South Korea and games

I still have a couple of entries about Seoul that I want to write, but instead of writing day specific ones, I’ll be writing ones focusing on a specific theme. Note that I’m also finally uploading the photos from out trip bit by bit and will try to link them up here once I’m done. So keep a close eye on the blog sidebar!

The theme of this first entry is – as the title suggests – the game culture in South Korea.

Gaming is huge in South Korea, but in a completely different way from any other country. The most obvious manifestation of this is of course the country’s national sport, Starcraft. Although people in other countries find it strange that playing a video game could be a professional sport, in South Korea many make a living out of playing Starcraft – as does an increasing number of people in the US. Other countries are also catching on, including countries such as Finland and Sweden.

It didn’t take us long to run into professional Starcraft. We entered our hotel room, turned on the tv, and after flicking channels for a bit ended up in a channel called OnGameNet which shows live Starcraft matches and other video game related programs. Well, they also show more traditional sports quite often.

Another thing we encountered quite soon were PC cafes – in other words, a place full of gaming computers. Once you recognize one for the first time, you realize they’re everywhere. My impression is that any slightly bigger street will have one every other block. What you might not expect though is that the computer’s aren’t exactly top-notch gaming machines – nor is the internet speed something you’d expect of South Korea.

The impression we got based on our visit was that most places have quite a slow connection and the wireless drops out quite often, plus you won’t really find that many games that you can actually play in a PC cafe if you don’t have an account for the games beforehand. And even if you do, you’ll quite probably have to waste an hour on simply updating the game you want to play. Other than the internet and computers being a bit slow though, the place had a really nice atmosphere and setup, and the staff was very friendly and helpful, even if they didn’t speak much english.

Obviously we also had to go check out some Starcraft live since we were in Seoul, and luckily there were some GSL (Global Starcraft II League) games on during our stay. After researching the directions online, we headed off to find the GomTV studios where the matches are televised.

The studio is actually surprisingly small, and looks quite plain from the outside. The entrance is situated behind the basketball field of a local school, and it doesn’t really make a number of itself, apart from the sign on the school wall saying “GomTV studios”. The studio is quite impressively designed though – they’ve really made good use of the limited space they have. The entrance hall’s walls are full of fan photos and drawings, and they also have a wall of fame of course. The studio itself follows the Starcraft aesthetic very faithfully, and is quite a bombardment on the senses with bright ligths, loud music and even louder Korean commentators. A great experience for any gamer, even if you’re not that much into e-sports.

Another interesting thing about the Korean gaming culture is that it’s very PC heavy. Nevertheless, you can still find some consoles and console games from Yongsan, Seoul’s district for electronics. The best place we found is what the writers of these instructions call “the Game Ghetto” – it has a pretty good selection of hardware and games, and you can even find older games and GameBoys. The sales people are also very helpful and some of them speak good English too. We really liked a place called “Raymond’s shop” because the owner spoke very good English, was extremely helpful, and was very knowledgeable.

All in all, South Korea’s great if you’re a PC gamer, and quite nice for a console gamer as well. There also seems to be quite a large Western minority of gamers, so Seoul wouldn’t be a bad place to live in.

Seoul day 6 – Best parts of Seoul and some touristy things

I’m going to skip day 5 for now, since I’ll be writing a couple of posts on specific themes. There will however still be some posts focusing on specific days, including this one.

Day 6 was finally our first day fully reserved for touristy stuff. We started by travelling to Yeoinaru station to check out the Han River Cruise – I’m not a big fan of viewing platforms, sightseeing buses and such, but river cruises tend to give you a completely different perspective to a city, especially a big one. Unfortunately the cruise didn’t really offer any amazing insight to the city this time, especially since the host focused almost solely on the different bridges we passed. It was quite pleasant as a whole though, and the views from the ship were nice nevertheless.

After the cruise, we headed to where all the historically interesting sights seem to be clustered, meaning things close to Jogno 3-ga, Anguk, and Gwanghwamun stations – just follow the signs inside the metro stations to which ever sight you’re aiming for and you’ll get there quite easily.

We came out from Gwanghwamun station, and ended up in front of the statue of King Sejong – at a perfect time as well. While we were snapping some of photos, a big group of people dressed up in colourful clothes, holding high flags started marching towards us and the statue. I’m still not sure of the specifics, but it was obviously some sort of a reenactment of how King Sejong’s soldiers looked and acted back in the day, organised for the amusement of tourists. The group marched around and settled in front of the king’s statue and played some fanfares, but the act ended in a bit of an anticlimatic way with tourists running up to the actors to pose for photos with them – admittedly I had expected something more exciting from the flags and fanfares.

We decided to continue towards what is usually known as either Samcheong-dong or Old Seoul. The area has some of the oldest privately owned traditional style houses in all of Seoul, but also the liveliest art and culture scene. During our walk down some of the alleys, we saw a number of artsy cafes, small art exhibitions, and small stores of local up-and-coming designers (mostly clothes, jewelery etc.). And of course plenty of the traditional style houses, of which many had actually been fully renovated from the inside into cafes and small stores, while the outside looked reasonably intact.

Continuing down through Old Seoul, we soon ended up in Insadong, which is one of the many markets available in Seoul. Insadong is usually pointed out as a good place to buy traditional Korean handicrafts, so I we both preferred it over the other potential ones (Namdaemun was tempting but sounded overwhelmingly huge for someone who’s not here for shopping).

As was to be expected, many of the stores sold your usual plastic-y tourist trinkets, but just as many also sold the real stuff – Korean paper, dozens of different teapots and -mugs, fans, et cetera. The tea and tea ware specific stores were of course especially appealing, but many of the ones actually serving tea turned out to be some sort of extremely fancy and pricy quality tea houses, so we didn’t actually drink any.

As a whole, the day was full of great findings and good timings, even if we mostly just looked around rather than stopping at different cafes and stores. Old Seoul definitely became my favorite area of Seoul with its narrow streets, ginko trees, old houses and artsy atmosphere.

Seoul day 4 – That’s more like it!

Refusing to be demoralised by Saturday’s experiences, we decided to go check out the Cheonggyecheon Stream in central Seoul. The stream itself already sounded fascinating enough, and the fact that the Seoul Lantern Festival was (and still is!) made the decision even easier.

As challenging as finding places in Seoul can be, we noticed that if you simply study the city and metro maps well beforehand and figure out a working route to where ever you’re going, you will quite probably find your way there. Reading about other traveller’s experiences and paying attention to signs and – in the case of tourist attractions – paying close attention to the signs and maps inside the metro stations also helps a lot.

The festival obviously made it even easier to find our way to the stream – an arrangement of small food stalls started a few meters from the metro station exit, and a number of people were heading down the street indicated by these stalls. The stream area was easy to spot, even if the stream itself turned out to be quite a shallow and small one – small enough that you could quite easily wade across it in a few big strides. The area surrounding the stream was steadily filling with people, and looking down at the stream below revealed that the walkways on both sides of the stream were already full of spectators.

Since the crowd had already gotten big and we were feeling hungry, we decided to get something to eat before joining the endless sea of spectators. After searching for a while (we didn’t feel like street food), we ended up in an allegedly Japanese style restaurant, serving mainly deep fried stuff. Admittedly the main course was very typical Japanese fast food, but the side dishes of spicy vegetables didn’t quite fit the image – nor did my platter of cuttlefish with cabbage in a very spicy sauce. Good food nevertheless, even if I didn’t manage to eat such a ridiculous amount of cuttlefish.

With our stomachs filled, we headed back to the stream and bravely joined the slowly moving sea of spectators. The walkways were very full on both sides and there was a lot of pushing and shoving, but the “lanterns” (statues would be a more accurate name) were amazing nevertheless. Most of them were at least a couple of meters high, many even higher, and some even had impressive mechanics, such as the ice and fire peacocks flapping their wings, spreading their tail and breathing fire.

The stream is a few kilometers long, and at least two thirds of the lenght was utilised by the festival – every time you thought you had seen the whole thing, you noticed another amazing sculpture ahead.

The lantern festival was beautiful and left us in good spirits, and strolling around the neighbourhood lifted our spirits even higher – this is exactly what we had been expecting of Seoul! Bustling with life, filled with small stores, cafes, and restaurants, and historical buildings and statues sprinkled among skyscrapers made of glass. This we need to get more of!

Seoul – First three days

We arrived at Incheon Airport just before sunset last Thursday. The airport itself is worth a mention due to its fascinating design; not only does it look impressive, it also felt well designed from a visitor point of view.

Transportation from the airport took a lot longer than we had anticipated, and the scenery on the way to Seoul looked surprisingly barren. After 1 hour and about 30 minutes of bus riding, we arrived at our hotel, checked in, had some dinner and pretty much passed out right away.

The next day came way too soon, with the breakfast time ending at 10am. This resulted in us sleeping some more and missing out on half of the Friday, meaning no central Seoul for us yet – our hotel is located in Doksan, which is a bit of an inconvenient spot for that purpose. We did however stroll around the neighbourhood a bit, and some Korean fast food at the mall across the street.

So far our impression of Seoul hadn’t been to positive – the hotel is on the side of a major road with four lanes going each way, and the scenery from the window consists almost solely of dull looking, block shaped concrete buildings. The weather had also been gray and gloomy, although reasonably warm (fluctuating between 17-20 degrees generally). The autumn colors and fallen leaves also add a nice touch of color to the otherwise gray scenery.

The third day didn’t help change the gloomy impression much, even though I was trying to keep my hopes up – after all, the weather was sunny and warm, and we were finally heading to central Seoul, and Yongsan of all places! Yongsan, dubbed the heaven for tech and game geeks, just like Akihabara in Tokyo, I reckoned. After struggling a bit to find the nearest metro station (Seoul is notoriously famous for that), we were on our way to Yongsan on a comfortable but quite packed train (not to the extent of Tokyo peak hours mind you), and got there in 30 minutes or so.

I had read about the problems related to trying to find your way around by foot in Seoul and had prepared with what I imagined being a sufficiently detailed set of instructions on how to find Yongsan, but we ended up going out the wrong exit after all. After a moment of contemplation and eating my new favorite – a waffle with syrup and whipped, sweetened egg white (seem to be a very common dessert topping here) – we headed back inside, found the right exit, and were finally on the right track with the instructions.

For someone who loves games and used to visit Akihabara on a regular basis while living in Japan, Yongsan was a bit of a disappointment. Based on what I saw, the area seems to have a few buildings with 5 or so stories filled with small tech stores, and there is more of the same stuff on the streets. You can probably eventually find all sorts of things if you’re willing to go through the endless army of stalls, but it would seem you won’t be able to find anything that would match the department stores in Akiba (even if you ignore Yodobashi Camera) – not price nor handiness -wise.

What was even more of a disappointment was the small selection of games available (mostly only the newest games, and all stalls seemed to have the same selection of games), and the lack of gaming equipment and merchandise. However, the prices for games are quite low, especially if you’re willing to buy them in Korean and realise to ask the prices (no price shown means you should haggle) – I bought myself Tetris for the DS for 15 euros for example. You will also run into some older games and consoles if you check out the alleys near the stairs that take you to actual Yongsan – on a quick look, I saw a bunch of GameBoys, GameBoy Colors, a GameBoy Advance, and of course a bunch of games for them. I also caught a glimpse of SNES games, and I’m sure there’s more to be found there.

We tried to stroll around elsewhere and find some of the other things we wanted to see after Yongsan, but it proved very difficult without proper preparation and we gave up and headed for the hotel, feeling a bit drained and beaten.

Hong Kong – Last impressions

If I had to describe Hong Kong in just a few words, I’d call it exciting, livable and convenient.

Unlike many other big cities, Hong Kong is very compact, meaning it never takes too long to get anywhere. Hong Kong island itself is small enough to walk to a number of places, and metros and other means of public transportation are excellent if one needs to get further. Taxis are also extremely cheap, and if you want to get across the water to Kowloon, you can just grab the Star Ferry for a whole 0,25 euros.

Transportation aside, it seems that Hong Kong’s days as a shopping paradise have been over for a while. The selection is great and the markets lively, but the prices aren’t any cheaper than in Europe or North America – or Japan for that matter. You can of course find some good bargains, for example I paid 100-200 euros less for my camera than I would have paid elsewhere. The food isn’t much cheaper than elsewhere either, with the prices being about the same as in Central and Southern Europe.

Thanks to it’s colonial past and eastern location, Hong Kong is of course a very comfortable place for a Westerner to be. Everything is in both Chinese and English, and the local culture is a very Westernised version of the Far East. It is also very easy to find foods you might miss from home and clothes and shoes that actually fit your Western build. On the other hand, you can find some very truly Chinese areas and stores quite easily, and the overarching culture is still more Eastern than Western. (Note that so far my impression on what is “Eastern culture” is mainly based on living in Japan for a year and having two two week vacations in Malaysia and Thailand)

If I had to choose my favorite thing about Hong Kong, it would definitely be the amount of greenery everywhere, and the way it is placed in the city. No matter where you go, in a block or two you’ll always end up next to a big tree, an arrangement of flowers and bushes, or a pleasantly planned park. Not to mention the city is surrounded by forest covered mountains. This all creates an interesting contrast with the way Hong Kong itself is built: high. Unlike most cities, Hong Kong doesn’t start with a suburb with lower built houses. It starts with skyscrapers, and ends with skyscrapers, and even the lower houses have at least 10 floors each.

I definitely fell in love with Hong Kong during our short visit, and will absolutely visit again – or move there if that becomes a viable option. We’ll just have to hope China doesn’t have a too bad of an influence on Hong Kong before that.

Hong Kong day 4 – Air-con cold and Michelin star dumplings

Our last full day in Hong Kong started off less good than it could have, at least on my part. The runny nose and sore throat I’d gotten from somewhere (air-con is my main suspect) had turned into a proper cold overnight, and the weather was the usual; +29 and humid – usually very pleasant, but less so when you’ve got a bit of a fever.

Cold or no, we needed breakfast and headed out. Instead of taking our usual route up Wellington street, we decided to see where the famed Central to Mid-Levels escalator would take us, reckoning it would be a light enough exercise for my cold-stricken body to handle. After 5 or so escalators, we both started to wonder if we’d actually end up anywhere sensible by following the escalator – sensible in this case meaning a nice place to have some breakfast. As new escalators just kept appearing, we also started to wonder whether they’ll just keep going until the end of the world, or top of Victoria Peak.

Instead of taking us beyond time, space, or the Hong Kong skyline, the escalator only did what it promised, and we found ourselves standing on a small street with a Pizza Hut and some other less recognizable businesses. Since Pizza Hut seemed to be the only business offering food, we decided to head back the way we came – except the escalator only went one way, up.

After walking down plenty of blocks without seeing anything appealing, we ended up at the top of an alleyway leading to what I dubbed the Chinatown of Hong Kong. Let me explain: although it is obvious in Hong Kong that you are in China, the blocks we walked through felt ten times more Chinese than anything else in Hong Kong. The buildings and the space between them were full of signs in bright red, yellow, and blue, and the street level was cluttered with street vendors and small stores selling fresh fish, meat, vegetables, Chinese cuisine, and a huge variety of all sorts of random goods from Chinese trinkets to orchids to gold fish.

After all the adventuring, we had run out of the will to experiment with food, and went to get some very basic rice and noodle based food in a freezing cold (goddamn air-con again) Chinese diner-style place. And then to the hotel to sleep.

Once we had regained our strength, we headed to Wan Chai to check out the Wan Chai Computer Centre to see if we could find some good games. The place was very easy to find right outside of the Wan Chai metro station, but turned out to be a huge disappointment for gamers – there were only 2 or 3 small game stores with only the very latest games in their selection.

Our trip had turned out to be a major anti-climax, but I soon came up with a plan on how to make it a bit better. In a few minutes, we were sitting in the Star Ferry from Wan Chai to Kowloon, planning on finding a nice place to eat some good Chinese in Tsim Sha Tsui (the southernmost tip of Kowloon).

Things didn’t quite go as planned, and I’m very glad they didn’t. Instead of eating some good Chinese, we ended up in a restaurant in a shopping mall called Silvecord Centre – we had been walking for blocks finding nothing but high end designer stores, and were getting hungry and annoyed and decided to just go where ever. Well, our where ever turned out to be a Taiwanese restaurant that had been awarded with Michelin stars, and we only found this out after stepping in, sitting down, and starting to read the menu.

The restaurant – Dim Tai Fung – had definitely earned its Michelin stars, for the service was good, the food excellent, and the pricing sensible. When I say sensible, I mean that the pricing was exactly what you’d expect from a nice dumpling place in a fancy shopping mall – possibly even less than that. For 15 euros each, we got our stomachs way too full of delicious food, and an endless stream of jasmin tea and quick and polite service. If I ever go back to Hong Kong, this place is definitely on my list of places I have to revisit.

After the delicious and filling meal, we decided to simply head back to the hotel and rest. It felt a bit bad to give up so early in the night (it was about 8pm) on our last night, but the hectic of our short stay was really starting to take its toll and we had to get up early the next morning anyway.

Hong Kong Day 3 – Vintage teas, The Peak, and birds

(Written on 1st, published on the 2nd of November)

This day started off a bit slow since we both were quite weary from yesterday’s adventures. We started the day off by visiting a tea house we spotted after finding a way back around the Halloween party blockades (see blog post of day 2). The place is called Leaf tea boutique, and it’s actually only a block away from our hotel on Wellington street – it’s just very difficult to spot since it’s halfway into the stone base of the building it’s located in. The place is quite plain with an overly modern and clinical look, but the tea selection is quite nice – I had a soft tasting Chinese green tea called White Dragon, and my boyfriend had a nice cup of Chinese black tea with a stronger aroma.

After waking up properly and grabbing something to eat (the tea house only serves tea and some biscuits), we got up on the walkways that seem to cross through a lot of Central and Eastern Hong Kong and headed for the Star Ferry pier – not to take the ferry, but to take a bus to the Peak Tram that would take us to Victoria Peak (if you want to take the bus, it’s bus number 15C and it leaves from in front of the Star ferry pier). We’d heard this is a must-see thing in Hong Kong, offering a great view over the whole Hong Kong island.

The bus ride was nice, with the roofless second floor offering us a quick tour of the island. The peak tram terminal on the other hand seemed a bit ominous, at least if you dislike tourist traps. I did however like the short history snippets scattered around the waiting hall, and the tram itself had a nice, aged feel to it. The view from the tram was also nice, and almost washed away my suspicion of the viewing deck being just one huge tourist trap.

Getting out of the tram, my suspicion was immediately proven correct – the first thing you walk through is a dozen-or-so trinket stores, after which you need to go up through what is basically a ten story shopping mall. Expensive restaurants and cafes, plenty of cheap trinkets and electronics, and of course some designer label stores. The view from the viewing deck was admittedly great though, and the only thing reminding you of the tourist-trap-of-a-shopping mall below were the tourists themselves. Getting out of the mall building also helped, especially if you took the walkway to the left, leading to a lush, park-like forest.

We got bored of The Peak quite quickly and decided to go back down, since we also wanted to see the Hong Kong park situated only a block away from the Peak Tram terminal. We found the park quite easily, and ended up at the bottom of a set of stairs leading to an aviary – the Edward Youde Aviary to be precise. It turned out that the entrance was free, so we decided to have a look.

The aviary was actually very nice – it’s basically a partially artificial rainforest dome, imitating the rainforests in the Malesia botanical region (not to be mistaken with Malaysia which is only a part of the botanical region). The aviary has a number of different birds only met in the Malesia rainforests, and seems to have quite a few endangered species as well. I’m not a big fan of Zoos and such normally, but it seemed like this aviary had plenty of room and the correct environment for the birds – plus the birds looked healthy and were energetic. I’ll also have to give a special mention to the design of the aviary; not only did it look as natural as possible from the inside, it was also well designer for visitors and blended into the surrounding park quite nicely.

After the aviary, we headed for out main interest in the park: The Museum of Tea Ware. It turned out the museum is not open on Tuesdays (d’oh), but just as we were about to plan on leaving, we noticed a sign pointing at a teahouse called Lock Cha. The teahouse turned out to be a proper – although modern – Chinese style teahouse, with a large selection of teas and tea cakes of different vintages, some of them 50 years old. The house had a very serene atmosphere, and the decor was an interesting combination of Chinese and colonial styles. The teas we chose were of course excellent – mine was a yellow tea with an alleged caramel aroma, and my boyfriend took a black tea of 1994 vintage with a roasted aroma. Both served in the Chinese tea ceremony way of course.

When we finally left the tea house, it was already getting dark. We decided to give the elevated walkways a try and see if we could get all the way from the park back to our hotel just by using them. We found out we could just walk through different malls until we got there, but decided to take the more interesting (and less air-conditioned) walkway leading towards a park and what I later identified to be the Legislative Council building of Hong Kong.

The walk around the park area and council building was actually extremely pleasant, and took us only three-or-so blocks away from our hotel. After a bit of rest, we headed out for a nice dinner nearby – the place is called Loyal Dining and it serves both Chinese and Western style dishes. The place also serves won ton, but only after the clock is past 10pm.

Another day packed full of activity behind and as a result the boyfriend fell asleep ages ago and I seem to be down with a sniffle and sore throat from the air-cons at the shopping malls and restaurants. Good thing tomorrow is supposed to be a laid back day anyway!

Hong Kong Day 2 – Tech stores and tourist traps

I’m writing this a day late – I just couldn’t find the energy to do this yesterday. Yesterday was quite a hectic day of shopping in Kowloon. As I threatened on Sunday, buying a camera was my mission number one, and after some internet searching, it turned out that Mongkok should be a good place for this.

Before heading to Mongkok, we got to experience the lunch rush of Wellington street and Lan Kwai Fong – every place was packed, and some places even had a big line of people waiting for a table. So we ended up in the same place where we ate the day before. It was very packed as well, but the customer turnover was quite quick so we figured it was our best bet. We ended up in a table with two locals apparently having their workday lunch, and had to have them help us translate to the waiter what we wanted – even though the menu had both Chinese and English. As bilingual as Hong Kong is supposed to be, you do keep hitting the language barrier on a regular basis.

After lunching with the locals, we took the Tsuen Wan line from Central to Mongkok. Although Hong Kong island does feel like a big city, stepping out of the metro station  in Mongkok was the moment when I really felt like I’m at the center of it all. Neon lights, small quirky stores and multi-storied shopping malls all side by side, and all the empty spaces filled with people. Not too badly though, it was still fairly easy to move around. I was looking for the Mongkok Computer Centre, since it had been recommended by people who have experience in buying cameras from Hong Kong.

I had to go ask instructions from the info of a shopping mall, but the place was actually reasonably easy to find – just step out of the metro station, turn around, walk to Nathan Road, locate the “Bank Centre” mall, find a crossing and get on the smaller road next to the Bank Centre mall, called Nelson street. The Mongkok Computer Centre will be on your right eventually, although it can be a bit hard to spot – unlike the tourist trap tech stores having big neon light signs about tax free and brand names, the trustworthy ones don’t usually make a big deal of themselves.

The Mongkok Computer Centre turned out to be three stories of tiny electronics stores, mostly specialising in computer equipment. I did also find a few camera stores, of which most seemed to have reasonable prices. After fiddling with the Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX5 for a bit, I had found what I wanted – now I just needed to find the best price. It turned out that the prices didn’t vary much, but you could’ve ended up paying some extra had you ended up in the wrong store. Most of the places had almost the same prices though, so I based my decision on aesthetics only – the last store I visited had a white version of my desired camera, and the price was just as good as others had offered.

Once our tech shopping was done, we decided to check out the market street we had passed on our way to the computer centre. The centre was actually on the infamous “Sneaker street” of Hong Kong, but we skipped sneaker shopping this time. The selection seemed big though, so you can definitely find your pair of sneakers from there. The street market on the other hand was your usual fake Versaces and cheap souvenirs, but it was an ok place for buying small stuff like a nice fan I don’t mind wearing and tearing in use. However, one needs to be very careful of overly enthusiastic salespeople – if you’re not extremely good at standing your ground, you will end up buying something low quality for a high price. On the other hand, these places are also the best ones for haggling. There are also some very polite salespeople though, I’ll give the market that.

After the hectic streets of Mongkok, it was pleasant to take the well-known, extremely cheap Star Ferry across the river – we took it to Central, but you can also take it to East side of Hong Kong. The boat had a nice, old feel to it, and the view was of course amazing. We took the ferry at night, but I’m hoping to have time tomorrow to take it at daytime as well.

Later in the evening we decided to head out for a nice dinner, but it turned out that this was the main day of the Lan Kwai Fong Halloween partying, and as a result, the police had fenced the whole area and was limiting pedestrian movement very strongly elsewhere as well. We walked around the party area, and ended up being forced on the other side of Lan Kwai Fong. Most of the restaurants near our hotel were inside the fenced area, so we had no idea of where to get food without travelling further, nor of how to get back to our hotel. We ended up walking quite far, and finally found a diner-style place full of locals. This place turned out to be another one of the same diner style places we went to the day before and in the morning. I can’t remember the name of the place, but this chain always seems to be full of locals, and serves some tasty, inexpensive asian food.

A pretty hectic day, but a pleasant one – I’m not that big on shopping, but it is quite nice once in a while, especially when you’re buying tech or games! Next up, The Peak, malaysian birds, and plenty of tea.

Hong Kong Day 1 – Butterflies and loose limbs

Seems like I’ll have to postpone my plans of writing about past experiences (mainly about Gothenburg in Sweden and living in Iceland ) – I had planned to write those posts before starting to travel properly, but here I am in Hong Kong already with none of those having been written. So I figured I’d just focus on blogging about my impressions on Hong Kong, Seoul, and Australia.

We arrived to Hong Kong some time after midday today, after a very pleasant (and inexpensive) flight with Cathay Pacific. Apparently this is the best time of the year to travel to Hong Kong, and I can definitely root for that – the air that hit my lungs the moment I stepped out of the airplane was warm and pleasantly humid, and the weather sunny with a light cloud cover. Perfect.

We caught a train from the airport going to Hong Kong station. The first thing that caught my attention out of the train window were of course the extremely tall buildings – it felt like there were no buildings with less than 30 stories anywhere in sight. The ones closest to the airport seemed to tower out of nowhere, with only greenery and the sea accompanying them, but their numbers started to grow very soon. On occasion, one could spot small fishing hut -looking structures on the inviting coastline. A while later, the view on right hand side of the train was taken over by a large harbour that seemed to go on forever.

Once we got out of the train, we decided to grab a taxi instead of trying to navigate in a completely new city. We were greeted by an extremely swift moving taxi driver who only spoke a few words of english, and learned that people on the internet were right about needing the address of places in chinese for the local taxi drivers. Luckily, our print of the reservation had the hotel’s phone number on it, and soon we were on our way. The traffic here came out as hectic but reasonably organised – many drive fast and cut very close to other cars, but the everyone seems to always stop at red lights and follow other basic rules. Another thing we learned very soon was that the city is full of one way streets – the taxi wouldn’t accept Visa, so my boyfriend had to drive around with the taxi to and ATM and then back to our hotel. The ATM was about 3 blocks away, but due to the one way streets, getting back took as long as it had taken for us to get from the train station to the hotel.

While I was waiting for my boyfriend and the taxi to return, I had plenty of time to glance out our hotel’s surroundings. As usual in any big city, the contrasts are fascinating. The hotel itself is a boutique/design hotel called Butterfly on Wellington, and is in a quite new and nice looking building and across the street towers another new building made entirely out of reflecting glass. Next to this glass building is a narrow alleyway, walled on the other side by a very old and worn apartment block building, and the one behind it seems similar. The alleyway serves as a small fruitmarket, with the stalls cobbled together from old wooden fruit crates and such. Interestingly enough, while I was standing there looking around, two medium sized butterflies fluttered by, and I heard at least one bird singing on the big balcony of the scruffy apartment block lush with greenery.

The hotel itself is very nice and at a great location – within the distance of three blocks or so, one can access three metro stations (Hong Kong, Central and Sheung Wan) and one block further one has the access to a number of ferries going to mainland China. It’s also right next to Lan Kwai Fong which is apparently known as the food district of Hong Kong. The downside is that it seems to be quite difficult to find Chinese food in this area – other types of food on the other hand are very easy to find. We ended up in a diner style semi-chinese place, mistaking it at first for a place that would actually serve Chinese food. Better luck tomorrow I guess!

We also walked down to the harbour and took a shortcut through one of the number of narrow alleys going leading through the blocks between the bigger roads. The alleyway was a bit of a dodgy experience – too dodgy is you ask me, even if ordinary looking locals seemed to use these shortcuts constantly. The walk to the harbour on the other hand was very nice, with elevated, decked walkways between the train stations and the ferry station. Today was also the night of Halloween festivities, but we were jetlag-slept long enough to miss most of it. We did however see some loose limbs and cool Halloween costumes, so all wasn’t lost because of our nap.

Tomorrow’s main agenda for me is to first of all buy a new camera, for my Canon G9 got the infamous “Lens error. Please restart.” -issue a few weeks ago and never worked again. Good thing Hong Kong should be The Place for buying cameras!

Still alive

…Barely. This blog that is. Me, I’m very much alive – too much so actually, at least from the online presence point of view.

A lot has happened since the last post almost 2 years ago – a lot more than I would’ve expected at the time. I didn’t have a specific plan at the time, but I did have some sort of a vague idea of which direction I’d like to go towards during these past two years. I still haven’t been back to Japan, but am instead moving to Montreal in a couple of months. I did fulfill my aspiration of working for GameLab in Tampere University though, and am very close to finishing my master’s degree. I’ve also fulfilled my more recent aspiration of working in the games industry, and am hoping to keep doing so for the next few years.

Now, blogs are usually about recent events, but I am going to do the unthinkable and go back to interesting events that happened during the past two years, and upload related photos to Flickr as I go.