East Asia

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Jaded in Jeju

In the high level plan made many months ago, I allowed a day in Jeju for swimming at the beach and/or diving. The weather is hardly conducive … it is cool and drizzly. I didn’t feel the urge to go to the city centre (it will be like any other Korean town) or to the […]

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Bareback Divers and more

Lava Tube Cave It was drizzly in Jeju city. I was unfazed and took the bus (and walked 2.5km) to Manjanggul, a lava-tube cave … that’s a caved formed through hot molten lava flowing through the rock. BTW, Jeju island is very volcanic … there’s lots of black rock everywhere. Back to the lava tube […]

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Some historic sights of Seoul

Changdeokgung Palace My hostel was across the road to one of Seoul’s palaces … Changdeokgung … it was the most recommended one. While the palace was first built in the 1400s, what we see today was rebuilt in the 1600s (due to fire) and some bits were added in the 1800s. It was interesting to […]

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Courtesy that knows no bounds

My flight from Kuala Lumpur to Seoul’s Incheon airport departed at 1355. It seemed like the perfect flight with three seats for myself for most of the journey, despite the flight being quite full.  To my surprise a lot of the passengers were veiled Malay women who have become addicted to Korean soap operas. Upon […]

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Washing up at the breakfast table

We opted for a yum char (dim sum) breakfast … it seems wrong to do anything else in Hong Kong, seeing that it’s the home of this wonderful breakfast/ brunch grazing tradition.  Interestingly, some of the accompanying traditions don’t make it out of here.  I watched as diners poured their hot tea from the pot […]

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Meeting up with friends

With a 0615 arrival in to Hong Kong, it made sense for us to recharge with a couple of hours sleep … followed by a rejuvenating cheap massage, before hitting the markets to do some Xmas shopping in the afternoon. We had dinner with my old schoolfriend Rosalind, and finally got to meet her husband […]

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Big Buddha

I had hoped to do something a little different this time in Hong Kong.  Often with my overnights, there’s not much I can do at all.  So this time I chose to visit the Big Buddha on Lantau Island, which is by-and-large a relatively untouched part of the territory. After consulting Paul, my host, I […]

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Back to Hong Kong

Kimball and I took the ferry to Hong Kong today.  We had enough time to fit in a yumcha before he went to work, winging  home to New Zealand. I taxied up the hill to stay with my Couchsurfing host, Paul.  To my surprise, he was a mature gentleman a little older than me.  Quite […]

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Casino-ing

Kimball was “on call” with his job as an international flight attendant in New Zealand.  He asked if he could be called out for a Hong Kong duty and crew control said “Yes”. He ferried over from Hong Kong and stayed at my hotel here in Macau.  Since I enjoyed my sampling of Macanese cuisine, […]

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Slice of Portugal

Today I explored the historical sights of Macau … it is one of several places in Asia which have a Portuguese heritage (and with bricks and stones still standing to show for it).  It takes about half a day to do most of the bigger historical attractions (Portuguese and Chinese) and maybe another half-day if […]

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