Careering round Korea I can hardly say that i have been living the life of a proper traveller here in Seoul as, ever since my midnight rescue by my dear friend Minah, I have been rather well looked after - picked up by Minah and her fiance straight from my door (after a nice civilised shower), carted to and fro in an air-con 4x4, and generally living the Seoul high life. And I am not ashamed to say that I have been having a whale of a time! Events post-Saturday's blog update have panned out thus: Sunday

• whisked off for lunch to a Korean restaurant by Minah and Sin-Te
• afternoon of browsing Seoul's youngest hippest shops in the town centre Myeong-dong
• over to Itaewon - the cheap shopping district where the US armed forces are based - nice relaxing beer in a roof garden
• then across to a shopping mall for ... more food! Dinner this time...
• oh crikey, it doesn't end there...we then went for our nightcap coffee in Sinza where all the trendy types hang. I fitted in perfectly of course.

Monday

• under strict instructions from various friends/family/Minah, I finally hit the sights, in a pavement-pounder of a day
• caught bus to Insa-dong district and wandered amongst the shops of Vietnamese crafts/traditional fare/tourist tat
• ate lunch in a Korean restaurant
• walked along to have a look at the Changdeokgung Palace and secret garden, hurriedly turned around and retraced my steps when I saw the ominous approach of riot police (many demonstrations in Seoul at the moment) complete with riot protection shields - I know I'm a pretty scary sight in shorts, but sheesh, was that really necessary?
• walked back and along and down and up and along and through until I got to the Cheonggyecheon Stream, a manufactured stream area which almost (but not quite) conjours up that-place-that-I-can't-remember-the-name-of by the river in Paris. Y'know...where people go for romantic walks and stuff. Anyway, so I dabbled my feet in the stream, and hop, skipped and jumped across the river courtesy of the cleverly placed stones...it was super duper.
• I then headed right the way down to the Namdaemun market (as you can imagine, I have been having a lot of fun with these crazy names), where I soaked up the atmosphere (crazy, chaotic, full of cheap t-shirts/hats/bags/cuttlefish) and managed to get filmed in a Korean soap opera (the male protagonist spotted me in the crowd and instead of declaring his undying love to his co-star, decided he would run off with me...well, that is a slight exaggeration, but he definitely forgot his words for a bit...)
• from Korean soapstars to my own real life admirer, as I managed to somehow pick up this little Korean man who kindly showed me the way when I was lost...I thought I had sent him on his way, only to feel him tap me on the shoulder 10 minutes later when he thought that by me taking a slightly more adventurous route, that I had lost my way.
• back for a quick hotel stop/refresh, and onto my last dinner with Minah. Sin-Te joined us and then we met up with two of their friends for coffee...yet another star, as one of them is a pop star here. I don't know, these famous types just can't keep away from me!
• back to beddybobyes, as I have an obscenely early start tomorrow. Makes me shudder to think of it. 5am. Ugh.

Food Fiends* Boy oh boy has Korea been a good 'un, as I have feasted like a king/queen left right and centre. Most dishes are heavily laden with garlic (and let's not forget the spice!), and that, coupled with the fact that I did just brave half of a raw clove, mean that I should guarantee myself a fair bit of space on the plane tomorrow morning... Highlights include: * steamed slices of pork which you wrap in lettuce/sesame leaf plus numerous spicy sauces * cold rice noodles with kimchi sauce, small dried fish, pickled radish * cold buckwheat soba noodles with cold miso soup, finely sliced cucumber/carrot/cabbage/tofu skin and a hard boiled egg - this is absolutely delicious, really tasty and refreshing, I am going to learn how to make this * served with tempura of prawn and various vegetables *the most unbelieveably divine, truly heavenly scrumdiddlyumptious little steamed pork/vegetable dumplings. I died and went to heaven right then and there. * variety of bibimbap - beef and then seafood - bibimbap is the dish you see in Korean restaurants which is a collection of slice meat and veg, and a raw egg on top of rice, served in a scalding hot sizzling black earthenware pot. You then vigorously mix the ingredients up, with a good dollop of the spicy red sauce (NOT to be confused with ketchup unless you have a very strong constitution), and eaten with all of the usual side dishes (pickled cabbage kim chi, pickled radish, sesame beansprouts and some rather odd, algae green jelly-like stuff that I was told was 'acorn jelly' and apparently very good for you...hm...I'll leave it thanks.