I’ve spent time researching trains, flights, buses, ferries, booking apartments on AirBnB, figuring out how the RailnFly card works in Frankfurt when flying China Eastern, comparing insurance, buying theater tickets, and contacting and coordinating with friends in multiple cities in different countries.  And now I look back and realize that was a ton of time and so far I don’t have that much to show for it.  Actually besides my long-haul flights, I only have 1 flight and no other transportation booked.  I didn’t even have to book most of the hotels.  And yet I’m wondering where all the time went.  Did I get anything out of all that research? And then I think there must be a better way…

The other options is packaged tours, holiday deals, and organized trips. With these you decide which general area, research once to find the best option for what you’re looking for, pay for it and be done.  Someone else does all the research, planning, bookings, and logistics and accommodation arrangements.  All you do is pay, show up, and relax. There’s certainly something to be said for that.  I mean its called vacation for a reason, right?

But then we get to the drawbacks of these types of trips: on the tourist trail, lots of other people, on the beaten path, a sense of this has been done before, no sense of exploration or discovery, no challenge, no thrill or anticipation or free-wheeling of what might happen next, little to no flexibility, rigid timetables, little local flavor. And then there’s the possibility of getting stuck with the wrong people–for anyone who’s traveled, you know how much having the wrong travel companions can ruin your enjoyment of a place. Or finding you chose the wrong destination but you already paid the money so you’re stuck there for your entire holiday.

I guess by now you can guess my preference… I’m totally in favor of the solo, independent travel. The freedom to choose my plan, the discovery, the sense of accomplishing something when I’ve found or done something, exploring and meeting new people, interacting with the local culture, choosing if or who to travel with, planning my schedule around catching up with my friends anywhere and everywhere.  And all that time spent researching, it builds the anticipation and makes the experience so much richer when I get there. (Still would be nice to expedite some of it, though.)

Coming from someone who use to lead 2-3 week group trips of up to 16people, I would choose independent travel 10:1 over group (in most parts of the world), particularly if I have a competent travel companion. That being said, in some parts of the world, it is just not feasible.  And, I’ll make an exception for cruises.  :)

Here’s to my next adventure, all cross-coordinated to see friends, and my first time back in Europe in 7 years!  Woot! Gonna be awesome!

Trying to find flights between such random places as Madrid to Bali, Indonesia can be a lot of work. I remember when I did my around the world trip in late-2007-early-2008, I spent hours trying to come up with reasonable flight connections, times and prices.  There, too, I had some pretty random connections: Shanghai to Santiago, Chile; Miami to Cairo; Amman, Jordan to Zanzibar, Tanzania; East Africa to Shanghai.  You can imagine there aren’t a lot of quick options on those routes. As I mentioned back when I was planning the around the world trip, I finally gave up and used an around the world specialist flight planner (Airtreks) to do my flights.

So now again trying to book some pretty random connections (Madrid to Bali, and later Delhi to Phoenix), I’m trying to figure out the best way. And the cheapest!

I checked the usual, Vayama, Expedia, etc, but so many of them don’t even accept non-US origination points.  How is that useful? Then someone told me about cheap flights from JetAbroad and with a quick search, I found they were $400 cheaper than Vayama.  That makes a big difference (but the flight is still painfully expensive).  It seems JetAbroad has the advantage because they include quite a few Asia and Middle Eastern air carriers that don’t show up on some of the other booking engines.  So if you’re traveling around or through Asia, that might be worth checking out.

Yay! Travel planning is fun!  But I also find it to be a huuuuge time sink.  In the end, just like everything else, it comes down to a trade off between time and money. Do you spend extra time hunting around for the best connections and prices? Do you pay someone to do the hunting for you? Or do you spend the extra money and book the first reasonable connection that comes up? I tend to fall into the first category. I enjoy the hunt and especially the success of finding something cheap(er).

What’s your style?

(Just for the record, I may end up using Star Alliance miles for Madrid-Bali flight.)

As you can see on my new health and herbs blog, the first 6 months of this year have been and will be (almost) entirely focused on studying Traditional Chinese Medicine.  I’ve decided to stay and complete the semester here at Zhejiang Chinese Medicine University, which goes until the end of June.

Then I’m taking the month of July off from intense studying, though I’ll keep blogging and working online, to go to EUROPE!!  It’ll be wonderful to see friends again (in Spain, Germany, UK, Netherlands, Luxembourg…).  I haven’t been to Europe since the summer of 2004!  Wow!  7 years!  Crazy!  I miss it.

Coincidentally in planning my trip for Europe, I came across a website offering cheap holidays, cheap beach holidays around Europe, to be specific. Maybe Jai, Ady, Helen, or Annie and I’ll hit up the beach while we’re there.  Tenerife or Turkey, anyone?  Helen had mentioned a Greek Islands cruise…  How awesome would that be? I do have another friend who’ll be down in Majorca in July as well.

Anyway, after July, I’m headed to probably one of the most famous beaches anywhere in the world: Bali, Indonesia for about 2 months.  But this is no longer holidaying; this is for studying Balinese traditional healing.  Keep an eye out on World Vitae for more abouttraditional healing and alternative medicine.

Then I’m planning for October and November to be in India studying Ayurveda.  I’m still looking for a more comprehensive and in-depth program there, to extend over 2-2.5 months for ~5-6 hours per day.  Any ideas, shoot me an email or comment below.

And that’s as far ahead as I can think now.

Keep an eye out on my WorldVitae site for an ebook I’m writing on healthier living inspired by Chinese Medicine and perhaps a companion iPhone app.

January started out with a New Year’s Day flight from Phoenix to San Francisco, which included watching the USC Rose Bowl game as soon as I got off the plane in San Fran.  Then more game watching downtown with my awesome cousin Kelly and her friends.  The next day I grabbed my passport from Alec who I hadn’t seen since 2006, many thanks to him for getting my Indian visa.  That same day I caught my 1st transpacific flight of the year and headed back to Shanghai.

Back to work in Shanghai for a week, then birthday celebrations galore start.  I’m not sure how its possible but I managed to have 3 celebrations during the week of my 25th bday: dinner on the 13th with a few girlfriends, then co-party night with Sian, Sherry, and Yi, and finally birthday brunch.  Thanks for organizing that brunch, and every other one, Sherry!  This is was also the first time in 2.5 years in China that I really got on a work permit.

Late January, at the start of Chinese New Year, Sian and I headed off to India for a whirlwind 10-day trip around Delhi, Varanasi, Agra, and Jaipur.  India is an immensely fascinating country.

From February, as everyone got back to Shanghai from CNY, we started having more tweetups, including Twestival, where I met a lot of the people I’d only ‘met’ online, including @IrisJumbe and @PDKay.  At the SXSW Shanghai party at M1NT in late February I got to meet a lot more of my twitter friends, including those who don’t live in China and make better connections with them.  To round out February, I changed the theme on my blog to center around life-streaming, (which I’m now coming to hate…)

In March we had our first !talk! Chatfest and finally launched the open beta of the teaching platform.  Despite this, the !talk! situation was in somewhat of a flux, so after awhile I decided to work less hours there and spend more time on my multitude of other activities.  Since November of the previous year I was already teaching English a few nights per week.

With the start of spring, I still didn’t feel that my health had completely recovered from all the illnesses of the winter, so I decided I needed to take drastic actions (haha). For Qing Ming festival, I booked myself a week at a cleanse resort in Thailand.  It was a much needed flushing out of the system that kept me much healthier in the ensuing 8 months, especially compared to the previous 8.  Besides meeting some like-minded people during the detox, I also met some other awesome people at the #BangkokTweetup, some of whom have become really helpful to me recently.  This spring, I also got to connect with fellow Shanghai transplant Arizonan @Mark_E_Evans and another China-interested tweeter @lparsons, whose dream is to move to China–good luck to him.

Jane, me, Al and a pagoda

By late April / early May, when the Dragon Boat festival rolled around, Jai, Allison and I headed to Seoul for a 4-day weekend.  They say Seoul is a city with no soul, but I loved it and think that’s in large part due to our excellent tour guide, my long time friend, Irene.  Check out the DMZ tour, really interesting, including a step into North Korea.  Literally the day after I got back from Korea, I did my first set of factories tours in 2009.  It’s amazing all the crap that gets produced in China!

In Late May, I spent a weekend in Hangzhou with Al & Jane, when they generously took me around to all their favorite sites and restaurants.  Tea plantations, China’s Grand Canal, Pagodas, and spicy wings, the spiciest food imaginable.  I was crying, literally.

As June rolled around I was just starting planning tech events for the Shanghai community and welcoming 妹妹 (little sister) for her summer in Shanghai.  Eliana arrived on June 3 to spend 5 weeks with me and exactly the day after she arrived, we set off to see the ‘real’ China.  The real manufacturing China, that is.  This was my second factory tripping of 2009.  It’s amazing all the crap that’s produced in China!

Around mid-June the Geeks on a Plane tour rolled through town to attend Shanghai Barcamp on June 14, and then celebrated the end of the trip with the Geeks and Glamour afterparty at M1NT.  It was awesome to meet entrepreneurs, VCs, and other twitter friends from the States including @DanMartell.

With Eliana in Pingyao

Throughout June and early July, Eliana and I went revisiting or exploring new parts of Shanghai.  And of course, we went to Beijing and saw the not-to-be-missed, Great Wall of China, Tiananmen, Forbidden City, and she went swimming in the Olympic Watercube.   I also got to see to see Ian, Leslie, Jeremy, and Jenny, and join yet another Tweetup to meet twitter friends in Beijing.  To check another place off my list, we took the train to the old walled city of Pingyao. At nearly the end of the trip, on the bus ride to the airport, my cosmetics case got stolen from my backpack A very sad day.  In this case, Eliana was the rock–thank you girl, I love you!

Just around the 3 year anniversary of my life in China, the internet went on lockdown in China and ever since then Twitter, Facebook, Twitpic, and since even earlier Youtube have been inaccessible, seriously hindering multimedia communication with the outside world.  Mid-July Eliana went home and I took my 2nd transpacific flight, this time to Vancouver.

On the bus from Vancouver to Seattle there was free wifi! And unrestricted access to twitter, facebook, youtube, which was like heaven until my laptop battery died and I realized my power cord didn’t work in N America… A busy 3 days in Seattle with my Dad and friends, Burt and Dawn: food festival, hiking Mt. Rainier, and the 4am launch of !talk! Marketplace for companies, but the weather was gorgeous, the food good and fresh, and the air clean and refreshing.

Next it was time to fly up to Alaska for my grandparents 60th Anniversary.  We went ATV-ing near Denali National Park, watched the sunset at 11pm, pet huskies, took the Denail Express train to Whittier, cruised on the Diamond Princess, went to Glacier Bay National Park, sea-kayaked in Ketchikan, went Geocaching, and had a good week of family time.

At Butchart Gardens, Victoria

For the first week in August, I reconnected with friends from China now living in Victoria and Vancouver, including Heike, Brook, Scales, KK, and Danielle, and made other new friends through them, include Mariska.  The Pacific Northwest from Seattle, to Vancouver and the Island, all the way up to Alaska has truly spectacular natural beauty, clear blue skies, snow covered peaks, stunningly colored flowers, green trees and grass, fresh healthy foods, all enough to satisfy me with what often seems lacking in the grimy urban grey of Shanghai.  Catching up with friends from China who are no longer living there really helped me to get perspective on life there and what is most important.  Getting on my 3rd and last transpacific flight of the year to head back to Shanghai, I was feeling very refreshed and refocused with resolutions for my life in China.

Back in Shanghai, I jumped head first back into activities related to tech, work, events, and, from all my discussions with friends who formerly lived in China, recommitted myself to learning Chinese.  I found a private tutor to work with 2 times per week, started reading Chinese magazines and newspapers, listening to ChinesePod again, decided to more actively seek out opportunities to practice Chinese including looking for new Chinese friends, and eventually more Chinese shows and movies.  I am listening to countless podcasts on entrepreneurship, as well as lectures on world history and geopolitics to start brushing up my knowledge for the foreign service exam.

With my September trip to Hong Kong to see Coni, Brenda, Amjad, Daniel, Stanley, etc, and Stephanie (who I hadn’t seen in 5 years, since USC), I finally gave into pressure and got an iPhone.  Podcasts, apps, Chinese dictionary with handwriting, plus GPRS allowing me to be chatting to someone through Skype while walking down Nanjing Road, I can’t believe I waited so long.  iPhone convert, admitted.

USC friends in Shanghai

By the time October holiday rolled around, my work permit was expiring, and still reeling from all the traveling I’d already done this year, with additional complications, I was compelled to spend China’s 60th Anniversary National Day in Shanghai, much to my chagrin.  (Randomly, I just realized the CCP was founded the same year my grandparents got married).  It turned out to be a blessing in disguise as I got to reconnect with another friend who used to live in Shanghai and was back for a visit: Matthias.  October and November were spent with friends who were in town visiting, including a week with that friend from Germany, Ian down from Beijing and his friend from USC, then in November Sean came back for a visit and the HSBC Golf Tournament, followed by Luke from Toronto (I met but hadn’t seen since 2006), who came to visit family and attend his sister’s wedding

In late October, USC opened their first office in Mainland China.  Also in late-October, I went to yet another manufacturing town, this one specializing in textiles for the Keqiao Tradeshow and also saw the canal town of Shaoxing.  A month later, Bryan, Vivianne, and I were off for a day trip to the Commodity City: Yiwu.  It’s amazing all the crap that’s produced in China! Since getting back to SH in August, my Chinese slowly showed signs of improvement after months of stagnation, I signed up to an internet dating site (thinking about it now, am I that desperate?), and I continued to spread myself over many different involvements.

With Mom at the Chocolate Hills, Bohol

For Thanksgiving, I met mom in the Philippines for my last international trip of 2009, bringing the total to 50 countries in 25 years.  Ten days in the Philippines renewed my health (after 2 brutal days of facing the Chinese hospital system just before the trip) and helped me to realize I was stretching myself in too many different directions.  This feeling was further brought home by another conversation in early December that’s been forcing me to take stock of where I am, where I’m going, recognize my passions, and figure out what I want out of life.  As 2009 draws to a close and I face yet another round of visa applications, I’m reading Think and Grow Rich (again) and Getting Things Done, and most importantly I’m reflecting on those issues and what they mean for me in 2010.  The most influential and memorable book I finished in ’09 was The Go Giver–great book, go read it, especially if you do business or work in social!

Happy New Year!

Writing this made me realize there were a lot of photos from this year, I hadn’t yet put on Flickr, so if you didn’t click on any of the links above, go look at my photostream now, its been updated: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tofflerann/

Don’t forget, 2010 is the Shanghai Expo and among other reasons, a great opportunity to come visit me in Shanghai! I’d love to host you if you’re coming this way.

Shanghai: Hyatt on the Bund, Vue Bar, 33rd Floor.  This hotel sits north of downtown and due to a particularly well placed bend in the HuangPu River, both new Shanghai (Pudong) and historic Shanghai (the Bund) are . Watch my video to see what I mean.

Bangkok: Banyan Tree Hotel, Moon Bar, Rooftop. From the Banyan Tree website, “The Moon Bar is one of the highest al-fresco rooftop bars in the Asia Pacific, offering a stunning venue with panoramic views” and I have to agree.

Hong Kong: 1 Peking Building, Aqua Bar, 29th Floor. This bar has a great angle and nice height from which to view Hong Kong Island.  The view from here is one of the most memorable and recognizable anywhere in the world.  Make sure you get there before they start turning off all the lights.

NYC: Arthur’s Landing, Weehawken, NJ.  The best view of New York City is actually from New Jersey.  Yes, that means you have to cross the river but the view is well worth it.

Where are your favorite city views? Do you have any for London? Paris? Dubai? Rio de Janeiro? Singapore?

July 99 :: Alaska :: Celebrity Mercury
July 00 :: Greece :: Royal Olympic
July 02 :: Baltic :: Celebrity Constellation
December 02 :: L.A. – Mexico :: Carnival
July 04 :: Mediterranean :: Celebrity Millennium
December 05 – January 06 :: Mexican Riviera :: Celebrity Mercury
May 06 :: NYC – Canada :: Carnival
December 06 :: Caribbean :: Star Princess
December 07 :: Antarctica :: Antarctic Dream
December 07 – January 08 :: Panama Canal :: Azamara Quest
July 09 :: Alaska :: Diamond Princess

And that doesn’t even include Yangtze River cruises or other minor river trips.

I have done a fair bit of cruising, especially for my age.  And I thoroughly enjoy it, not to say their couldn’t be improvements, but it’s an all-in-one vacation that keeps the whole family together and yet the flexibility that allows us to do our own thing. I look forward to pursuing the rumors of a summer river cruise for our next family vacation.

Pingyao is one of China’s many UNESCO World Heritage sites. It was the first banking center of China, with its heyday in the 19th Century.  The town quickly fell into poverty and therefore escaped modernization and development, which helped to preserve the city’s original structures.  Pingyao boasts its the only city with the original city wall still intact, and the only remaining original example of traditional Han Chinese architecture from the 18 and 19th Centuries.  (Compare Lijiang, which was built by Naxi Minority of China, and has been largely reconstructed–and expanded.)  While I won’t pretend to believe that Pingyao is all the original or that none has been ‘restored’, Pingyao still maintains its charm.  While we were there it was quiet, peaceful, picturesque, and often times we could be walking all alone down an ancient alleyway–something unheard of in China’s metropolises.

We took the 1163 overnight train from Beijing directly to Pingyao and we had pickup service waiting for us, provided by our hostel, Pingyao Zhengjia Int’l Youth Hostel (an HI Hostel, but no card required).  This hostel was excellent: very friendly staff (but almost no English spoken), set in a traditional courtyard house, exceptionally clean, social atmosphere, great value, and all around nice place to stay–it was rated 2nd Best Hostel in Asia on Hostelworld.com.

The nearest airport is in Taiyuan, provincial capital of Shanxi, which is 2-hour bus ride away.  To return to Shanghai, we took the bus to Taiyuan, then took a taxi to the airport.  If you arrive at the Taiyuan Jinan Bus station, the bus to the airport stops directly across the road.  If you go by taxi, put on the meter, then add 10kuai to the final fare, it should be about 30RMB.  Be careful, be careful, be careful on the bus.  There are some buses operating illegally around that region, and there are a gang of thieves who work the buses (and seem to have an agreement with the operators to turn a blind eye).  I was a victim of this.  This is now twice in <9 months I’ve had stuff stolen on a bus in China.  Take good care of your stuff no matter how large, small, or worthless–you’ll miss it when its gone, and it will be, if you don’t watch out.

Then entrance ticket to Pingyao Ancient Town is 120RMB and includes entrance to more than 19 different attractions, including walking on top of the city wall.  After about the first handful or so, most the attractions begin to look very similar.  Except for the wall, the temples, and the church, most of the attractions are courtyard compounds used for different purposes: long front wall, 1 gate, opens into small entryway followed by a courtyard with rooms on each side and a large room at the back, with another courtyard behind that and on each side. This pattern then repeats for the depth of the property and at each place.  It was a good method to prevent attackers and to maintain the inner sanctum of the business or family household.  Both businesses and residential compounds had this layout.

Perhaps the highlight for me was chatting with an elderly couple who had been married for 45 years and who were eager to chat and show us their courtyard house.  They were very proud of the fact that they had so many children who were now office workers in the modern city and had kids of their own–they had a grandson that was Eliana’s age.  They also insisted on showing us that they had modernized their house to have indoor plumbing, including a washing machine!

In the day and a half Eliana and I were in Pingyao, we saw a number of the Ancient Town attractions:

Residence of Lei Lutai
Yingxun Gate (End of South Street to climb the wall)
Qinhan Gate (End of East Street to get off the wall)
1st Armed Escort Ageny in North China
China Chamber of Commerce Museum
Ri Sheng Chang
Then lunch at DeJuYuan Hotel/Restaurant
Ancient Government Building
Fengyi Gate (West Street Gate)
Ancient City Building (at night)
Chenghuang Miao (Daoist Temple)
Bai Chuang Tong
Yong Long Hao Lacquerware Shop
and others…

Full collection of pictures from the Pingyao & Beijing trip on Flickr

Saturday morning started off with walks in the hills around the Longjing Tea Village.  Longjing is special kind of green tea that is grown in Hangzhou, of which the West Lake variety is said to be the best.  It is famous as a tea of the Chinese emperors, and it also has many health properties. To continue our study of tea we went to the China International Tea Museum, which has 2 floors explaining the history and preparation and proper drinking methods of every imaginable variety of tea. Tea did, in fact, originate in China where it was initially ground up, made into cakes prior to the development of the drinking style of tea. From China, drinking tea spread to Japan, Korea, India, and from India to Britain.

The afternoon took us back downtown to the incredibly expansive Grand Canal Museum.  The Grand Canal connected Hangzhou (south of Shanghai) to Beijing by water during the Ming and Qing Dynasties. While I didn’t get to see all of the museum, which doesn’t have much in English anyway, I did get to ride on the Grand Canal under old(-looking) bridges and past modern highrises and imagine when this was the most important N-S transportation way in China.

Late afternoon brought Al and I to a blind massage place, followed by a walk around the night market and dinner at Crazy Barbecue, where I had the spiciest thing I’ve ever eaten, and I can handle spicy. I had tears streaming down my face 2 bites in, mouth on fire and blindly numb, drank 3 bottles of refreshments and was still dying. Eventually coconut milk eased the burden, but it wasn’t until much much later in the evening I recovered full feeling in my mouth.

Sunday morning the first stop was the 6 Harmonies Pagoda (六和塔), where I climbed all 13 storeys of the Pagoda and was rewarded with expansive views of the city. Then back down and climbing the hills behind the pagoda are lots of replicas of pagodas from all over China. While the Chinese claim the invention and/or discovery of many things, they admit that pagodas originated from India where stupas were a common facet of Buddhist architecture.   After wandering through the hillsides, we went and had a very sweet, very gooey, but very good donut–all the calories burned from climbing the hills, replenished.

After another massage, this time a surprisingly affordable Thai massage (yes, it was a very indulgent weekend), we went for Muslim food.  Amazing that you can eat such great hummus in a place like Hangzhou, along with Greek salad, mutton, and pita bread. While for us the Muslim food was certainly the appeal of the place, all the Chinese diners were eating Chinese food or spaghetti.  Even though  right after lunch has got to be the worst time for going clothes shopping, I wanted to go back to a store I’d bought a couple dresses at on my year before’s trip to Hangzhou.  Can you believe it–the store still existed and was still in the same place! So after doing a little shopping on HeFang Pedestrian Street, we decided to test our luck with the bewitching hour, the time between 4-6pm when its nearly impossible to get a cab in Hangzhou.

And with that, it was the end of my 2nd, 2-day trip to Hangzhou and yet I still haven’t seen everything worth noting in this historically rich city of China.

We stayed at a place called Open Guest House near Hanseng University. It was very clean and affordable and Danny was most helpful.  It was very convenient to 2 subway stops and we could get a 3-person room, so this place was a good choice.

Since we didn’t arrive til mid-afternoon the first day, we wandered around Hanseng University area, the figured out how to take the subway and wandered around some more before we met Irene, my friend from college for dinner.  She took us to SoSonJae – Herb-Flower Season’s Korean Cuisine.  It was excellent, with really unique dishes, unlike any other we had in Korea. The owner clearly took pride in his menu with explaining the history and uniqueness of the foods and which the royal family used to eat.  After dinner we wandered down through Instadong which is a popular tourist shopping area, snacking on waffles and other traditional desserts, then walked along the canal-river.  This was apparently a very romantic spot in the city as we saw countless couples sitting down by the river.  We finished the evening with a nightcap of Sochu-juice blend in a bar near our guesthouse.

The next morning the 3 of us got up earlyish and started on our way to Camp Kim – USO office, ie the starting point for the USO day tour to the Demilitarized Zone – the demarkation between Communist North and Democratic South Korea. This was one of the most interesting day trips I’ve been on and for many Americans a highlight of their trip to Korea.  More on this in a separate post.

Returning to town to clean up after walking climbing through North Korean spy/invasion tunnels, we stopped at a Korean barbeque restaurant, where they spoke no English.  Yet, we managed to have a good filling meal of grilled meat wrapped in lettuces with spicy sauces, various kimchees, soup, and beer.

For the evening, Irene had in mind for us to go clubbing at a popular club in Itaewon; however not realizing the dress code we were too casually dressed.  So we wandered around Itaewon-a popular nightlife spot for foreigners-for awhile and I came to understand why the US military was so disliked in Korea.  Later we sat in a bar that was about 80% American military.  About 11pm, it was curfew time for the military so a uniformed US patrol came in and took the active duty out of the bar. Interestingly, it was all girls who were trying to break curfew.

The next morning (Saturday) we took it easy before going shopping in Myeong-Dong to help my other 2 friends find nicer shoes and clothes that they could go clubbing in.  Then we got ready for out big evening. First, dinner at Zen Hideaway a trendy fusion restaurant in Seoul popular for its long leisurely meals and beautiful garden settings. We ate at the location in the even trendier Apgujeong-Dong area, known for its highend boutiques and popular cafes. Then we went to meet my friend from Hong Kong at the Jazz Bar at the Park Hyatt.  After 2 bottles of wine at dinner, sochu and other cocktails at the jazz bar, we were ready to go clubbing!

Well we thought we were ready, until the club in the Ritz-Carlton told my friend at 34 he was too old!  After laughing to no end about that we decided it was also probably the fact that he was an American male (and because of the bad reputation of the military all American men are perceived to be the same). So we went back to Itaewon, the foreigner friendly district to try our luck at Club Volume, where Irene had hopped to take us the previous night.  After arguing with the bouncer for a few minutes about my friend’s age, nationality, occupation, etc we were allowed to pay about $30 to get into this club. Woah! I haven’t seen a cover charge that high since Singapore or Europe. It was a techno-trance club with most people dancing, a few standing around or lounging around tables. There’s a video on my Flickr stream if you want to know what a club is like in Korea.

For our last day, we had to do something cultural so we went to the Gyeong-Buk Palace, National Folk Museum of Korea, and Korean History museum. By contrast to the expensiveness of everything else in Seoul, we paid $3 to get into the Palace, while the museums were free.  The cultural and traditional architecture of Korea is largely similar to China’s.

For lunch we wanted street food, fresh pressed juices, Korean rice cake, deep fried stuff on a stick, dumplings, the whole lot.  We walked and ate and looked at the outdoor fair before ending our day in a ritzy grocery store owned by the family conglomerate Lotte, and having our best waffles of the trip.   It was a very nice way to end 4days in Seoul.

Many thanks to Irene for all the planning and tour-guiding; you really made the trip! Thanks to Sian, @DianaKuan, and @Seungyonce for all the advice on what to see, where to eat, and what to buy.