He Has No Enemies But is Intensely Disliked by his Friends

This Oscar Wilde quote reminded me of my friend Ben, the only difference being that Ben has plenty of enemies. I was lucky enough to have him visit from England over the past week or so.

Ben arrived on Monday and I met him in Cheers for a quick catch up and a few pints. He had just departed Sydney having also just met up with Ed and Amy, as well as a few other friends from our hometown of Bedford, so we had a lot to talk about. Josh and James finished work and joined us, unfortunately because of the distance between Ganseok and Kundae and due to my early morning classes I went home while the drunkards did what they did best. Josh, James, and Ben continued this custom for the week, I’m sort of glad I lived quite far away as an entire week of drinking would have been challenging.

To make up for not seeing Ben during his stay in Korea I met up with him on Friday afternoon. We had all planned on going out that evening so it was stated between Ben and I that we wouldn’t start drinking too early in order not to peak prematurely and would wait until later around the time that Josh and James were due to meet us. After an hour of boringly walking around Hongdae we decided that enough time had passed and we had our first drink around 16:00. Josh was not impressed when he arrived around 23:00 and Ben and I were considerably buzzed.  

It was the weekend that one of my many alter egos had struck again. The Tefl-on Don was his dynamic self, tagging Seoul with his motto. Drake has YOLO, I’ve got TnM.

Saturday morning/afternoon was a real struggle. Ben was adamant on going to the Coex Aquarium in Gangnam so we arranged to meet at 17:00 at Samseong Station, only 20 minutes from my home. Disastrously I was running late and arrived at the station at 17:30 only to go to the meeting point to discover that the guys weren’t there. I tried for a short while to message them to meet them at the aquarium but after as I didn’t receive a reply I thought the best thing to do was to go to the aquarium and hopefully meet them there. When I arrived there was no sign of them, I thought what great mates I have, I was only half an hour late and they’ve ditched me for the day. I bought a ticket and went into the aquarium alone, like I was Billy No Mates. I rushed around hoping to catch them, missing some of the exhibits only to make it all the way through and still be alone. What a great day. I walked back towards the station hoping to receive some sort of contact from them but before I did Ben and Josh appeared from the crowd from nowhere. I smugly asked them “where have you been then?!” It turned out that they were also late getting to the meeting point and when they received my message they headed straight for the aquarium. But due to their lateness they were in fact a few steps behind me along the way. So as I raced through the aquarium they were waiting for over an hour for me to arrive. When I didn’t turn up James even ran back to the station to see if I was still waiting there. What great mates I have! I felt a bit awkward, considering some of the things I called them as I walked around the aquarium. We went to the aquarium as a group and I got to see the sea creatures properly that time around.

 

One of the main reasons we went was that Ben really wanted to see the 3 enormous whale sharks that their website bragged so much about. We discovered that there were no whale sharks on display at this aquarium which Ben was not happy about; he hasn’t been nicknamed Miserable Ben for no reason.

The aquarium was fun, four lads making many terrible puns; often relating to crabs, beavers, and clams (you can insert your own here). 

It is quite harrowing to be so close to a predator even if there is a thick layer of glass between you. I always remember a piece of advice that if you ever find yourself in situation with an aggressive shark then you must punch them on the nose. I’m pretty sure that advice is for sharks… or children, I can never remember.

I always enjoy observing animals, from a safe distance. As unbelievable as some of the BBC documentaries are, they will never put into perspective how astonishing some animals are. The sheer size of a shark, the layers of teeth, and the movement of a fish as it effortlessly glides through the water so streamlined, truly incredible. As I thought this I realised that all of Korea is like an aquarium, there are fish tanks on every corner whereby you can pick out your fish and have it killed, gutted, and on a plate in 30 minutes. Koreans will eat almost anything so I started to think of the exhibition as less of an aquarium and more of a buffet for the locals.

They had a nice penguin display; they’re always fun to watch. It was nice to see that they were put in enclosures that are similar to their natural habitats which is apparently on the set of Spongebob Squarepants.

We headed to Kundae, went for a Korean barbeque and started the night. Our first time out in Kundae, variety is the spice of life and it was a really good evening. Around the area I had seen a bar called Bar Ireland Yuki, we went in but I couldn’t quite understand the relevance to the Emerald Isle. It was an odd place, the bar had hundreds of photos on the walls and ceilings of the staff. It was like a stalkers dream, the only thing missing was a message written on the walls in blood and faeces.

It was really good to see Ben for a few days, although it was a shame that I couldn’t have seen him more over his stay. Although, he’s here till Tuesday afternoon but with the snowfall today hopefully his plane is cancelled… only joking.

A Content Man is One that Enjoys the Scenery Along a Detour

OK, the title's a bit corny but still relevant.

Detour stop number two on my journey to South Korea, and this time it’s to explore the wonderful city of Sydney and meet up with the travelling duo, Ed and Amy. They departed England in September and although I hadn’t planned on seeing them over the year that followed it was great to see their well-travelled, beautiful faces.

I arrived in Sydney in early December, and like most cities that abide by the Christian calendar, it was pleasantly festooned with merry decorations. This was odd for me for two reasons; 1) it appeared that Sydney really made an effort with their decorations, they had a serious budget that I’ve never really experienced back home in England. My home town of Bedford make an effort each year which normally involve hanging flashing lights and tinsel from lampposts around the town but nothing major. And 2) I had never experienced a scorching December before, during my stay in Sydney temperatures rocketed to mid-thirties which was nice but seemed odd when standing beside a Christmas tree and carollers. Winter in England has its benefits and drawbacks; one inch of snow brings the country to a stand-still, it also brings the hours of moaning about the weather (which we’re renown for), but an Australian will never know of the joy of watching someone struggle to walk on an icy pavement and then fall over. One of life’s simple pleasures.

My first few days were troubled with jet-lag, being extraordinarily tired but not being able to sleep and then waking at 5am. Rather than waste that time trying and failing to fall back asleep I took that opportunity to walk around my surroundings. I was centrally located in Woolloomooloo (great name, I know), so my first stroll took me to Circular Quay where you can get a great view of the harbour, the stunning Opera House, and Sydney Harbour Bridge. The views were even more incredible as the sun was rising, and no one else was around making unnecessary noise, being that it was about 5:30am.

As the tourist that I am, I visited many of the surrounding tourist hot-spots. The Royal Botanic Gardens were located very closely to where I was staying so it would have been rude no to walk through them. The Gardens were OK, I was expecting more if I’m honest. These were supposedly famous gardens but to me they were just gardens. A bit of greenery and a few shrubs, a florist may have valued them higher but for me I think the space could be utilised better if all the trees were dug up and football pitches were laid in their place. With more access to decent facilities, and further involvement the Australian national team could become a genuine force.

Darling Harbour is a fun place to visit, there’s always street performers, street artists, and a great view from the many bars that have a daily happy hour. Within the Darling Harbour area is the wildlife park and the aquarium; again it would have been rude to have gone to Australia and not seen a kangaroo and/or a koala so a visit was necessary. The wildlife park was great, more than 80% of the plants, mammals, reptiles, and frogs are unique to Australia and cannot be found anywhere else on earth. Seeing the iconic animals for the first time was very interesting, seeing creatures that I’d only seen on the internet; kangaroos, koalas, wombats, Tasmanian devils, platypus, echidnas, and so many different types of snakes, spiders, and other creepy-crawlies. The trip to the aquarium was a disappointment by comparison. Don’t get me wrong, it was still pretty cool to see the sharks, manatees, stingrays, and jelly fish but there was nothing unique to Australia. I felt like I could have seen the sea life at almost any large aquarium in the world.

That's a picture of a koala sitting in a tree like it's an arm chair, and a picture of a kangaroo scratching his arse.

The city itself is very exciting. It combines a business district with the tall skyscrapers, the busy region of Chinatown, modern buildings, the many bars and restaurants, and the millions of people that pass through it every day and night. I thought it would be quite interesting to find out about the (very short) history of the city, so Ed, Amy, and I decided to take the tour of The Rocks. The tour would explain about how the first European settlers had colonised the area, and the colourful tales that would follow over the next 200 years. The tour was due to start at 18:00 but the tour was late, we waited for a full four minutes before we got impatient and went to the pub. I got the gist of the tour from the leaflet so, I’m good. It was that afternoon that I tried kangaroo steak. Not bad. It tastes very similar to beef steak just a bit chewier.

The evening entertainment in Sydney was always surprising. I had my first experience of crab racing. Yes, crab racing. A race which pitched crabs against one another to race to the edge of a large platform. Despite the premise the atmosphere was very exciting, although the bar was not encouraging gambling you could “buy” a crab and if your crab won you would win a prize, often a beer tab. It was funny to watch so many people get so animated cheering on a crab that had no idea that it was in a race, and would remain motionless for most of the duration of the race. It was a different, fun experience though.

We ventured to The Soda Factory/Bobby’s Boss Dogs, a bar that specialised in gourmet hot dogs, on two separate occasions. The first was to watch a screening of Home Alone (I forget how good that film is sometimes) and the second was to binge eat as many $1 gourmet hot dogs as possible. The dogs were pretty good! The first 3 or 4 were a delight going down then the dogs became a challenge, I think I ended up forcing 6 down and Ed managed 7. We asked the bar tender if there was a record, he said there wasn’t but he said he’d be surprised if someone could manage 4. So I think without really trying Ed managed to set an unofficial record, although not such a great idea when you have a 15 minute waddle home.

Something I haven’t mentioned so far that Sydney is famous for is its stunning beaches. Pretty much the only thing I had planned when I arrived in Australia was to lie on a beach and do nothing. When you work in customer service, like I did, I worked for a bank taking call after call about complaints and charges I couldn’t think of anything better than to lie on the sand, not having to speak to anyone, pure bliss. We mainly went to Bondi Beach, but we did go to Manly Bay on one occasion. The relaxing beach experience was tainted slightly with the risk of getting eaten by a Great White Shark if you decided to venture into the water. I have a friend from England who is petrified of sharks; she has nightmares about them, so scared in fact that she talks about them almost on a daily basis. I always laughed at her fear of sharks, and rightly so considering she lives in Derbyshire, but when you could potentially be less than 30 miles from a shark I had every right to be apprehensive from entering the water. The life guards have measures in place whereby a helicopter will patrol the coast roughly every thirty minutes but even so there were 48 shark attacks in Australia in 2008, that was 1 every week. So forgive me for being slightly afraid of a man eater.

On one of my many walks around the city I decided to walk across the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Now I know the bridge is legitimately safe to cross but when a lorry, or bus would cross the bridge the pedestrian footpath would shake, this made me very anxious. But I was already half way across so I persisted. Along the bridge I noticed a couple of padlocks locked to the gridded guard rail. This is a custom that has become very popular across the world, couples will write something soppy on a padlock, lock it to a public fixture, and this will represent their everlasting love. Bollocks if you ask me, and I think this particular padlock summarised it all for me. This relationship lasted all of 2 months, Josh’s ex-girlfriend obviously felt so aggrieved that she had to go back to the padlock and scratch her name off. The padlock remains but their love isn’t quite everlasting. Utter bollocks.

During my time in Sydney I managed to tick a substantial event off the bucket list, a sky dive. It’d been something that I had wanted to do for about 7 or 8 years but every time the opportunity would arise I would bottle it. So I forced myself this time, once I had paid for it I knew I would do it, and where else is going to be better than on the east coast beach of Australia? Looking back on it now it was possibly the best and the worst experience of my life, certainly the scariest. Karl Pilkington once said “you can’t enjoy something until after the event”, and he was so right. When I was in the plane it was scary, when the door opened and I swung my legs out at 15,000 feet it was terrifying, and when I jumped/was pushed my mind was blank. It was only until my feet touched the wonderful, solid ground, and my heart began to beat again that I appreciated how much of a thrill the sky dive was. Having done one it was truly incredible and I’d even recommend it to others who have never done one but it’ll be a long while before I put myself through that again. Here’s the jump in it’s entirety. And yes, I did scream like a little girl all the way down.

Here are some other highlights from my time in Sydney.