The Journey Begins - Seoul & Paris

13th July, 2007

The Adventure Begins
Today I (and all the others staying at my house- Thanks Mike, Mead, Josh, Maz and Ally) woke up at 4.30am after not getting to bed until 1.30 am the night before, as I was frantically trying to pack the last of my things. It was still dark when we headed for the airport at 5.30am and hit the most incredible amount of traffic that we totally did not count on. It was like peak hour traffic but at 5.45 in the morning. We finally got to the Airport at about 6.25 and I checked in.
After saying goodbye to all those who came to see me off it was time to board the plane.

A good friend of mine, Vanessa Gunstead, also happened to be travelling back to her home in Norway in July, so had arranged to fly back with me.
As we were flying Korean Air, we were given a free overnight stopover in a 5 star hotel in South Korea. So about 8.30 am we took off from Brisbane Airport and headed for Seoul.

Seoul, South Korea
After 10 and a half hours, we finally arrived at Incheon International Airport in Seoul, Sth Korea.

My friend Steve (who is Korean, but had lived in Brisbane for a while) had organised to meet me at the airport and it was so wonderful to see a familiar face after such a long flight. Steve picked us up in his car and being my first time in a left-hand drive vehicle, I found it quite scary to be driving on the “wrong side of the road”.
After checking into our hotel, Vanessa decided to stay at the hotel, while Steve and I went out to “See the Sights of Seoul.”
Incheon, where our hotel was located, is about an hour and a half from Seoul City. It is a man made island built just off the Korean coast due to severe land restrictions and overpopulation. It is connected to the mainland by a 20 kilometre long bridge. An amazing engineering feat!
Unfortunately, no visit to a city is complete without first experiencing it’s peak hour traffic which we certainly did. Korea has Friday night markets in the city, however people also only finish work about 7.30pm there so I was “lucky” enough to experience some of the worst traffic I have ever seen.

Finally after an extremely long drive, we made it to the centre of Seoul.
Seoul is an amazing city, built along a great river with massive bridges crossing it every few kilometres. It also had some of the craziest drivers I have ever seen.
In the middle of Seoul are several massive gates and part of a wall where the old city used to be. We also drove past an old walled palace.
Our first stop was the Friday night markets. These markets were amazing. They had everything a person could want or need, from clothing to food to toys, you name it.
After the markets we headed out for some authentic Korean cuisine. For about 6 Australian dollars you could buy a full Korean meal, consisting of 3 dishes of mains to choose from, some soup, and drinks. Next we went out for desert which was equally as good. Steve ordered us some amazing Korean deserts, which was also incredibly cheap.

After gorging ourselves we went up to a lookout to see a fantastic view of Seoul followed by trip down to the river to see a fireworks display.
One thing that amazed me was the amount of Neon lit crosses throughout the city. Steve told me that a large percentage of Koreans are evangelical Christians.

Unfortunately I was so tired after my flight and the late nights earlier that week spent getting ready that I wasn’t able to spend as long out in Seoul as I had initially planned and even fell asleep several times in the car whilst driving places. I ended up heading back to the motel about 1am.

The Next day after a beautiful banquet breakfast, we flew to Paris.
Korea Pics





PARIS - July 14
Arrived in Paris to be met by my good friend and former Brisbane neighbour, Florent aka. Flo. I arrived on the 14th July, Bastille Day and what a celebration. French flags flying everywhere, music, fireworks lighting up the Eiffel Tower, people singing the French anthem and one very strange French guy wearing a muscle top and a floral skirt. He was holding his kids hands. Hmmmm interesting culture!!!!!




I loved Paris and having Flo as my personal tour guide helped a lot.We visited Montmatre, the home of the Moulin Rouge and the Sacre Coure, an amazingly massive church that was a wonderful example of 19th century Parisian architecture.
Overall, I just loved wandering around the streets, following the trail of old buildings (most of which were built before the discovery of the east coast of Australia ).


Later that night we went for a walk around the parkland area surrounding the Eiffel Tower, followed by dinner in a quaint little Parisian café nearby. This was magical as the Eiffel tower is light up after dark, and every hour an explosion of sparkling fairy lights twinkle for about 5 minutes.

Day 2: We visited some more of the tourist sights including the Arc de Triumph, the Louvre, The Military Academy and Museum (where Napoleon Bonaparte trained) and Notre Dame. Once again I was amazed by just the enormity of the Church and the fantastic gothic architecture. Unfortunately it was raining and Notre Dame was closed, so I was unable to go inside.

By day 3 I was really starting to get the hang of the Paris subway system (or Metro), and was finding my way around the city quite easily.
It was today that I went to one of the most interesting places that I probably visited during my whole time in Paris. This was the Paris Catacombs. During the late 18th century, due to the need for land, many of the remains from cemeteries were transported to the old stone mine tunnels underneath Paris. This continued for the next 100 hundred years, and eventually some people were directly buried in these catacombs resulting in the remains of over 6 million people being buried underneath the city. One very interesting aspect was that the Government employed artists to come down and arrange the bones and sculls in artistic patterns to make it a much more pleasant sight for those visiting the tombs. A bit bizarre but really interesting.




Day 4 – My final day in Paris and today I went out to Château de Vincennes, a 13th century walled village, palace and keep on the outskirts of Paris. It blew my mind to be walking in a village so old. That day I happened to be wearing my Australian Rugby jersey and when I went to pay to go through the old castle, the cashier, who was an avid rugby fan, said to me “You Australian? Australia is the best Rugby team in the world!!! You go for free!!!”
The castle was amazing, to be standing in such an ancient place was awesome. A place that men had fought and died to protect.
Whilst in the castle, I got to see some 14th century graffitti left in one of the gaol cells.




That evening I caught the bus to Munich, to meet my parents and to begin my time travelling with them.

Paris Pics