japangie

While Hong-Kong was very much a food-lover’s paradise, Seoul is a shopping obsessive’s dream (or nightmare if you don’t want to spend the money). There were many shopping streets and almost every other shop was centred around skincare or make-up. People in South Korea are arguably more concerned with their appearance than other countries; South Korea has by far the highest rate of plastic surgery in the world (source). This is reflected in the volume of skin-care related products on the shelves – in South Korea a dewy, perfect complexion is highly valued, so skincare is of great importance to achieve this beauty standard.

Anyone that wants good moisturiser, toner, emulsifier or any skin product imaginable, should go to South Korea with a bag you can check into the hold; 100ml allowances will severely limit your skin-care extravaganza. As I was travelling carry-on only I was limited to a few samples and masks (probably a good thing for my wallet really). The sales people are also fairly aggressive – you get samples with most purchases which is nice, but they will also physically drag you into the shop (with promises of a free mask) to look at their products (Nature Republic were particularly guilty of this).

Before visiting Seoul I thought that you only really got face masks, but it turns out you can get a mask for pretty much every body part. There were foot masks, thigh masks and breast masks, all with a huge range of options in terms of what magical product you were sticking to your body. I even found a rather odd selection of Shrek-themed products. The Shrek mask was pretty tempting but I resisted.

Perhaps another side-effect (or cause) of the image-centric culture was this rather amusing stall at the market, which was selling images of all the idols. To be fair idol culture is also huge in Japan, but I have never seen them commercialised to the extent that market stalls that sell only celebrity pictures exist.

If you really want to give your skin a treat and buying masks just isn’t cutting it, you can visit a Korean bath-house. On a day that we felt we deserved a break from touristing we went to Dragon Hill spa. This spa has pretty much everything you could need to spend the day; public baths, saunas, restaurants, a swimming pool, arcade, massages and even beds if you want to stay the night. It cost around £8 to get in, and the baths and beds were no extra charge, so the spa is a great alternative to booking a hostel or hotel if you don’t have much luggage. You are given pyjama-like clothes to wear and a wristband with a chip in it. You pay for everything (such as food) with your wristband and settle up when you leave.

Thus I became Inmate 298 for the day; it felt a little like a prison with the uniform and wristbands but of course it was amazingly relaxing. There were around 15 different types of baths, and as long as you can get over everyone being naked (single gender only, don’t worry), you will have a fantastic time. I felt so relaxed and heavy afterwards from the cycle of hot, cold, outside, medicinal and jacuzzi-style baths. Of course, my skin felt fantastic afterwards which was very welcome as it was cold and dry outside in the city. Obviously being a bath-house and full of naked people I couldn’t take any pictures, but there were a few amusing statues outside. I would highly recommend taking the chance to do this while visiting Seoul, especially if you live in a country that doesn’t have public baths.

Seoul was a built-up city, reminiscent more of Tokyo than Kyoto (which doesn’t have sky scrapers). The subway was a little challenging for someone that doesn’t speak Korean as all the Roman script for the stations is written really really small. The only real reminder that Seoul sits only 35 miles from North Korea, a hostile country with the capability of doing some serious damage to Seoul should its volatile leaders choose, could be found in the subway. The subway had ‘shelter’ signs outside and inside were what initially appeared to be vending machines, but were actually emergency gas masks and food supplies. As they are deep underground, subway stations do make good bomb shelters, but it is a daily reminder that all is not as safe and peaceful as it appears.

In addition to this disconcerting reminder, the apparent peacefulness of a commercialised city was slightly broken by the presence of protesters near the shopping district. Though protests are of course normal in a country that allows them (and South Korea has made great leaps in that regard as it was essentially a police state less than 50 years ago under the current president’s grandfather), I looked up the protest and it was concerning LG U Plus labour conditions. These conditions involve unfair quotas that ultimately led to the suicide of one of its workers last year (you can read an article about that here). The lack of concrete labour rights and exploitation of workers are a reminder that South Korea is a young democracy that is still in development, not yet a perfect high-tech utopia.

Though I have painted Seoul as a cosmetic place (as that was really striking), the food was also fantastic! I have written about everything I ate here. I noticed several tent-restaurants while we were walking around Seoul, which really were just tents with a grill and counter in them, with enough space for around 6 people to sit and eat. I wish I had gone inside one, though I feel like I might need to learn Korean first!

All-in-all, Seoul was a great city to visit. It reminded me a lot of Japan in many ways but it had its own character. I would definitely go back there again when it’s a bit warmer and maybe with a check-in bag so I can get hold of some of the amazing skincare products! I had a fantastic trip in both South Korea and Hong Kong, normal Japan blogging will recommence shortly!

Visiting Hong Kong was such a fantastic experience; I had visited before but I’ve found that blogging and taking pictures of the world around me when I travel really makes me engage with what I’m seeing and as a result I feel like this time I actually experienced the city. When you take pictures of a place you really pay attention to what’s going on, and thinking of what you’d like to write about forces you to think about what you’re seeing. I definitely think this is a good way to travel; even if no one actually reads your blog about the place you visited, writing down what you did and carefully thinking about the place while you’re there gives you a better memory of it. I know that my mother would tell me this is why she forced me to write a holiday diary when I was younger, but for me it’s the fact that other people will potentially see it that adds the drive to properly record my trip.

I have already written the obvious posts; the posts about the Buddhist tourism spots in Hong Kong and the amazing food, but I haven’t gone through the rest – we were there for 10 whole days so we did a fair amount of exploring. Here are some ‘snapshots’ of various things we saw and did while we were there, some are mini posts in themselves and some are just single pictures that I felt like sharing as part of my experience.

You may have noticed in my previous posts that we were visiting Hong Kong around Chinese New Year (19th February this year). This was great but also an inconvenience; there were loads of New Year themed decorations around but as New Year is a public holiday in which people visit family, most shops and restaurants took 4 days off.

There were sheep themed displays in most shop windows, the market was selling New Year’s decorations, and there was an impressive Chinese Zodiac animals display in the IFC building. Half of the animals were in one main display and the rest were scattered about the mall. We hunted them all down. The last one we were looking for was the dog, as some of our group were born in the year of the dog. When we finally found the dog it was a poodle. Yes, a poodle. I’m sorry if you love poodles but they are not the majestic dog of the Chinese Zodiac (for the record I’m’ a rooster, not a dog, so there is no bias there). I think the pig was my favourite, so big and fluffy looking. Pigs aren’t normally fluffy but they certainly suit it. I also liked how the rat was riding the Ox, as it was in the original story.

Chinese New Year in Hong Kong was a lot like being in the UK (or other western countries) during Christmas, the holiday atmosphere was palpable, and much like our New Year there were of course fireworks. We went to watch them on top of the IFC building (we did spend a lot of time there for some reason). Sadly there was very little wind on that day and the fireworks created a smoke cloud that swallowed the later fireworks, making the display a brightly coloured cloud. Enjoyable but not as impressive as it could have been.

We visited a market on one of our first days in Hong Kong. The market filled both sides of the street, creating a narrow path through the stalls. There were a number of New Year decorations as well as ‘copy’ brand watches, key rings with car logos (presumably so you can pretend to own whatever car you want without actually spending the money), fans, traditional clothing, a paint-by-numbers stall, and a huge variety of other wares.

I bought a card for my mums birthday at the spectacular pop-up card stall (said card has since been destroyed by a poodle, might explain my distaste for the poodle statue) and as a group we got paint-by-numbers canvasses to try in the evenings. I found that Hong Kong markets are also one of the last places you can buy iPhone 4 cases, a blessing as mine had died (I dropped it…). The market was definitely a good place to grab cheap goods, very good for souvenirs too.

On one of our adventures we found a statue of the chief manager of HSBC between 1870 and 1902, Sir Thomas Jackson. Interesting to see as HSBC has been in the news of late for helping wealthy people avoid tax. Not sure if Sir Thomas would be pleased with this criticism of his bank; he helped build the bank into the main bank in Asia. He became known as ‘the architect’ for the work he did for the bank, so it seems right that he got a statue for his efforts. He was also made a Baronet for his contribution to the bank.

Hong Kong was a fantastic city, full of colour, food and history. I would certainly go back there again and I would recommend it to anyone visiting East Asia. Not quite China, with notes of the UK and it’s own unique atmosphere, there’s nowhere exactly like Hong Kong.

japangie

ジャパンジー

서울시 The Cosmetic Republic of Korea

香港 Snapshots: Hong Kong