, every floor is shopping!
a bit of post-space-age shopping
So what? Not impressed? What if I told you that I took this photo coming home from one of my shows at 2am? That the department stores in Dongdaemun never close? That, in addition to the 24hours of nonstop shopping that is a monument to retail democracy, those low yellow roofs on the right side of the photo are actually outdoor stalls they set up for night shoppers on the weekend? It’s true. Kids, couples, families going for jags of wee-hour shopping indoors or out, because that’s what you do at 3 o’clock in the morning in Korea, and indeed! There they were, as chipper as shoppers milling about on a Sunday afternoon.
Inside, you don’t find stuff like at department stores with big brands, but stalls of small and sometimes underground labels that come out with some lovely and odd pieces of habidashery and accessories. There’s also the really well-made brand knock-offs and such, but there’s much too much else to look at that’s original. Let’s just say I got a couple of brand new things, ok?
I like me a retail monument to democracy any time of day or night
Streetviews of Seoul
It’s springtime, bright strings of lanterns line the streets for Buddha’s birthday, and I’m home for the first time in 10 years! My aunt and I chat in the car while I take a few photos.
Tokyo limbo
I have that feeling of being between two real places. Like, in transporter technology, as in “beam me up, Scotty” — this place would be exactly where you’d be in the instant just after you’ve beamed yourself from the transporter facility and just before you’ve arrived at your destination half a world (or galaxy) away. In my case, Seoul. And the instant feels like an eternity in a 5-hour layover lull.
Narita airport in Tokyo is the limbo today. There is no time in this place. They tell me it’s 5:30 in the afternoon, but I don’t believe them. My body is what I believe, and it’s telling me in a persistent tone that it’s long past 2am. That I have been on a plane for 14 hours straight, but that those 14 hours had been good to me.
The new 777 is a wonderful way to travel. Not the kind of plane I would want to fly myself; it’s the kind of plane in which I’d live. Maybe install a trampoline in that thing and dive into a pool of champagne in the south garden, and just float.
I can’t go wrong with the sake at the airport. It’s light alcohol, and it’s Japan, so I sit in the cafe. There is quite a lot of press about “good water”. I’ve had 5 meals already and overloaded on vitamins, so a quartino in limbo is okay before I meet my grandmother on the other side of transporter. I walk around the airport with certain vague goals in mind, because I don’t sleep. I forego the room with the bed and shower, a minihotel in the confines of the airport, and keep walking. 2 hours left.
There is that one little shoppe that is so completely unlike the rest, I know I dreamed about that place when I was in school. Everything about it was different, though. Almost. I instantly recognized the employees at that place. In the dream though, I didn’t know it was Japanese.
It’s only the first leg of the tour. Next time I’m here it will be my destination. For now, it’s the strange limbo of dreams…
