Sons of Loki

Pretty damn surreal to wind up in WOMB at 4am, find a magazine rack near the entrance and see copies of Metropolis with my article in. It was exactly like that scene in Lost in Translation when Charlotte and Bob burst out of traffic to find a massive Suntory billboard with Bill Murray’s face on it. Sort of.

I grabbed one.

Merry Christmas everybody!

On Wednesday, commenced Great Western Adventure by hitching lift with fellow Norfolk buddy James to Bath, where (after navigating the awful traffic – Bath’s lovely but only once you’ve actually got in and got parked) we met up with Georgie, Camilla, Connie and Miles for a mini West Country Japanese/Chinese get-together. Bath is a bit touristy and a bit expensive, but actually rather nice.

Down by the abbey (which we didn’t pay to go in after we realised that it would just be like a church and we had seen churches before) these pagan wire statue thingies were awesome in a totally wrong Cthulhuesque way:

Lunch on the cheap at a Thai restaurant, then them Bath bits you seen on TV and stuff:

Miles went to see his auntie who lives in the area for the last time before he goes to Japan (a prudent reminder that we are all of us going to be gone very soon) while the rest of us sat in the park reading Proust and the Financial Times went on the swings and spun round on the spinny thing and buyed some ice cream. Then Georgie treated us (although we had to pay for it) to the world famous(?) Sally Lunn’s Bun(n)s, which we ate in a pigeon-infested park with clotted cream and jam.

The buns were indeed delicious.

Also I discovered by accident that zooming in and setting a big aperture gives instant arty DOF effects.

To another park, where a young gentlemen who tried to sell us illegal pharmaceuticals was later seen helping a number of police officers with their enquiries, and then off to Bath’s train station, whereupon I caught a train to the Welsh capital of Cardiff and met my brother for the FIRST TIME IN MANY YEARS. Went back to his and Bridget’s small-but-nice house in Splott and slept.

Coming to the end of my time in Korea, with a scant two days left. I’m not entirely sure what I’ve been up to since my last update, but here’s a rough outline:

Finished up our Korean language education, which has been educational and entertaining! We only just touched upon grammar, but it appears quite interesting, remarkably similar to Japanese.

On Wednesday Oscar, Tommi and I visited Lotte World, pretty much the main theme park actually in Seoul (Everland is bigger but outside the city) and it definitely has nothing to do with Disneyland, okay?

Blue-roofed fantasy castle? A monorail? I have no idea what you’re talking about

After the 70m, 60mph Gyro Drop, Oscar wasn’t quite the same. But I love these things.

Biggest indoor theme park in Asia, or something.

Oscar wasn’t feeling too great after the drop tower, so we went on some more sedate rides and tried some of the side attractions (I crashed a commercial airliner in Osaka and won a weird blue stuffed monkey by shooting it). It was pretty much standard theme park fare, although with peanut-butter-fried octopus on sale everywhere and a hot air balloon ride hanging from the cavernous ceiling, which was novel. Also the cute cartoon mascots have nothing to do with Disney, you understand.
Rode the indoor coaster, The French Revolution, which by 8pm had a very short queue (always a bonus). A good solid ride to begin with up to the stunningly tight indoor loop, but a bit extreme and painful towards the end, banging your skull between the headrests. We were going to try the outdoor water coaster, Atlantis Adventure, but a long queue and general tiredness put us off that.

Lotte World was full of couples, as evidenced by the graffiti scrawled everywhere on the walls by the queue areas with K.M.J <3 P.J.A and little heartfelt messages. It feels like couples are everywhere in Seoul, from teenagers to wrinkly husbands-and-wives, but particularly young adults. It’s my theory that with young people living in cramped apartments with their families, it’s more the norm for couples to escape the house for some time alone.

Yesterday, having had a final meal with everybody (again – we’re probably going to have another final meal on Sunday and Monday) six of us Leeds types went to the big, lovely, shiny gold 63 Building. Some concern at the price – even with the discount from 27,000 to 20,000 for a ticket to the aquarium and the observation deck – but eventually I plumped for it and we headed to the smallish aquarium.

These are fish that nibble dead skin off your fingers. A most curious experience.

In one of the tanks, this diver performed a rather incredible display of underwater gymnastics with fish and basking sharks swimming around her.

All in all, not quite as comprehensive as the one in Osaka, but then nothing is.

After that we headed up to the observation deck on the 60th floor, which also boasted a small but well-chosen art gallery with the likes of Mark Quinn, he of the frozen blood head.

After that, I caught a bus to the sauna where I met up with the other half of our group, Anya and Nabbie and Soo-jung. The sauna remains awesome. Slept reasonably well on hard marble floor (anything’s preferable to the heat and mosquitos buzzing around in my room at the apartment – you won’t believe how many bites I have on me now, but I count six on my right wrist alone).