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First off, I’m late but I’ll say it anyway - Happy Father’s Day dad!!

There were two food options on the Korean Airlines flight: Western and Korean. I was already in the holiday spirit so I opted for Korean food for supper. Since making that decision I can say without a doubt that airline food is airline food. Bad Korean happens to be better than bad pizza or chicken with rice but it’s still airline food at the end of the day!

We arrived in Seoul at 16:30 (8:30 BST) rather bleary-eyed but in pretty good shape overall. I say we arrived in Seoul but what really happened was landed in a nearby town called Incheon - a mere hour bus ride away. I’ve already complained about air travel many times including here, here and here so I won’t go into it in detail once again but I will say that airlines should be required to state travel times from the airport to the city centre in addition to the flight times. This would open a lot of people’s eyes to the real cost of air travel. At 19:00, yes that is two and a half hours after we landed, we left the hotel and start our holiday in earnest.

I only took one term of Korean language classes but it really makes a difference in my comfort level. I had alwasy believed that travelling to an Asian country would be a disorientating and difficult experience because you couldn’t do basic things like read signs and notice boards. Well, I still haven’t tested my theory because I can read most signs and notice boards and ask for basic things! Also, at least in Seoul, most people speak at least a little English so I can get by quite nicely. Having Yu Kyoung to back me up when I fail helps a bit too, I’m sure.

Around the corner from the hotel, I stepped into an exaggerated version of New Malden. We walked for a while until we found a suitably busy restaurant, took off our shoes and took a seat on the floor for our first meal in Korea. We had beef bulgogi and some soup then pork with old kimchi. The sourness of the old kimchi matched the pork belly perfectly. For those who don’t know, many meals in Korea are cooked at your table which lets you eat at your own pace and have piping hot food on demand - perfect!

After the meal we found a bar named Zuzu. It was relatively empty but the staff was very friendly and we got to see a dazzling display of spirit bottle spinning and fire breathing by the bar staff. It was quite impressive. Overall, it was a great start to the trip.

The cold and rainy weather that dominated the middle of this week has cleared away for a sunny weekend. This won’t matter to me because I’m leaving, on a jet plane, for Korea this evening. We picked up a 2 Gigabyte Memory Stick for the trip so I don’t think we’ll run out of space to store photos. If we do, there’s always the option of burning the data to a CD at a photo shop somewhere.

I’m rather excited for many reasons:

• I’ve never been to Korea, or anywhere in Asia
• We are going for two weeks
• I get to meet Yu Kyoung’s family
• We might miss a huge belt of rain in Jeju when we’re in Seoul and miss it again when it hits Seoul because we’ll be in Jeju
• We’re going to be in Seoul for next Korean World Cup match

Koreans are big supporters of football as the photo, and associated story, shows and we’ll be in Seoul for the next Korea match. Unfortunately, it will be at 4am (if my calculations are correct) but luckily we won’t be over jetlag yet and so we’ll probably handle it with no problems.

I hope to be able to post photos while I’m travelling but if not then I’ll revert to my descriptive skills to entertain you.

Olay Regenerist™ lotions are simply amazing. I’ve been reluctantly using lotion for the last few years since I can’t stand the sandpaper dryness that my face has become but it always felt as if the moisture was actually the lotion and once it evaporated then the dryness was back. Amino-peptiudes are different though. I applied the night cream version then went to bed. When I woke up in the morning and gave my face that half rub, half slap morning treatment I suddenly stopped on the first slap. I just couldn’t believe how soft my skin was. I took a shower and when I got out and dried off, it was still soft and moist!

Immensely impressed, I set about applying it daily from then on. I’ve missed some night applications due to my friend Mr. London Pride and I even skipped one day because I didn’t think I needed it but other than that I’ve become a devout follower of amino-peptides. I’m starting to sound like my mom when she was in her thirties which is a little worrying. I remember aerobics tapes and our healthier eating attempts and they mimic my current life to perfection.

It’s quite sad but I guess this is just another item that firmly confrms me as a metrosexual. More worrying is that I’m writing about lotion on the same day that Michael writes about Krav Maga!

You may know that I’m not a huge sports fan so a post on the topic might be a bit surprising. I don’t follow football regularaly but it’s pretty difficult to not be excited about the World Cup games when you live in any country in the world but the US. Businesses close down. Pubs fill up. Faces are painted. Everyone is wearing sports gear but you’re not surrounded by chavs. Overall it’s just a great time.

I thought that I would be able to treat myself and some mates to matches in high definition television for the first time. We could see two out of the three matches in glorious detail. Only one had to be watched in the blocky and blurry resolution that’s been around since the 1950s. Can you guess which one? Of course it was the England match.

We still managed to have a great time and cheer on England to a win. We had a great BBQ and I can’t really complain. From tomorrow I’m looking in to why I can’t get BBC in HD and I hope to have it all sorted out as soon as possible. In time for the USA match tomorrow is doubtful, for the Korean match on Tuesday is possible but I’ll be at work and Thursday we’ll probably watch it in the pub if we can find a place to stand. So I guess I don’t have to be in too much of a hurry about it.

Americans are already familiar with the improvements that highdef broadcasts give you but the UK is only launching service now. You can get it on Sky and a mere 450 of us are trialling the broadcast in London. I felt lucky when I was selected but the wind fell out of those sails on yesterday. Hopefully I’ll be able to watch at least one England match at full resolution!

Come on England!

It’s only fair to provide some impressions of the high definition TV (HDTV) service. At first we weren’t that impressed but I think it’s because we were just too picky and looking for very specific details. We settled in to the first half and were quite shocked when we switched back to the standard definition TV (SDTV) during halftime as a comparison. All of the sudden, everything looked blocky and blurry. We really couldn’t believe that we had to watch the England game like that! It is something that you just get used to after a while and forget how good it is. What I could have done without was watching the sweat pour off of Jim Rosenthal’s face. At the start of the halftime broadcast he was dry as a bone but mere minutes in and he was dripping wet. We went back to the SDTV broadcast and you couldn’t notice a thing at all. Announcers must hate HDTV!

Now, for the Americans who might not realise that a game with contestants from all around the world is actually happening, you can view the BBC World Cup 2006 Schedule. USA is ranked quite highly this year so you should tune in! The games are being broadcast in HDTV to the US too as far as I know.

The trip begins! We live just 45 minutes from the sea but we rarely take advantage of it. Brighton holds a special place in our hearts. Four years ago my immigration status was on the rocks and Yu Kyoung and I were lamenting the fact at a Wimbledon pub. Over a pint, we made a snap decision to jump on a train to Brighton. Thirty minutes later we were on our way. We had no money and so had to “borrow” some from Yu Kyoung’s sister via her emergency credit card. We found a place to stay and in the morning raided the Boot’s cosmetic samples section to do ourselves up. But that was our last trip.

This time the trip was inspired by the sand sculpture festival. We were incredibly lucky with the weather and walked out of the train station into the first day of summer in England!

We were off to the coast but first we had to stop in to the Watersone’s and take a peek at our friend Michael’s book The Manuscript.

We finally made it to the sea and had lunch at English’s restaurant - just like we did four years ago. It was fantastic and just as expensive as we remembered! But there is nothing like sitting at English’s having mussels, crab and dover sole over a nice bottle of white wine. The only complaint - and one I like having - is that the sun was bearing down on us quite heavily and we had to get up and take a short walk to cool ourselves down from time to time. I have posted the best of our June 2006 Brighton Trip on Flickr.

It’s already June and I’m just posting tales of my ski trip. Not exactly on top of things, am I? Well, I’m working on it. The good news is that WordPress is an absolute treat and I seem to be getting new functionality quickly and easily. What can I say about my ski trip?

The first one is always the most expensive. We had to buy thermals, ski gloves, goggles, waterproof coats and trousers and loads of other things. I know that next year will be cheaper but this year was painfully expensive. And we went to a cheap location! Yu Kyoung’s ski jacket is especially nice though, don’t you agree?

I was a bit worried and you can see that my concern was completely justified. I’d love to say that I was careening down the mountain at insane speeds or perfecting my half pipe skills or even that I was moving when this happened. Sadly, I had almost come to a stop and then lost my balance. One of those moments that you can’t believe happens but it does.

No worries because I got to walk the mountain. Something I’m sure I wouldn’t have tried had I not broken my arm because I would have considered it too dull. In fact, it was dull but very relaxing. I recommend it to anybody on their ski holiday. I know it’s tough to consider when your blazing down the mountain every 30 minutes but take a nice walk up the mountain and you’ll appreciate the ski lift all the more.

More photos can be found in my Flickr Ski 2006 album.

I decided to take my new driving license for a short spin up to Oxford. Henry was kind enough to offer his car and company during the trip. Michael and Yu Kyoung rounded out the standard seating capacity. When Henry picked us up from Staines, he hopped out of the car and rang his insurance company to add me to the policy.

They asked some questions about my age and how long I’ve had my license. We told them that I’ve had a US license since 1989 and that I had just passed my UK driving test. Apparently, this was no good. I was not allowed to drive the car. They mentioned something about a high-performance (about 200 Brake Horsepower) engine and a new driver. Now, we had explained that I’m not a new driver, just a new UK license holder but we didn’t get a chance to detail the power of my previous vehicles which were all above the 200 mark with a single anomoly of 315 BHP in one car!

Either way, I ended up in the navigator’s chair once again. I hear that I’ll be able to drive for real after I’ve had my license for a year. I hope it’s true. I must say that I did an excellent job of navigating us to Oxford. The day was great. We had a great pub lunch followed by a walking tour given by a rather eccentric woman. Her husband was with her and took care of forcing stragglers and people who tried to quit the tour early to keep up with us. The tour took a whopping two and a half hours! It was mostly interesting however and I got to see a good portion of Oxford and learn about it’s peculiar ways.

I’m now just sitting back and waiting until I can drive again. I understand that if I picked up an old mini for a few hundred quid and took out an insurance policy that I would be covered by third party on any of my mates’ cars. It’s an interesting option but I’m not too keen to own a car again - MOT inspections, looking for parking, paying insurance and buying petrol are not on my list of fun activities in life. I think I’ll be patient and write another story about being able to drive again next year.
Note: Trip Pictures are also available.