… That is Seoul in the Korean language. I left during their Chuseok holiday as the office is closed. The visit was only a couple of days in which to see how the office was doing and to do a couple of upgrades on their IT infrastructure. My colleagues where nice enough to drag me with them for lunch and the occasional dinner. One hooray for the office ladies who made this my best visit yet. Especially the office administrator who gave up some of her time to have dinner with me and show me Insadong. Still a long way to go is understanding something of the language. Instead of knowing just one word, I now know two, wow!!!!!! On the one free day I had, I have been to Cheong Gye Cheon as it had been featured on the National Geographic Channel in one of their mega constuction programs. Went passed City Hall and found some kind of palace bearing the name Deoksugung after having some lunch first. Then I strolled back in the direction of Cheong Gye Cheon and using the Seoul Metro Map arranged by a colleague found my way above ground to Insadong again after wandering into Bosingak Bell Tower and Tapgol park. At that time my feet where hurting as I came to Seoul without any good walking shoes….. The next day it was time to catch my flight leaving from Incheon International Airport.
Monthly Archives: September 2007
Chinese Ethnic Cultures
Visited the Chinese Ethnic Culture Park in Beijing today. Except from the sore feet it was kind of interesting. Some of the things I knew existed, like the Mongolian Tents (called a Yurt). Actually this is due to the last book I read mentioned earlier in my posts. Others I’ve already visited before I visited this park. Upon entry we first went to the southern part of the park which let us cross replica’s of Yunnan province. These where very familiar as I’ve visited Kunming, Dali and Lijiang last year with my girlfriend. The buildings looked very familiar because of that, except I didn’t find a stone forest as there was near Kunming, but that’s not really part of any culture I guess. On the other hand the performance of the Naxi minority was. The last performance I’ve seen being on a boat on Erhai lake, if memory serves me right. Some others I recognized as well, like the Tibetan and Korean parts of the park. All in all it was an interesting experience. So for those who do not travel througout the whole country, you can experience a lot of the country in this park. Kind of like Madurodam in The Hague, I guess. You can experience Holland in a single day. Except this one comes with real size buildings and live performances.
Two years ago
….. Sunny came to Holland, so today we are actually celebrating our two year anniversary of living together. This will most likely also be the last anniversary as it will be taken over by a more important date next year : Marriage. The chance of a three year anniversary is therefor slim, unless we do want to celebrate it or something. Upon entering the Chinese office I already got asked if I got married or not so it seems it’s quite important for the average Chinese girl. Chinese culture is different to my own if it comes to marriage, that is something I already noticed a long time ago, and my girlfriend does remind me of so every now and then. She will eventually win, but you have already came to that conclusion by the story above.
Found a corkscrew in ChaoYang
Errrrr…. you found what in what? Well, ChaoYang is a district in Beijing and has a park bearing the same name : ChaoYang Park. In there is an amusement park (to my own surprise, I didn’t expect it but must admit that I never looked in a tourist guide either). It is in most respects similar to other amusement parks I’ve visited in China (ShiJiaZhuang and theBeijing Amusement Park), but this one had a little surprise. I’ve gotta thing for rollercoasters and this is the first one I’ve found in China which has a corkscrew in the track. And no, I didn’t have a ride on it. For those that have access to the photoalbum (or request it) can see it’s kind of short compared to most European ones. So I think I’ll wait and take my girlfriend towards Warner Brothers Movie World in Germany next year. I haven’t been there in three years and there supposed to be a couple of nice new rides now.