Hi Everyone,

Since I hit Seoul airport, 14 days ago now, Hayley and I have been on the go constantly and didn't stop talking for days! It's great to be with her again!

Hayley is now back at work and we have turned off major tourist mode and are now in relaxed visit mode, so should be able to catch up with people in Australia via the internet easier now! I haven't done anything on the computer with my photos and travel blog site yet, some of you will be thinking I've fallen off the end of the earth, sorry!

It has all gone so quickly, first we had 2 days here in Seoul where I got to visit Hayley's school and spent all day with them as it was field trip day and we all went by bus to "American City". They are all so cute, and it was great seeing them with Hayley! That night I got to meet Hayley's boyfriend, Issao, when we went out to dinner ... very nice, tick of approval! My second day I spent with Martha, who is one of the other foreign teacher's mum visiting from America, and we conquered the Seoul subway system all on our own ... well with a little help from some Koreans (with little english) who took pity on us staring at the map! We visited the largest Palace here which is 2 subway lines away, walked around the area quite a bit, then 2 subway lines back and off at a different station to meet the girls after work. I think they were surprised to see us at the right place and the right time so we passed the subway test! Dinner and back home to pack for China the following day as Hayley was now on a week's school holiday, and we had booked a 5day tour to Beijing with Martha and her daughter "Teacher Jennifer", that's what the Korean kids call the teachers. So Hayley is "Teacher Hayley" and I was "Teacher Hayley's Mum".

We hit the ground running in Beijing with being picked up at the airport by the tour guide (enlgish speaking Chinese lady) along with the other 10 people on the tour. Nine of who were also English teacher's from Korea and one more mum, so we had 3 mum and daughter couples on tour! The tour days were full but with enough time to explore each place, we would leave 8am in the morning and not get back to the hotel till 10 or 11 at night, then flop into bed after a long shower! We saw so much in the 4 days, it was great but exhausting, the only way to see a foreign city in a short time!

Yes, we climbed The Great Wall, some of us further than others! We got a bit confused with what the tour guide said but Hayley reached the 4th Tower and I the 3rd Tower. One of these is 800 steps and half way up to the last one possible in this section, and since there are a possible 6 towers to reach, it could be my 3rd Tower which is 800 steps to climb so I'm using that calculation, although it felt like it was 8,000 steps!! We were all called 'heroes' by the tour guide, and as it was 34 deg and with very high humidity we felt like heroes too! That night the guide, Linda, arranged for us to have a foot massage in our hotel rooms at a special discount - our poor feet deserved it! Hayley and I had a giggle as the massage started off with our feet being soaked in plastic bags with warm tea solution!

The last day of the tour was free to do what we wanted so the four of us headed off in a local taxi (very brave of us if you've seen the way they drive) for some more sightseeing, then to downtown Beijing for some shopping therapy. Well didn't really buy much, just window shopping really, found a little side street with market stalls including some very unusual things to eat on sticks! This was definitely only 'window shopping' here! They had scorpions, star-fish, sea-horses, centipedes, lizards, crickets and other equally horrible things to eat, some still alive on the stick, as they only deep fry them when you buy. We did buy food on a stick to eat, but our food was pieces of fruit dipped in toffee, how very western of us not to mention safer!

Then back to Seoul where we totally changed our plans for the last half of Hayley's school holidays. We had planned to head for Busan on the southern coast of South Korea, 2hr40min by fast train the following day but were not able to EASILY find accommodation, and didn't fancy sleeping on the street if nothing found when there. I now know some of Hayley's frustration when trying to do something but, by not speaking Korean it becomes impossible, some Hotels would hang up when you asked if they spoke English so I assumed they didn't. The lady at the backpackers was the only one that spoke pretty good English, but they were booked out! We now have accommodation booked for this weekend at the same place Judith and Zoe stayed. It's a backpackers and we MAY have to share a bunk room with strangers but at least we know it's ok.

Over the remainder of Hayley's holidays we played Seoul tourist instead and wandered from subway to subway looking for places. We found this street that had many petshops in it and found many toy poodle pups for sale, they were sooooooo cute and we wanted to rescue them and take them all home, but I only have one especially beautiful red pup to bring home with me! No just kidding ... Hayley is keeping it instead! No just kidding ... we only took away with us a photo of the pup! They all looked really young pups and we asked the shop keeper of the special one how old and he said 50days, so that's about 7weeks old which is too young, didn't ask how much but would have been interested to see!

Other places we visited were, 63 Building which is a high rise with a glass walled lift and viewing floor up the top, beautiful view of Seoul, lots of photos of course! Ferry ride along the Hangang River (main huge river through Seoul) under almost all of the 24 bridges across the river. Went to a Korean Karate Comedy Theatre show called "Jump" which was pretty good, had slap-stick humour but well done and good Karate moves. Apart from that we just caught many subways to varying shops, got lost a few times looking for ones in particular, and very tired with all the stairs to climb in and out of the subway stations - have I told you about all the stairs to climb? They are neverending, either at the subway or when visiting a temple, everything is up up up! And all this in high humidity! For someone not able to walk up stairs it would be very very hard to get around, I'm having enough trouble not only with the stairs but in Hayley's apartment as to do anything involves bending - Hayley says, welcome to my world mum! But I'm not grumbling really I'm not!

I had a hard day yesterday doing all the housework in Hayley's apartment, Hayley is now back at work and she had left me a list of jobs to do around the 'large' apartment: defrost the freezer, wash the sheets and towells at the laundromat, unblock the drains! And I thought I was coming for a holiday???? Well the laundry was easy, it's only up the road a few minutes walk and I only did the sheets and towells as they are hard to dry in the apartment on the clothes horse, and Martha was there as well so we had a chat. Martha has now gone back home to Phoenix Arizona, so I now have to wander Seoul totally on my own while Hayley is at school. The bathroom drain is sooooooo blocked with hair, we end up having a bath not a shower! The grate came off and I managed to get heaps and heaps of hair out, so mum's do come in handy! Oh yeah, I also swept and washed the huge apartment floor, may not be big but oh my back was not happy with all the bending, had to lay down for a nanna nap!

Today when I've finished this I can either start on the photos or I might be adventurous and go find something to do/look at on my own, or probably a bit of both ... decisions decisions!!