21/10, Seoul, Tel-Aviv

In my last day in Seoul I went to the electronic goods market. In one of the shops I pointed on an iPod Touch asking for the price in English. The guy who didn't speak a word in English took an small interactive dictionary, and signed me to wait.
I waited a minute or two, during his search.
Finally he showed me the word which he was searching.
The word was "dough".
- Dough?... I mean how much does this iPod cost... - I asked with a bit of hesitation.
- Yes! - came the enthusiastic answer, and showed me again the word "dough" on the screen of the useless gadget.
- Oh, dough! - I pretended that I understand him - Ok, Thanks!
- Thank you! - came the polite answer in Korean.

On my way back I met Juppi, an ex-colleague from ExLibris at the boarding in Seoul. Small World.
I am at home now in Tel-Aviv, just wanted to add this last post in order to have the whole story of my trip. And now guess what?
Going to work.

The best bier

This was next to the restaurant's name.
I asked what are beer options, so they gave me The beer: 'hite'.
On the bottle stands:
Hite: Clean, Crisp and Fresh!
So I drunk it, then I saw the next line:
(Fresh Taste Keeping System)

WTF?

20/10, Seoul

I'm still in Seoul, today I tried to do some shopping. I was in a very cheap market where each street was dedicated to one product. The street of the shoes, of the coats, etc... I found there nothing. So I went to Myeong-Dong's streets where I finally bought a shirt. Then visited some department stores where the only English speaker was the paging system. These people cannot admit that they don't understand any English, so they try to guess, but that doesn't work either. The foreign language here is Chinese in which I am still not perfect. But now I can read well the "100% cotton" sign.
I am now heading out for some dinner. Tomorrow morning I'll check out here, leave the backpack at the reception and will walk some hours before my flight leaves back home.

19/10, Seoul

In the morning I took the subway to Gyeongbokgung, the royal palace. Beautiful pagodas, and palaces with awesome gardens in between them. Changing of the guards. The place was established in the 14th century. Then visited the nearby National Folk Museum, which relics from the prehistoric age to the modern times related to life, culture, clothing and food of Korea. Ate some pancake-like stuff, and walked down to the Changdeokgung palace. An English guided tour just began, so I joined it. The palace was the resident of the royal family for hundreds of years. They even had floor-heating hundreds of years ago.
From the palace walked up to the Bukchon, a traditional Korean village which became a part of the big city, but succeeded to preserve the old look and style. Amazing area.
I am never tired when exploring new places, so I continued to the University area (Daehangno), which became the youth culture center. The streets are full of open-air shows, theaters, restaurants and pubs.
Some pictures:

18/10, Seoul

I landed in Seoul after a 11 hours flight from Sydney around 6am, but look, who is complaining. It was a bit difficult to find the backpacker, but finally it turned out that it is located in a very central location in the city. I got a clean ensuite room on the 6th floor. I went to explore the city. I did 2 markets (Namdaemum and another one), had an excellent korean style lunch with kimchi and grilled beefsteak. The grill was built in the table itself.
Afternoon I went to the area of the CheonggyeCheon stream which became one of the attractions of Seoul in the last years. Very nice walkways on the banks, and lots of people relaxing and having a Saturday afternoon walk with the families. The city is a bit like Tokyo (oh, now you know :-) , with one difference: it is on the planet Earth (I consider Tokyo as another planet :-). Very clean, well developed, many unidentified objects [ fish, seafood and bizarre stuff] swimming in all kind of sauces in the market.
As to the irregular names of the places - do not try to pronounce them, call them A or B, I've just looked them up from the map.

17/10, Sydney

Leaving Australia in an hour ... :-(
Tomorrow in the morning I'm in Seoul, and on the evening 21st at home in Israel.
Today morning I took the Melbourne Skybus from Freeman Lodge to the Airport. Then came the disappointment... The Jetstar flight was late with about 2 hours. I read the Time, ate, sat, walked around like a cut snake, and still nothing. Finally arrived to Sydney around 2pm. I put my backpack in the cloakroom [the lockers don't work, so it is just like in the theater :-)] and took the train to Circular Quay. I ate sushi in an ace restaurant over the harbour, walked around the Rocks again. Then I was sitting on a bench, looking at the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House for about half an hour or so with some lemon sorbet in my cake-hole [mouth] hearing a guitarist playing and singing Aussie folk songs. I gave some coins to the guitarist who put the final accord on my wonderful trip, returned to the airport and now waiting for boarding for the flight to Seoul.

Some more pictures

16/10, Melbourne

Today is my last full day in Australia... :-(
Could stay more...
I've been having great fun here, saw beautiful places, cities, landscapes and even underwater views.
I'm still in Melbourne, I went to the market in the morning, ate some strawberries, and later on some oysters.
Then went to the modern art museum at Federation Square, and saw there some exhibitions.
Tomorrow I take a morning flight to Sydney. I'll have some hours in the city and then in the evening I'll be heading to Seoul. In the next days I won't be available on my mobile, because there is no primitive GSM network in Korea any more. But stay tuned, I may post from Seoul as well!
Some pictures from the morning market:

15/10, Phillip Island

After a morning laundry and some walk on Bridge road exploring some outlets I visited Phillip Island. The island is located about 2 hour ride south-east from Melbourne. Beaut landscape, of green fields, cows, lambs, and other tasty stuff. We saw kangaroos, wombats, wallabies, and other aussie stuff in a park and some of them in the wild. Tasted wine in a windary. On the island there is a colony of small penguins. Hundreds of them came home tonight to their nests, and families. We saw them coming out from the water walking home. They were cute. We were not allowed to take photos of them.

14/10, Great Ocean Road

The Great Ocean Road is a scenic road south-west of Melbourne, and is considered as one of the most beautiful roads in the World. Today I went to an organized tour on this road and I can say without any doubt that the above statement is really true. It is one of the most wonderful things I've ever seen. Some taste:








On the last picture you can see the "London Bridge" of the Great Ocean Road. The arc which connected between the island and the continent has crashed in 1990. Fortunately noone was injured.

13/10, Melbourne

I walked in the morning to the Victoria state parliament building, where I discovered that a guided tour inside the building is just about to start. So I joined it. The wonderful building really desires to host the state parliament. We went to the green and the red rooms where the decision makers do their job. The old guide lead us all around while explaining how the house works. His explanations were tempered by occasional cynic comments on politicians and funny stories. Jutka, thanks for the good advise that was really worth a visit. Then I took the Circle tram to Dockland where the Central Pier, New Quay and Waterfront City are located. The port was built around with modern office and residential buildings. The interesting urban styled area is colorful and full of good restaurants.
Afternoon I visited the Immigration Museum, which scans the history of immigration to Australia from 1788 to the present day. The nice exhibition explained general historical aspects as well as some points of personal view of those who have settled in Victoria emphasizing the multicultural history.
Now I'm heading back to Dockland for some dinner. Tomorrow Great Ocean Road.

12/10, Melbourne

In the morning I went to the handicraft market on the Yarra river next to the Hamer-Hall. Nice stuff, but nothing really special. I crossed the river next to the aquarium, which is the biggest one in Australia. (not including the Great Barrier Reef :)
I the liked very much the walking fish which has 4 legs and she walks on the bottom of the sea and the transparent fish of which I could see the bones inside because its transparent. Really funny creatures.
Then I made the brilliant conclusion: let's eat some fish!
So I jumped on the circle line tram which took me quite close to the Queen Victoria Market. A very authentic market which has a huge hall of meat, fish and seafood, and an open air part in which souvenirs, cloths, and veggies are sold. I bought Tasmanian Smoked Salmon with some bread and I ate the delicates on a nearby bench.
I am now in a St. Kilda internet cafe, well no coffee here just Internet, but it's enough.
Some pictures of Melbourne:

11/10, Melbourne

Today I explored central parts of Melbourne. In the morning I walked from the backpacker to the city in about 15 minutes through the park. I walked around the city, saw chinatown, a muslim demonstration opposite the Victoria State Parliament, ate some sushi in a Japanese fast-food restaurant. Afternoon I crossed the river and went up to top of the tallest building in Melbourne. A 360 degrees view on the city finally with a simple map I had clarified the directions for me. I saw the view in daylight as well as after dark. Both are amazing. An excellent Italian restaurant serving ace seafood put the final accord on this day. Believe me, the chef's blood is worth bottling! They're a legend! Yeah, I forgot the restaurant's name [That's probably because of the Victorian red wine I drunk. They really have some good ones.] , but you can find her on the riverside opposite the aquarium.
No skype here, sorry, tomorrow I'll try to upload some pictures.

10/10 Cairns, Melbourne

English breakfast and fruitcake in Cairns next to the backpacker. Then the shuttle took me to the airport. On the way I said hello to the "raw prawn" restaurant, which is probably the best restaurant in Australia. We just passed it with the shuttle. Out of 3 evenings I ate there 3 times. Excellent seafood and fish never disappoint. On the airport I bought a dictionary of the aussie slang; a small pocket book which I read on the flight to Melbourne. Occasionally I laughed out loudly seeing the most visible aussie expressions.
"Due to the high density of flies that inhabit every nook and cranny of the entire continent, Australians have developed a highly efficient method of speaking that involves opening the mouth just enough to speak the words while minimising the risk of flies intruding into the mouth cavity. The result is the peculiar Australian accent called 'strine'. Australians love colloquialisms and word plays. The results are often very funny, picturesque and invariably robust. Appreciating Australian slang leads to a better understanding of the Australian personality and the Australian sense of humor. It requires a healthy tolerance, a creative mind and a sense of the absurd." (Down Under - Slang Dictionary)
In Melbourne I took the airport shuttle to the city and from there I took the free courtesy bus to Richmond which is quite close to the city and the St. Kilda as well. I stay here in a backpacker which is really cool. I had dinner in St. Kilda in an Italian restaurant.

Some highlights of the pocketbook:

fossil: old person
bee's knees: the greatest
blue arsed fly: very busy
blue heeler: policeman
cake-hole: mouth
chew and spew: take-away food
duck's dinner: drinking without eating
hit frog and toad: depart
ace: excellent

And the winners are:
acting/going the raw prawn: pretending to be ignorant
be able to eat the crutch out of a low-flying duck: very hungry
/Thanks, Ben/

Can't write here the better ones...!

9/10, Cairns Rain Forests

After an excellent hazelnut-cake and tea for breakfast in a cafe I took the skyrail from Cairns station. The Skyrail is a cable car which took me just a few meters above the most beautiful rainforest. This is exactly the end of the dry period of the year, so no rain, just the green forest. It takes about 1.5 hours to get to the final destination: Kuranda. There are two stops where I got off for a short rainforest walk, which were guided by rangers. Kuranda is a small village in the mountains. I saw a wildlife park there including one of the biggest butterfly sanctuary of the World, koalas and birds. Obviously this small creatures didn't pose themselves well to the camera, they cannot say cheese and cannot smile... There are some huge ones, others have very special patterns on their wings. The village is full of galleries of beautiful aboriginal art. The way back I did with the historical scenic rail.

8/10, Cairns, Great Barrier Reef

Today I took a boat to the Great Barrier Reef which is the biggest and the most beautiful reefs in the World. Indeed. The boot took us about 40km to the outer reef, where we had scuba diving in two locations. Tons of fish of all kinds around us and beautiful corals. Mostly we moved between 8 and 12 meter depth, which enabled us to be underwater for 30-40 minutes in both dive. The corals twinkled with all colors of the rainbow, with small colorful fish in between them. No pictures from underwater, you must believe me that part of the story :)
Some pictures from the boat:







There is a huge saltwater swimming pool on the seashore, at least 200 meter long. Some pictures: