Advertisement
Day 31/12/09 Jez's Birthday!!
After a sleep in and presents... well one and unfortunately Jez was going to have to wait til next April for his round at St. Andrew's. We spent most of the day between the laundry-mat washing our piles of clothes organising all our stuff which seems to be growing by the day what to send home, what carry with us, what to store for our return.
We brought in the 2010 with a James Bond themed house-party at Justin and Shea's (our adopted home!), with lots of singing, dancing and games (pin the tail on the donkey has never been so much fun!).
It was a fantastic night and fitting end to amazing year!
We woke to a mess that put our uni house party's to shame, but couldn't face cleaning until after a fry-up. House cleaned, we headed to Clapham common park to enjoy the sunshine, blue skies and sunshine abiet freezing temperatures for a kick of the footy. We returned home to watch the Hangover (what would be more fitting), ordered some takeaway Thai and relaxed.
Our last day in London before our surprise visit home!! With a list of odd jobs we
set to it and before long it was 5o'clock and our taxi was waiting to take us to Heathrow airport. We said goodbyes to Justin, Shea and Hazel with mix of sadness, nervousness and excitement to be going home. Despite knowing we'd be back in a few months... Could we really pull off the surprise?
We set off just nearly an hour late but arrived safely in Seoul, South Korea as scheduled. We arrived to a city covered in snow, we boarded our limosine bus to our luxurious Novotel Ambassador hotel. Exhausted but keen to try and minimise our jet lag we headed for a quick bite to eat stopping at the cheapest and easiest option but I am embarrassed to say Burger King.
After a fantastic couples hours sleep we were wide awake.... it was just after two it was going to be a long night. After tossing and turning for hours, reading, counting sheep, we resorted to paying for a movie and and wait til breakfast both famished! Six finally arrived and we arrived at the empty restaurant only too happy to take up the offer of the breakfast buffet. One and half hours we left.... stuffed!
Keen to avoid the peak hour traffic we waited til after nine catching up on the news of the world. With as many layers as we could to battle the sub 10degree temperatures we caught the cleanest and best subway we have encountered so far to the centre of Downtown. At approximentely minus ten there was no standing around we bought tickets of the downtown tour bus happy to do it the easy way! We stopped off at the electronics market surprisingly not finding it much if any cheaper then home. Leaving empty handed we jumped back on the bus jumping off at the famous shopping street a little US in Korea filled with Starbucks, Macca's, KFC, Popyes, Steakhouses. One lap was enough and we returned to the comfort of the bus passing by South Korea National Museum, War Memorial, Market place arriving finally at Deoksugung Palace. The cold starting to take over Carly wondered how painful frost bite would be as her toes began to throb and Jez's cold getting the better of him. After a few quick snaps we jumped on the next bus missing our planned stops at the Blue Gate catching a glimpse of it from
the bus eager to get home and defrost .We headed straight to the spa. Warmed but barely able to keep our eyes open we opted for the in hotel restaurant for dinner despite of the slighly extravagant prices. We picked out a couple soups not exactly sure what to expect. We were pleasantly surprised by two fantastic soups accompanied by four korean sides and a huge portion on rice. We retreated to our room desperate for a few more hours sleep.
After waking at 4am we both dosed back off and couldn't believe when we woke again at 10am. There would be no time to go to the gym as planned, instead we packed our stuff... clearly still half asleep cos it took ages, checked out, bought bus tickets back to the airport and exchanged the last of our pounds with Barclays once again blocking our cards! With little time and temperatures of minus 11 we stopped at the closest fast food for pizza and pasta before returning to our hotel for our airport transfer. We were glad that we had left plenty of time with the journey taking longer then expected but making it in plenty of time
for the monotonous check in and security proceedings with just enough time for a peruse of the duty free. 'Jeremy Carr please report to check in' oh no what had we done, well unlike any previous flights his nut allergy required him to sign a disclaimer and board immediately we weren't complaining not having to flight the crowds was a blessing! After multiple consultations from various staff regarding the allergy we were left to contemplate the following 11hours without an entertainment system.... ahhhhh!
We struggled through the flight touching down in Tullamarine with our pick up waiting.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.144s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 20; qc: 62; dbt: 0.0869s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb