Spargadon reunited!!

On Friday August 2nd 2k13 Spargadon were reunited once again after 11 months. 

That's Spiers + Hargadon - in case you were wondering. 

Ok - we're lame but we love it.

So yeah, anyway. I headed up to Seoul on the Friday night with Niall - and we were reunited!!

 

I decided to hide behind a wall and Niall lied that I had popped to the shop for a beer. Sam muttered something about 'Typical' as I then jumped out and then just jumped around getting all excited and not believing that it was real!

On Friday night we headed to a South African restaurant for our first meal (not very Korean for them I know - but I needed my different food fix!) and then headed for a few drinks in Itaewon.

Luckily this didn't happen.

Saturday in Seoul we headed to Changdeok Palace and had a tour of the secret garden and then onto Gyeongbok Palace when we ended up seeing the changing of the guard. It was the first time that I had done the touristy temple shizzle in Seoul so I really enjoyed it too. And after forecasts of rain and storms - we had sunny weather. Woo woo!!

We headed to Hongdae for the evening. Makeolli drinking in the park (Sam and Penny were not as impressed as I was) then onto Ho Bar, Da bar, Exit and Club FF. As it always does - the makeolli hit me and I ended up playing 'Chip Jenga' in Taco Bell (apparently that's a game that I know when I'm drunk) and misplacing my phone..... luckily I got it back!

Sunday morning we went for Brunch in Seoul. We then headed to the Ghibli exhibition which was cool - but I think this was more suited to the boys - we managed to take some pics with some cute teddies though! Our original plan was to go to Banpo bridge to watch the light show - but we decided that we wanted to head to Daegu a bit earlier - so we decided to watch the water show there instead. (Don't bother - sorry guys this was my epic fail of a choice of things to do.)

We took an 'excellent' bus home - Sam and Penny were very impressed at the leg room - reclining seats and everything about the bus!  After the three and a half hour bus journey, we were finally at Daegu -our home for the next four days!

Monday morning we woke up early and headed to E-World. Daegu's theme-park. There were no queues for any of the rides so we took over. I maybe got a bit too aggressive on the Bumper Cars - but hey - the way they drive in this country - I was just copying what I had seen!

One word of advice - the tambourine - don't go on it. I have never feared for my life or had as many bruises as I have after this ride. I have a feeling we were picked on for being foreigners and pretty soon the tears of laughter nearly turned into actual tears. Of course it was funny afterrrrr - but yeah - NEVER again. 

The bruise Penny gave me from trying to hold on haha!

We then headed downtown to show them around. I took them to The Hello Kitty Cafe - because it has to be done! (Even thought this was my first time inside the place). I thoroughly enjoyed acting like a tourist for two weeks!

We then headed to one of my favourite Korean restaurants. ANGRY MAN SOUP. Ok, that's not the real name - but this dude looks angry! Pork neck bone soup - where the meat just falls off the bone. Mmmmm. We then headed for a few drinks in the area that I live - Chilgok - or as Penny kept calling it - Chilcock.

Penny also had a few other words that she kept saying - Ooo is this Ki-mee-chee. Can we have BakDalbi tonight! <3 

On Tuesday we decided to have a very chilled out day and headed to Hotel InterBurgo to spend the day at the outside pool. Now this was the day Sam decided to test out the underwater function on his camera (myself and Penny were convinced that his camera was not waterproof) - but yeah, he pushed it underwater and took a picture. Bye bye camera. Idiot.

On Wednesday we decided to battle the heat and the humidity and climb Apsan. After we had started climbing the mountain we realised that it was bloody hot - so we took the cable car! We manged to take a few pictures - looking nice and sweat - even the short work was hard work! The walk down was also very intense - but we made it!

 

Penny and Sam managed a good jump shot

But we could not synchronise

Are we at the bottom yet?!

We then decided to punish ourselves further by heading to HerbHillz and going tree climbing. WE LOVED IT. We paid 20k for entrance into the park and one route tree climbing. We picked King Kong and made our way throughout the trees!

Thursday we headed downtown to take some cheesy photos in the photobooths and then went to eat Dak Galbi - one of Sams favorite meals in Korea! 

We then went to their first ever baseball game (my second haha). I really wanted to sit in the cooler area so that we could see the cheerleaders and win shizzle but after by awesome attempt at explaing to the woman we wanted to sit where the cheerleaders were - she told me it was sold out. Boo - onto the commoners section! We made friends with the family next to us - and made our way through a lot of chicken and beer! After a lot of cheering and chanting - our team won! 

Next - onto Daegu nightlife. A lot of my friends (and nearly all foreigners in Korea) were on vacation so downtown was a lot quieter than I'm used to - but that just meant that we could get to the bar easier. With me and Sam, I'm never sure if that's a good idea or not. We stuck with our old saying 'Start classy, end trashy' - I took them to From B - where we chose our drinks from an Ipad menu and enjoyed nice cocktails.

Then cocktails in a bag... Who's Bob? (who is he?)

Jeeeeeeeeeeeppppppppp!

Then an attempt to go to Star Kebab. I could have cried. I blame them entirely for my hangover the next day. They were not there in my time of need. Sam tried to make the taxi driver take us to McDonalds - but it just wasn't working. So I went for a nap in the taxi.

The next thing I remember is feeling like death and that I had lost one of Penny's shoes. FAIL. After looking for it (read sleeping in bed and letting Penny search) it finally turned up - and we packed and made our way to Busan for the next part of our journey! 

The train journey was not my best.

So, on Friday we ended up in Busan a bit later than originally planned. After eating enough food to feed a family (thanks free salad bar) I started to feel like a new person. We went for a walk down the beach were we were asked to pose for some pictures making angry faces. Make your own icecream later - we were ready to pass out ready for the next day!

Saturday we woke up early to head to Gamcheon cultural village. After walking through the colourful alleys Penny and I headed to Spaland (a spa INSIDE a shopping centre) and Sam headed back to the beach to work on his tan (and to shave all his hair off - 'it growss soooo fast in Korea'). We had a very relaxing afternoon trying out all the different saunas, sleeping and outdoor hot tubs with naked Koreans. Our friendship just went up a level I feel!

After meeting back with skinhead Sam we headed down to Gwangali beach to check out the bridge and to eat and drink (I swear all I did this vacation was eat!!) We went for desert and was asked after picking up my desert the woman asked how many spoons - erm 1 please. Fatty here.

I normally go out in the Haeundae area of Busan or the uni area but we had a really fun night at Gwangali beach! I ended up meeting a new korean girl friend who was obsessed with me and basically kept abusing Sam telling him how awesome I was and how much he sucked. My kinda girl! Once again at the end of the night I went to get Star Kebab. No chicken. RUDE RUDE RUDE!

Check out this girls driving skills

You look like a footballer.
Yeah, Wayne Rooney.

We <3 KGB

The next day we woke up and headed to Yonggungsa Temple which is a temple by the sea. I wasn't expecting too much - but wow. This was definitely my favourite temple in Korea by far! There was so much to see and it looked so pretty by the sea. Sam managed to break his flip flop so spent half the afternoon hoping around. We then went back to Haeundae beach to get in some last minute sunbathing before our flight to Jeju!

Of course we had to fight to find a place that wasn't covered by an umbrella.....

On Monday we met at 8am and headed towards the bus terminal to get to sunrise peak. We ended up making a total fail and walking around 6 miles to the wrong bus terminal (which we realised after the bus took us back the way we came and then to a bus terminal close to our hotel - but hey it was a morning walk)

We hiked up sunset peak  - in our flipflops - oops. We went for a little dip in the sea after too!

We then headed to Jeongbang falls - the only waterfall in Asia to fall into the ocean. Pretty cool!

We then attmepted to get to Cheonjiyeon Falls but after decided to listen to Google maps and not the road signs we failed and gave up. We headed for bbq then ended up meeting some people that were in our hostel and went out for some drinks with them.

We then convinced the girl to visit some falls with us the next day that Winnie had suggested as they looked really pretty. We went to Cheonjeyeon Falls nice and early to try and get some pictures before the crowds got there and so that we could go swimming in the area that you're not allowed to. (Thanks for the tip Winnie!) It was so worth getting up early. We headed to the pond then to the two other waterfalls - so pretty. The third waterfall doesn't allow you to get close to it - so we would probably skip that one if we went back and spend more time at the other two!

We then headed to 'loveland' - it felt a bit strange to see children and elderly couples looking around taking things a bit seriously (the old people not the children) as we were there taking funny photos!

We then ended up accidentally walking all the way to the airport instead of the bus stop. What else do you do on long walks but sing Disney songs. It is here found out that Sam thought that the line

'What's a motto?' 

''I don't know, what's a motto with you?''

was actually

'What's a Pumba?''

''I don't know, what's a Pumba with you?''

We then headed back to our hotel area and found  Cheonjiyeon Falls this time - by following the real directions would you believe it! They wouldn't let you swim here at all - and we really wanted to go for a swim - so we headed to the coast to see if we could find somewhere. We went on the big white bridge to try and get a view of where we could go - and we saw the two guys from our hostel swimming in the sea close by. So we went to join (after climbing over a small barrier)! The water was nice and warm and we they did some cliff diving as we watched and sunbathed!

That night we went out for Shabu Shabu and some more drinks. Jeju soju is the nicest soju I have ever tasted - HALLLAA! 

Wednesday we then had to leave in the morning to fly back to Seoul - Spargadon trip was unfortunately coming to an end. We checked out the King Sejong statue, headed to Gangnam (we maybe got off at the wrong Gangnam subway first - but we can always walk to the correct place. We spotted a hooters along the way. Took the standard Gangnam stage photo. We headed to Jonny Rockets for a milkshake (HELLO, GOODBYEEEE) where the balloons kept stressing Sam out and then onto our last meal in Korea! Sad sad timessss!

We all slept at the airport Jimjilbang - where we lost Sam for a few hours, who was loving life in the saunas and the free moisturiser - can't go peeling away all his tan now can we! Haha! After a standard shitty sleep (crazy man talking to himself, me dreaming that I fell down a mountain and nearly hitting Penny) - we headed to departures to say our final goodbyes.

It didn't really feel real - the next day I woke up in the middle of the night wondering where they had disappeared to....then I remembered.  SO SAD!!

It was an excellent top up and made me feel so much less homesick - which I think has now helped me make the decision that in Januarys vaycayyyy I will actually do a 3 week Asia trip instead of hitting the UK in the coldness. Brrrrr. So if anyone fancies a hol, let me knowww! 

So thanks again for coming guys - it was such a long way to come - and things didn't always go to plan - but in the end Spargadon pulled through and we had an AWESOME trip away! 

Look at the actual joy on my face

<3

See you never. Byeeee!