Standing Room Only

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Seems the travel has caught up to us, Laura was feeling not great last night, and we went home a little earlier than expected, which I dont begrudge as I was tired too. When waking up Laura was very phlegmy and her voice was gone. Today was planned to be a chill day of travel anyways, we can snooze on the train.

After checking out and leaving our baggage in a locker in the hotel, we finally stopped at a street food vendor on the street we were staying on for hotteok(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotteok). I got a sweet one

, that weas filled with honesy and sesame and pumpkin seeds. The honey inside was approaching fusion it was so hot, and Laura burned her tongue on the bite she took that wasnt just dough, it was so hot I didnt tase much of it, so I will have to try again later, we continued looking for some kind of ginseng miracle cure, and found this little one-hitter ginseng extract liquid.We also walked around a little market that we had actually walked around the last time we were here.

Which had these giraffe scultures on the roof.

We then headed to the coffeeshop we had been to twice before, but for fancy tea rather than cheap coffee. I got an omija and chamomile tea, and Laura got a grapefruit and honey earl grey. They were delicious, and a great way to chase the ginseng extract, because that stuff tasted like root water...

We wandered around a Buddhist temple that was across the street from our hotel.

We then went back to the hotel to claim our stuff and hopped the subway to the train station.

The Seoul (and later the Busan) trainstation was big, though not as mall-like as the train stations in Japan, it felt very much like a transient place, and not a desitnation for activities. The kiosks didnt take foreign cards so we had to wait in line for our ticket. At the front of the line, the ticketagent said they have no seats on trains, but you can still book tickets, and the next train with seats is at 22:42. So we got last minute standing room only tickets. At the ends of most cars they have jumpseats, and a loitering area, presumably for this very reason. Poking around online it also seems its not uncommon for people to sit in empty seats until the ticketed passenger boards at a later stop.

While it was a literal pain in the ass to not have a seat, we did end up communicating (speaking would be a generous descriptor) with a middle aged guy about how long we were in Seoul and where we were from, his son is in Connecticut, then another set of ladies got on and turned out, one of them spoke English, so we translated through her, and she was actually living in Renton, which is pretty funny.

When the train finally disgorged us in Busan we felt the very different vibe from Seoul. It is a little bit rougher, way more people smoking cigarettes, young people seemed to make up a larger portion of the population. We are staying at an allgedly 5-star hotel (it feels like a well done 4 star hotel, but I dont have much 5 star experience, so what do I know) that is owned by Lotte, the company that also owns malls and hypermarkets all over Asia. The mall that it is attached to is an ultra-high end mall, with all of the designer brands, and a curated food hall with brightly lit and very clean stalls. We ultimately did not eat here, as it felt too sterile. We went across the main street to what on my Kakao Maps is labeled as "Food Alley" In the Seomyeon area. Laura found a a noodle spot to try that was right there amongst all the restaurants and street food stalls, and bars. https://www.google.com/maps/place/Songjeong+3(sam)+dae+Gukbap/data=!3m1!4b1!4m6!3m5!1s0x3568eb6fd0fbf783:0xe7a22678687305a5!8m2!3d35.1556069!4d129.0584849!16s%2Fg%2F1tt0n_yh?entry=ttu the place claims to be open 24 hours, and it has now been our agreed upon "final option" for when we are too hungry to make a decision. I got the Sundaeguk (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundae_(sausage)) which is a blood sausage soup, the blood sausage is very light on the blood, there is a lot of glass noodle filler in there, but it keeps it light to go with the very light pork broth. Laura got the soup with pork slices. Same broth, just different meat.

We continued walking around the entertainment area until I realized I was still very hungry, so we stopped at another beer and chicken spot

This was a soy and black garlic sauce, that had a bite, but wasnt scary spicy, they also had a good selection of quality beers, to my surprise they had an Amber Lager that was definetly on par with a Riverwest Stein. We then went into the mall looking for more Gundam kits, and a travel size face cleanser. The gundam base had the same kit I saw at the other one in Seoul, but because I have already decided to inconvinience myself with 2 kits, Ill get a third...

We went home via a 7-11 grabbed some cough drops and ice cream (which waking up the next morning we totally forgot to eat...).

Tried to wake up before sunrise, but the sun never set...

11052019

Day 4

Got 2.5 hours of sleep, because we were off to Amsterdam. 0750 flight, which means getting to the airport by 0550, which means a taxi pickup at 0500. Fortunately Laura and i did most of our packing after getting back from the beer bar, but that only shifted the sleep back 45 minutes, it didn't help us sleep any more.

Also given that it was Saturday morning there were still many youths out n about after partying Friday night. In fact at some point in the early morning b(though the sun would imply it wat mid day) a pair of young women made their way into the courtyard of the building we were staying at for a few minutes of some activity that was too private to undertake on the street. What they were doing I am not sure, but they selected a spot seemingly right under our window.

Anyways getting to Amsterdam was uneventful. Between the flight time, and he time change it was 1330. Decided to take the bus into the city center, Anto eat up time so we could make it right into the Airbnb, and B. to same a little money. But the ticket machine didn't like our Uber Visa card, nor that of my parents, uh oh, the kiosk wanted a PIN. We're from the United States, we aren't concerned about identity fraud, or people stealing our credit cards... fortunately our reliable Capital One Quick silver card worked.

We purchased a set of 3 day passes and hopped the bus. Easily enough we were getting off at the end of the line, the bus station.

Few hundred meters into the neighborhood, on a side street we found our Airbnb host, who took us around the corner into a side street of a side street and showed us the place. Is great, she even showed us stuff to do, and gave us food recommendations, including an Indonesian restaurant anfew blocks away. Which is great because I was looking forward to exploring the food of Dutch colonies.

So we went out to a cafe to waste enough time for the Indonesian restaurant to open. Laura curated the experience, I just had a very fresh cup of ginger-lemon tea, and my dad had an espresso. After enough time passed we headed to Long Pura.

http://www.restaurant-longpura.com/

Everything we had was amazing, and a welcome change up from the Icelandic food we had been having. Lots of "exotic" flavors. After we ordered but before our food arrived our waiter tried upselling us on Kuruk/Emping chips. To be honest I didn't hear or understand what he said but I remember the last time someone tried upselling us on and appetizer and it went great (see Singapore posts

The chips arrived with a thick peanut sauce that was a great way to start our gastronomic experience.

The satay sampler platter, goat, chicken, beef and ground fish. All were great, there was a spicy sauce that the beef got draped in which pished it to my favorite of the list.

We got the rice platter too, it was effectively a sampler of the whole menu. There was a spicy beef, a coconut beef, a coconut chicken, coconut goat, a spicy hard boiled egg, adish of steamed veggies, there were more of the chicken satay as well. We also ordered an eggplant dish was was very good.

We ended the meal with an Indonesian style creme brulee, which was as good as creme brulee, but honestly nothing special, and my parents split a coconut crepe that was certainly interesting.

The dinner experience took several hours, and was far less expensive than Iceland was. Ultimately we just toddled home and went to sleep shortly thereafter.

Juxtaposition of old and new

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We spent a little more time in bed this morning, Laura figured out how to steal the baseball game from the Internet, and we did research what to do for the rest of the day.

Firstly I wanted some kind of pastry, is not necessarily traditional, but I wanted some carbs in my stomach. We went up to Shinbashi station, found a "auntie Anne" like kiosk and got some cream filled puffs. Fortunately it is Halloween season, so they had pumpkin spice cream. They were pretty tasty. Also in the station we found a smoothie place that wasn't outrageously expensive, which we will probably be hitting up every morning we can.

After this we hopped a train back to Akihabara to find those last Gundams, which we did, I saved about $175 on what I'd pay in the US, so as long as I beat that on shipping I am ahead of the game.

We took the train back home. But this time went the wrong way, to ride it around the big loop and see the city. Tokyo is mind bogglingly big.

Dumped the model kits and went up our street for curry. I touched on this a little bit about Akihabara, but Tokyo, and by looking at the map most of Japan is made up of crazy irregular blocks. There are big main streets, with boulevards and multiple lanes of traffic, but there are hundreds of tiny one lane or pedestrian only roads that cross the city, and businesses front on these tiny roads. This curry place was in a basement on one of these roads.

They had one thing on the menu, and then 5 derivatives of that. They had city, curry with vegetables, with chicken, with minced beef ball, and some others I didnt understand. Laura got the basic with bone in chicken leg, and I got the beef ball thing. It can't with rice and silverware. The intention was to dip the rice into the curry, this was a great meal. Well portioned, absurdly flavorful, appropriately priced, everything about it was pretty good, and I appreciated that it was down some dark stairway in a relatively untrafficed alley.

After which we resolved to just wander around Shinbashi. We found ourselves headed towards the Tokyo Tower, and between the hotel and the turret we found 2 important landmarks:

A. A liquor store. With very fair prices considering the neighborhood.

2. The Zōjō-Ji, it is basically the prime temple for a particular sect of Buddhism. I admittedly know very little about Eastern Faiths, and without a tour guide, all I can really do is point you to wiki https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jōdo-shū .

Exploring through the compound we find the entrance the tokyo tower.

This was the first really touristy thing we did, and it was worth it. We got there around 4, no lines we went right up and took a bunch of pictures, unfortunately the super high uppermost tower is closed, so we didn't get to the 300m spot. The view was pretty spectacular.

The pictures here are my picture, and then the Plaque indicating what you are looking at out the window.

It was a little overcast so we couldn't see Mt Fuji very well, but could see the city pretty great.

I then realized that sunset is happening very soon, so we got a beer and some ice cream in the tower cafe. As evening approached the place got busier, and filled with children groups.

The sun set, and then the city lit up.

Never before have I seen such an exemplary testament to mankind's defiance of nature. Cramming 30+ million people into a single area, building that city many many stories tall, on a place that is historically earthquake prone, and making it daylight all the time. We forcibly change our environment to fit our needs, fuck you natural ecological processes.

We grabbed some beers on the way home, drank said beers, watched crazy Japanese game shows, and headed out for dinner. We ate and a not very good ramen place, and went home for bed.

FOOTBALLLLLLL

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didnt do all that much this day. we woke up, had the breakfast (hard boiled eggs and toast) at the guesthouse, and then i wandered around Dublin just a lil bit. there was a big shindig with one of my nerd-ventures across all their stores, and i made my way to the local store in Dublin, to see whatsup. after that i went back to the guesthouse read my book, and then we made our way to the FOOTBALL GAME. you know, we pretty much game here to Ireland to see this Notre Dame vs Navy american football game. the game was not particularly entertaining, mostly cause Notre Dame stomped Navy, it was kinda sad, the final score was somethin like 50-10.

we were sitting in the nose bleeds, and here are some pictures

being that high up was pretty cool, cause we could see everything.

the stadium serves Guinness, and its actually cheaper than the Carlsburg, or the Budweiser, so obviously we went with the Guinness.

after the event we made our way back to the guesthouse, napped, ate delicious Malaysian food, and then went to sleep.

not quite the preakness

9712 Today was Argentine Independence day, there were parades and speeches and stuff, which i caught on television, i was resting most of the day, slept in late, and laid around reading and playing with the kitten. round 4pm my roomate met up with one of the other guys and we wandered around a bunch, found a cafe got some foodz, and continued wandering. we did find ourselves walking by the Hipodromo, the horse track, and there appeared to be a race/races going on. there were a number of gated security ridden entrances, then there was the paupers entrance, we figured we would give it a shot. we wandered in, the place is very swanky, very nice and clean and modern. the track is HUGE, i guess its like a 2 mile track, but it seemed alot bigger. there didnt seem to be anything specific going on as we poked around. we saw there was movement around the stables on the jumbotron, so we figured wed sit and see what happens. turns out, in this FREE area, we sat down right in front of the finish line/winners circle. so, a race starts, and the horses haul ass, and run by us.

they are the blurs on there, my 1080p HD cameraphone had a hard time with it. anyways, the race was close, so they raised the flag saying 8 and 3 were tied for number 1, and then i guess they went to the photo or replay or whatever they do in horseracing, and determined it was 3 that won, a bunch of people cheered, and a bunch more cursed. and the guy trotted forth on his horse for pictures with the owner and press n whatnot.

after this we wandered our way back to our respective homes, our homestay made us dinner, consisting of soup, salad, and some kind of patty, it reminded me of a breaded chicken or veal patty as i have had at home, but this tasted maybe a lil fishy? i dunno what it was, it was real good though. followed this up with more kitten-fighting. and will now read myself to sleep, we gotta be in the center of the city by 830 tomorrow, meaning we gotta be on the train round 740, and outta the apartment by 725. laters

end on liver

10512 today we had our Czech language class early in the day, learned a few more phrases which i promptly forgot, todays class did however, reinforce the stuff from yesterday, which is good, cause i can actually say thank you and please now. we wandered around in that area again, looking for food, i had a basic chicken soup, and then i had a fantastic gastronomic experience; fried cheese sandwich. it was awesome, and cost about 1.75USD, also the cheese didnt upset my all too delicate tummy. i got to eat it while walking around, cause it was not at a restaurant, which certainly contributed to the enjoying of the food. we then watched a movie, Goodbye, Lenin! ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0301357/ ). good movie, interesting, the story goes, late 1989, an ardent DDR (east german socialist) mom has a heart attack, goes into a coma, and misses the drastic shift of the fall of the berlin wall. she wakes up, her son in an attempt to keep her calm and prevent another heart attack (which will kill her) fabricates a different reality for his mother. this reality is one in which east germany never collapsed. so the movie about his attempts at preserving the memories of his mother, and help to atleast in his microcosm of a life, have the DDR progress the way he wanted it to. after that we went on a walk through the jewish quarter, we got the cool story of the Golem of Prague. A prominant Rabbi in the 16th century made a clay golem, and infused it with life to protect the jewish quarter of Prague. as the golem was designed to ONLY listen to this Rabbi, just before his death, he deactivated the golem and stored it in the attic here.

that is the Old-New Synagog http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_New_Synagogue this place was real cool, a gothic synagog, which i guess ive never really seen before, built in the 1270s, however, it was destroyed at some point, and rebuilt in the late 19th century, so thats a lil less impressive. overall this was a classic european jewish ghetto, the neighborhood where all the jews were crammed into, to live their lives and be merchants, and commit usury. but this usury was ok, cause the king needed money, so they could damn themselves all to hell and it was cool with the people in power (read Catholic Church and King/Emperor). by the 18th century, the Czech/Austro-Hungarian kings began to reform, and realize that forcing the jews to live in one place was not very nice, so they were allowed to spread across the city, which meant all the people with enough money moved out, leaving all the poor to do what they do best, live in a shitty slum neighborhood. this slum was so bad infact, that the king stepped in again, demolished much of the neighborhood, including many of the synagogs, and rebuilt fancy new buildings. on the tour we also learned of the first jew to be given a noble title, Jacob Bassevi ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Bassevi ) this guy was real good at his job (money lending) and got in real chummy with a number of the Hapsburg Emperors, they liked him so much they gave him a title, and he built a palace, (which was destroyed when that other guy decided to clean up the neighborhood) ironically he never owned this palace, as at the time, jews couldnt actually own property, so the noble title was in title only. we saw more stuff, a synagog with the walls painted naming all the Prague area jews killed during the holocaust, and we wandered through a few other synagogs. after that we got food, we went to this place, and it was a lil nicer than the fried cheese stand, well, it was alot nicer, but i had Deer Fawn and Wild Boar Pâté, goddamn that was good, i had the dark Krušovické, which well complimented the liver.

Wednesday 6711

More lectures, by Mladen this time, this one was far more interesting than the last, as we get more and more in depth i think things will get better. this one was discussing ancient/medieval origins of the "nationalities". i got more interested when we got to the Ottoman Empire times, i got to tie some of the stuff i learned waaay back in freshman year in, about the Janissaries being paid in silver, and using the inflation caused by the influx of Spanish New World silver reducing wages as a reason for the Ottoman decline and slow pull out of Balkans.

We also wandered around a military museum in the fortress we visited firstest, tracing back all the way to the Celts in the region, and up to the NATO involvement 15 years ago. the museum was cool, lots on info...in serbian, but i could pull the important stuff out between my Cyrilic reading and history knowledge. Outside strewn about the fortress they had some WWII era German and Soviet tanks, as well as Soviet/American/JNA/JA towed weapons. i didnt know that Tito's Yugoslavia made as many of their own weapons as were presented in the museum, i guess that split from the soviet union was deeper than i thought. ex below: JNA remake of a US 105mm

while i knew the Balkan peninsula has been fraught with conflict for a LOONG time, and a number of Roman emperors were made here, it was cool to actually see all of this laid out for me at the museum.