The Seoul Diaries with Niccyboy

Welcome to the Sees the Yay Podcast. Busy and happy are not the same thing. We too rarely question what makes the heart seeing. We work, then we rest, but rarely we play and often don't realize there's more than one way. So this is the platforms to hear and explore the stories of those who found lives they adore, the good, bad and ugly, The best and worst day

Was really chill day.

We met up with one of our beautiful friends and had a very local focus day. So we haven't really fully started our itinery yet. But first I want to ask you, Nikki, what your own expectations were last night, Like, you've never been here before. This is a whole new country and that's pretty rare. We haven't done that in a long time. So what were you expecting A.

Well, look, I've been to most parts of Asia, like all the major cities and countries in the region, and I just assumed that it was going to be similar to a lot of those. The history of the country I find very interesting, so I was very interested to come here. And how incredible the economic growths been that the nerd in me loves. The economic growth here in the last like thirty years has been huge, and it's a big tech place so and lots of cameras, so I like it here.

But yeah, that's so funny.

Most people are like skincare, capets, shopping, and you're like economic growth.

No. But I mean, if you think about like it was in like when I was a very small child, it was a third world country and now it's Look you've got LG, Samsung, Kia, Hyunde all from this place. And then obviously skincare. It's massive in skincare and a lot of the major skin companies manufacture here. It's incredible. It's an incredible place. And also the people are awesome.

Expt you except me love.

Literally, if you ever wanted to understand how Nick's brain works, this is how economic growth is what I expected about career.

But it's true.

I mean I was adopted from here in nineteen eighty nine and it was basically a third world country and it has just propelled onto the global scene in so many different industries. I mean, it's amazing in terms of like what you actually saw on the street today walking around, what did you expect it to look like or you know, did you have like a vision in your head?

Yeah, it's so far, it's pretty similar. It's super clean, it's not as busy as I thought it was going to be. I thought the streets were going to be Hong Kong esque bustling and stuff like that, and people are a lot less rude, not rude, like culturally pushy like in other parts of Asia. Here it's very like, no one bumps into you or anything like that. Super clean. Even though I haven't found a trash can in the last twenty four hours I've been looking. I'm still carrying my coffee from yesterday.

That was one of your first impressions this morning. So we started the day. We had a very late flight last night, so we kind of had a slower start to the morning. It was raining also in the first few hours of the day, and then it cleared up and became beautiful. But we just were staying in Beyoonda, which is like where it's all happening.

So he went for a little walk to Nike.

Ironically, that was like our first off because I was writing with the will go shopping, and your first comment was a everyone is so polite because there's no cars honking on the road despite hectic traffic. Everyone was just so lovely and courteous, and b there are no rash cans anywhere.

And the guy I walked into the two Nike, I was drinking your coffee. First off, the guy watches me walking with it says a low to me, and then I'm walking in there shopping for a bit and I take a sip in my coffee and goes there. Everyone taps me and goes, oh, sorry, but you're not allowed to drink your coffee in here. You're allowed to carry it, but you're not allowed to drink it. I'm like, yeah, no worries, that's fine. One. I don't quite get the

I love the trust system. I too, was like, are you going to monitor if I take a simple or not? Like why are you letting me keep holding it? How do you know I won't be tempted? But I think that's like, yeah, indicative of how courteous and respectful everyone

So she was she was our soul mate.

I thought I would crack first on the funds. Well done, thank you, So yeah.

We had a lovely walk.

Around the area and then Jade picked us up at twelve thirty and it was just Oh, she's just so lovely. It was so so nice to see her. And she took us on a little locals tour, starting with an incredible lunch and unfortunately I can't even tell you what we ate or what it was called, because she just ordered for us.

I'm not going to lie, and she goes, oh, I've ordered. There was only like four things, and then she just pointed out them and I looked at the pictures and I don't know what we're in for here, and it was delicious. I had like four different types of Kim. She was incredible.

It's definitely one of those places I think a lot of local experiences are like that, when you walk in and you're just like, this is not going to go well, and everything looks a bit questionable.

But everything was amazing.

The coolest thing about Korean food is that at every meal, they'll bring you like one hundred different little mini appetiser plates first, no matter what, like, they'll always bring out a million little plates.

I don't know, that's what I just got here.

Okay, Well that's a perfect segue into our little activity that we're going to do each day, which is to pick a highlight, a surprise, and something you learned about Korea or Korean culture or the language or people.

So your highlight, your surprise, and your lesson.

My highlight was probably probably that lunch or maybe just when had a nice little tea and I've looked where was there.

We were around book Chon, which is the really ancient area.

There's a lot of high rise areas.

That are really modern, and then Bookton's kind of like the ancient village where all the shopfronts are still really old and beautiful, and Jade took us to it. I'd really tucked away hidden tea house that's super famous, and we had all the marchery.

So that was that was a highlight on Walter was the other two questions.

You're surprised something that like you didn't expect that you saw today, And it's hard because we didn't do as much as we probably will every other day. But something that surprised you and then something that you learned.

Yeah, so I was definitely surprised about the cleanliness. The cleanliness is crazy, especially considering the lack of rubbish bins.

That's a real issue for you isn't it.

Well, it's good. I mean, obviously they don't have as much rubbish to throw out, so that's a good thing. And just well so far, just how the people aren't pushing into me and stuff like that, like to sounds so weird, but like culturally it's obviously the way people walk around streets and stuff is very different and a lot of parts of Asia and the people are in a hurry, you know what I mean. Especially it's a lot of people in a small city. It can feel like it's it's not rude, but it feels like it

And a lesson you learned today, be.

Prepared to carry your coffee cup for a long period of time.

A lesson about Korea and Korean culture.

Don't drink your coffee cup in Nike.

You learned one word today. I'm very proud of you, Mohammed day.

I forgot to do it.

So closeuse.

Come.

I need to edit in a tumbleweed and.

What it come to Hamida, Come to Hamida.

Oh well done, the intonation and everything well done. I'm really proud of you. That's a great lesson. And we've only been here for one day. Tomorrow we have a big day again. I'm going to cut us off now. That was day one. It was amazing. We'll have more few in the next couple of days. And we're also going to be visiting the demilitizer as well, which will

And we will be back shortly. Good morning.

We are back after day two, but it's actually been a little bit. We did Day one in the afternoon and then we headed out for a little night adventure to see Yongdong where we're staying at night, and it is.

A vibe be going on, isn't there.

It's so much cooler.

I mean it's cool during the day, but at night it just it happened to be a Saturday night as well, and so among all of the Neon all of the skincare shops. There was like this a massive night market going on in the middle, which was so amazing.

Yeah, those potatoes are unreal, to those twisty ones.

Nick was so excited.

It was like a little kid having the twisty potato. You guys know, the Korean twisty potato street food things. You saw them and I haven't seen your eyes light up like that in.

A long time.

I love them. They're so good.

So my lesson for today, you guys know, we're doing highlights surprise and lesson is that those twisty potato things, which some people call potato tornadoes in Korean are called hoyoti gumja. So that was my lesson, but we'll get to yours on a second. Firstly, what have we done? So we did Myongdong at night and just had a little wander, which was I think it's the coolest suburb if you're looking for someone to stay. It's such a great area. And there was so much going on and

Wearing a hard bog with me around the streets. How was it?

It was actually reasonably comfortable, except I couldn't reach my pockets, but I was comfort I was happy with it.

I was so impressed.

I did not think, because you're not a big costume, doing things like that really make you stand out in a crab. But everyone else was doing it as well, and it was so nice to see it. Like i'd

That is girl math. It's like a dollar to get in the without a handbock on, and it costs you money to hire the handbox. So's that's the worst girl math.

It's great girl math. It was basically basically made money from getting in for free.

Look, it was fine because probably seventy percent of the people in there were wearing handbocks, So it's quite cool because you look around and it can you can really understand what the place would have looked like because everyone's almost in traditional garb. Like it's pretty cool.

And I think in it in like this day and age where everyone like this tradition has less and less of a role.

I actually loved so.

Much that so many people who went bothered, like you know, you do have to go to some to find a hard bock place, you have to get in it. You tried them on, you know, in the middle of the street in this full blown gear. But it was so beautiful to look around as everyone in them and.

It's without that cultural appropriation aspect of local film's going. It's not like you know what I mean, it's not it's really difficult now to actually show off, but how beautiful the dresses and cultures are in different countries because people don't want to get in trouble for it, you know what I mean. And it was really cute to see that because but everyone was having so much fun.

It was so amazing.

I expected it to be much more expensive because they're beautiful items. So that was my highlight for the day I was living. You guys know I'm adopted, so I don't but I still have hard bocks from all the different times that we've come here. So I had one when I was a baby, then I had one when I was four, then when I was twelve, and I have an adult one somewhere but nowhere near as beautiful

So many, so many, it's crazy. And the little kids having selfies with me for some reason.

Yeah, oh my.

God, that was another one of my highlights. I think you must look like a famous actor or something, because all of these little kids kept coming over to Nick and being like selfie, selfie, and then their parents would take photos of the kids getting the selfie with you.

It was strange. I'm not quite sure what's going on.

So that was definitely my highlight. Was just, yeah, being transported into a different era. The palace is from back in the thirteen hundreds. It got burnt down in the fifteen hundreds, then rebuilt. It got completely demolished in one of the wars, I think in ninety percent of it in the twentieth century, and then again rebuilt. But some the main sort of big halls are still rebuilt from the original ruins and there are seven thousand, seven hundred rooms.

It's the Changing of the Guard did the same palace. And for any of those guys out there that played Mortal Kombat when they were younger, the guys, the guys literally looked like characters had a Mortal Kombat and they had the wildest facial hair. It's funny, but it was pretty cool. It was really cool to see, like the traditions were cool, even like the music they were playing.

Other guy was playing like a kazoo. I was like, what is going on? But it was like a full marching band, Like we knew the changing of the guards happened twice a day, and we rushed to kind of get there. But I thought it would be like literally a five to ten minute thing where like one guy comes out of his box and the other guy goes in. But they were like, how many people, like a fifty

Some dude with a shell the shell guy.

And then they would say over the loudspeaker in like four different languages, so they did Korean, English, Chinese, and Japanese. They'd explain why each person was waving the different flag to acknowledge different parts of changing.

It actually went for ages.

The English translation will go, he's blowing the drum right now, just to let the other person command and know what's going on. I'm like, whoa, it was so random, so turned on right now.

I don't think that's.

Quite re actually was supposed to have. But if you do get a chance, it was really special, like it went for quite a while. It was really true to so they were saying, all the costumes are exactly true to how it would have been done from literally the thirteen hundreds, and.

Even true to the facial hair. You're right, yeah, it was.

Like and I don't know how these guys get normal life with that facial hair, but it's pretty wild. Literally more to combat characters.

I think kind of the matter scythe it's had to.

Full gnarly weapon that one. No one like, I'm gonna find the character name and I'm gonna.

Just pop it in the show notes for anyone who's curious listening. Anyway, it was a really beautiful traditional and also it happens against one of the biggest gates, but the backdrop behind the gates that you're watching them from is skyscrapers, which is also such a cool contrast. It's just such a beautiful palace and.

The other side is mountains, so it's pretty cool. Like you can still you've got that cool juxtaposition of old and new when you're looking one way and then you look the other way, and you could like almost especially with everyone dressed in handbox, you could almost just imagine what it was like then because you can't see buildings facing the other way. You just see the like the mountain ranges behind it all not mountain ranges, but the

And that comes back to your whole like economics comment from day on that that is what is so called about this city is it's such a juxtaposition of like traditional old ancient buildings and a very different economy coming now to this extreme modernity.

In like Myongdong.

You would have no idea that we were surrounded by mountains and ancient palaces. It's so modern, which kind of leads me to my surprise for the day, which is that Soul became the capital when this main there's quite a few palaces, but this main one Gyeongbokung where we were for the changing of the guards. When that got finished being built, Soul became the capital and has remained since then because of its fun shui being around mountains

So that's that's isn't punctuey Chinese?

Yeah, But it's.

Still like the principles of its ideal location in nature based on like, yeah, the principles of how energy flows and yeah, yeah, I was reading. I don't know what the green version is, but that's why it was kind of chosen as a city.

So that was my surprise.

Interesting well, speaking of funk Shue, my surprise is why the functue of the industrial design around here and their architecture doesn't include a rubbish bin because I'm still carrying my coffee cup in the first day I found one. I actually found one garbage bin the entire time I was here, and it's the cleanest place in the world, and you just there's just no, there's no cabbage bins.

This is a continuation of your surprise from day one, which is still the last. All day you were like, I still haven't seen one. I still haven't seen one, but I've seen so many fire hydrates, Like where are the bins?

It's cut my coffee, Like I usually have two or three coffees. I've only had one a day because I'd never get to put the coffee cup down. So it's no, but it's stunning. It's amazing that you don't need to like if that, if they had the little amount of coffee cups like that in Melbourne, where would be stepping over rubbish just to walk down straight like it's incredible.

So speaking of coffee, that is where we wandered to after we got out of our Hambucks. I had hired mine for the day, so I was ready to wear it all day. Nick not so much so you know, changing back out of them, but you can do by the hour higher or full day hire or multi day higher.

Houses are still.

I think it's the largest population of these houses that have still been preserved. And a little while ago there was a whole thing about knocking them down and then everyone protested.

So it's this.

Beautifully preserved village where a lot of the old Hannock houses are still residential. So like it's a fully tourist area now and there's all these signs saying please be quiet, keep your voices down because we live here. But there are also all these little stalls and cafes. There's a sulasa in there. That's where we went to the Oslock

It was so beautiful.

Yeah, no, it's so nice. It was. I Like, I like it when places retain that culture, Like it's so easy when you've got a country that has economically grown so fast, like thousands of send increase on their GDPA over last things, Like you know, I read somewhere it's like seventeen hundred percent increase in GDPs And so I've been alive in the last forty years. Whoa, I mean, I think Australia it's like eight hundred in that time

Yeah, that was your surprise, wasn't it? So my surprise? I had so many different surprises, but was yeah, about the Soul being the capital city, and also like your main surprise was the bins, but your other surprise was something Jade's partner told you about about safety here.

Yeah. It was like you could leave your laptop just sitting on a table and walk off. So he left his bag in a park on a bench, and he forgot about it, and he went back the next day and it was still sitting there, like people just won't touch it. It's apparently just the crimes for so longs. I haven't done my research on the crime stats and stuff like that, but apparently it's crazy safe here. So it's pretty cool. There's no graffiti except for artistic graffiti.

It is so interesting, how like how sh meeks some other really modern like in book John, there's obviously all the old places, but the tea house that we went to, which is kind of nestled in among all the old buildings, was so modern, like this three story industrial awesome modern place. But then at the same time they've retained my favorite part of Asian culture, which is all the cutest cartoon characters for everything.

Remember the hippos we saw yesterday.

I was like, I want that tattooed on me because it's the cutest hippo cartoon I have ever saw.

The hippo was wearing a handbop.

It's so cute. Outside the police stations there's these like cute happy police in cut little cartoon character.

Oh my god, it's so sweet.

But another thing that we tried to do, so we had a big day today of ticking off things. So we had this beautiful cultural traditional morning and then we went in search of a couple of the things that were on all the tourist lists. So one of them was Onion Cafe, which is again like a really beautiful ancient architecture but a really modern Melbourne level coffee joint and cafe. Inside the que was like two hundred people, so we didn't go inside.

You don't love a q doo No, that was a ridiculous cue that was so long. What was it was peak time though, on and on a Sunday, so I get it. And then we went to that Michelin Star dumpling place, and there was a pretty solid Q and I'm like, oh I I don't like ques at the best of time. And we stood in it and moved so fast. So if you ever do to go to the Michelin Star, if you want to go to that dumpling place which is cheap ads and it was really

So we had I'd seen it on a few lists, but it was actually a couple of people who sent me dms who were like, you have to go to kur Ja. There's a few different branches, but the que was like down the street and it moved. Yeah, I mean like we got seated within five minutes. There's only four things on the menu too, are hot to a cold probably go with them. Yeah, as you said, the hot things. The other two noodle soups that were cold, which kind of surprised you.

They were nice, but the hot ones were way nicer. And sets one with the kim cheese that was really hot. Yeah, yeah, it was hot.

There's a lot of kim.

There a lot of kim cheese and they're different shapes and stuff. And I don't not a huge kimchi fan in Melbourne, but when I'm in a different place, I'll try everything. And it's growing on me. It's growing on me. We haven't ediblegogi yet.

I've had it for breakfast every day. I just felt like it. I don't know anyway, And then so it was a big day, so we did that. We came home, had a little rest, we walked. It's really nice. We've been walking a lot, which is really lovely. I also learned it's the longest metro in the world. It's like nine hundred fiftyilometers. We haven't touched it because we've been either in cars or walking.

So we had a little.

Rest and then we headed back out for nighttime again to check out the markets here, which are again a huge feature.

There's Guangjong Guang Jung.

Been practicing all day.

There's also Num Damon, there's Dong Daemon. There's a heaps of markets that we chose Guangjong on the recommendation of our dear local friend Jade.

And it was a lot. It was awesome, so many smells, so much going on.

Yeah, there's a lot going on. But I've been to a lot of these markets so that where like a lot of them that you'll bitch. Look, they'll cook the food in front of you and you're just sitting there, which is pretty cool. I probably trust this street food more than most. Don't reckon like most, like in Thailand, you just know it's that you. Yeah, I mean like in a in Thailand's and and different countries. Is great for Asian countries, is great for the restaurant food, but

No one really like hustles you like, you know when you're going past sometimes in some places and they'll touch you and be like come.

And sit down, Come and sit down.

They were all just these Most of them were like beautiful older Korean ladies cooking what you are sure is a family recipe for like the whole you know, generations cooking it right in front of you, and people sitting on these like little very rudimentary like camping chairs, but half locals, half to USA recond or maybe even more locals, or just being literally served from the pan. All kinds of different street food and it was such an experience.

And then we went on.

To Itta One, which is the nightlife. I would say it's probably a more international suburb, really cool, lots of like amazing boutiques. If you're from Melbourne, it's very like Chapel Street versus a Chatty or a Melbourne CBD like boutique. Kind of amazing shopfronts, very modern, lots of international food.

For the first time.

We haven't really seen that many places like that.

Yeah, yeah, there was. It was candle shops and like but like well, like a French named clothing store that's in a sanserra font with lots of negative space and you walk in down there's seven pieces of clothing on the rack and they're all nine grand each like stuff like that. But that was it was really cool and big open but again big open streets clean that one we were walking through in the dark, and not one second I felt unsafe. It was. That was lovely.

It's pretty much the we've been told it's like the clubbing town where all of the clubs and cool bars are, which it's not what we were kind of looking for. We just wanted to experience it. But I think because we went on Sunday night, it was a little bit quieter than it would have been on a Saturday, but even still, like there was no like alcohol, you know, that alcoholic smell in bar suburbs.

There just was like it was so pristine.

Yeah. Have I mentioned the fire hydrants on here?

I don't know.

So there's a little fire hydrants here. They've got the little stands. They look like they've just won a price. They look like a little trophy. To show you photo. I found another one yesterday. They're so cute. They they've got these little stands and I'm just like, oh, well done, buddy.

Every day Nick walk was past one of them.

He's like, oh, good job, buddy, good job, You're doing such a good job.

They're so funny. They've got this little little chunky, little fire extinguished in a little stand with like gold riding on them. They look like they got Employee of the Month underneath or something like that.

I don't get why the gold pluk doesn't really make Nick's gone to find a photo to upload to the show notes for your reference.

Wait, do you see this one?

They can't see, but it's audio. They're so cute.

Anyway, while Nick goes and finds that that was our gigantic day two. It was absolutely incredible. I'm falling in love with the city all over again. As I mentioned, last time I was here, I didn't really get to do much of this truthy stuff. So doing it together kind of for the first time, or for the first time I was twelve, has been really special. This morning, we got up and we're about to go and.

Spend some time in Gangnam for I'm so proud. Yes, so good.

We're going to go visit Gangnam, which is a really cool shopping district. It's got so much it's really busy. It's got that massive library that probably a lot of you've seen, as I have on Instagram and TikTok, that just has like floor to ceiling, but like multi level, Like the ceiling is like goes up multiple levels without any What am I saying?

Do you know what it matter? How would you describe it?

Goes up multiple level like as in there's not anything.

The library that has like floor to ceiling book bookshelves, but like there's no different flaws like this.

You know what I'm saying.

Okay, anyway, the really cool library. Look up really cool library and soul. You'll understand. It is the one where there's just like.

They're going to google really cool library and soul.

That's what I googled, and it brought up co extermel. Anyway, so we're going to go explore that. We're going to go shopping. We've got facials booked for tonight for the you know, Korean skincare side of things. I can't believe you're getting a facial.

One hundred percent believe I'm getting a facial.

So excited.

So we'll be back and I will figure out how to explain the library better.

It's a really cool one in Soult.

Well just look at us, I'm cutting you on.

Look at really cool library and soul with ceilings that like extend ceilings into like ceilings.

Okay by guys nicky boy, Day three and four we've done again.

We've got me so much into this trip.

It's been great. I'm about to roll onto the plane though. When we do get there, I tell you what I've eaten a lot.

I feel like all we've done is eat, get skincare shop, eat gets kids.

Having said that, we've walked a lot, so I mean, especially in the DMZ. We walked a lot, didn't we Oh my gosh.

Okay, so we haven't even covered the DMZ. So where were we up to last time? We were just about on day three to go to Gangnam, and then we had our facials that night, and then we had the DMZ tour the next morning, and then dinner last night. So that's all of day three and all of day four. So let's start with Gangnam.

What did you do then? Oh, we went to the library.

Yeah, that one that you were trying to tell me about on Instagram, which I hadn't seen ever in my life and now I get wides everywhere. But it was pretty awesome, and the best bit about it was I hid from you. And let's just up to the top watching you look for me and get angry.

It was pretty funny after I think that's fair. I deserved it. After I made you do the Gangnam style pose underneath the massive hand So there's a whole statue dedicated to Si and Gangam Style outside the mall. And I made Nick pose, which you loved, oh.

So awkwardly, then you do the dance. I'm like, I'm not doing the dance. I'll stand there and hold my hands in that position, and you've got four seconds of me smiling, and then I'm going the resting bitch face after that.

I mean, I had made you wear a handbock all day the day before, so to be fair, you've done.

It very well.

But yeah, we did gang them and walked around kind of the main shopping street, which is we've been in really boutique areas. It's a lot more like big shop fronts and like bright colors, lots of Neon, drag Nikkivoid two.

It's called Coex.

Mall, and that's like another big, massive shopping center that actually has an aquarium in it.

I don't think we.

Saw it, but it has a lot of stuff going on in there.

But the main thing is.

Starfield library, which if you guys are following on socials, will have already seen my post about it. If you like books or any kind of bookworm, you will have definitely seen the viral videos of this, like floor to see that huge atrium of just books, Like it's so impractical.

But I walked in and I was like, it looks the same.

Yeah, it was really cool. It was really cool. I think anything above headheight is for looks. But there were some cool books I've never seen before in there because I don't read Korean. Now it's in like some like English books, Like there's a book there by Colin Firth and I'm like, when's he been writing books? Like and stuff like that. So it's kind of like surrounded by good coffee shops and cake shops and yeah, it was cool. There's so many people.

There, it was packed, but we still managed to time. So one of the iconic photos that you get I was being such an instagrammer and annoying Nick so much is you on the escalators going up alongside one of the massive bookshelves, and you have to time it around people not getting on to go up or going down at the same time so you can be in the photo by yourself.

I think I made you wait for.

Me to go off and down the escalator about how many times I don't know, like forty, I don't know.

But if you miss it, you've got to go all the way up top the escalator again, then wait for other people that are do it and think all the way back down. They're big escalators that go up like two sorry flights fly flight.

So I just yeah, but that was only after I filmed you doing it first, and then I waited for you to come back down to take my turn, and that's when you hit from me. So for like twenty minutes, I was like, where's Wally?

But you filmed me for you?

Well, I just thought you might like a cute picture look at this, just.

Like who was doing it for you?

I was doing it for you. I'd send you the video afterwards.

Anyway, highly recommend a visit, particularly if you're a bookworm. It was, Yeah, one of those really cool things that I've never seen anywhere else in the world. Definitely not like a Korean cultural thing, but it was.

It was beautiful.

Yeah, it's really cool to say. Actually, like I was neither here nor there about it when you were telling me about it, but seeing it was pretty pretty cool.

That's also because I explained it so badly anyway, And then ceilings above ceilings. So definitely recommend a walk around Gangnam as well. It's such a cool suburb and there's just like all the different areas here are so diverse and we love We've loved them all for different reasons. But yeah, I think that's like such a quintessential Korean

To get out. Facial I dragg.

Nikki boylong to get his second ever face because you can't come to sell and not get some kind of skincare treatment. And you are I'm sorry, glowing, glowing tell us about your second ever facial experience.

So let me tell you this. I don't understand. That's why they made me take my underpants off and put fake underpants on and light it. It's a facial like I get like minded take my shirt off because they massage your shoulders and arms and they don't want to get stuff on it. I get why you can't wear long pants and socks because you got that little foot bath at the start.

I kind of wanted you to go into the detail of your skin and the procedure. But first they take you into the room and you change into your little robes and you get the disposable little undies. And it was so cute because I got disposable girl undies and Nick got disposable box of shots.

That was so cute.

You first, you don't know I had to wear them. Couldn't I slept minder pants on?

You could?

Yeah?

Is that your surprise for day three?

Yeh, I've got another one for that start off with little foot scrub bath thing, then a whole routine.

Of I'm so excited to hear you try and describe what the steps are without knowing what they're called.

Well, it was a cleanse, then a deep cleanse, then exfoliating, and then there was a tona I think wasn't No tona was after the cleans, wasn't it anyway? And then they put the rubber mask on me. That sounded like a gimp mask.

But it wasn't.

The one that they paint. So they put this like a thick moisture mask, then a net, and then this really thick mask on top that they put on as liquid like cream or gel, and it like hardens into rubber that then you peel off all in one go.

So and then in between it all, when they're waiting for all of the active ingredients to do their thing, they're giving me a massage. But yeah, I skin felt great afterwards. It was about nine pm at night, because do you want to put sunscreen on? I'm like, on panicked, I'm like yeah, sure, and I'm sure. Tod been like, what the what the fuck do you want sunscreen on? It's nine o'clock at night and you just get what are you doing? And I'm like and afterwards like, why

I don't know, but your skin looked at both of our skin, like, I don't think. I haven't had a phasial in a while. We've been on planes, we've been like out and about and you literally your paws disappeared. Do you find it relaxing?

Yeah, but my tensions, like I was just thinking things I had to do. So but course nice, it was nice. The massage was really nice as well, and yeah, it was good.

I'm so impressed. And so after that we then felt pushed to we're staying in Yongdong, which is where all of the skincare outlets are. We felt pressed to make the most of the amazing deals. So we have so many masks in our suitcase, which is amazing. But I bet a hottail list along a little bit because we've been rambling. So Day four was the DMZ, which was something I wasn't sure I was allowed to do because

In the end we just.

Booked it and thought we'll figure it out. Surely my Australian past what would be enough, which it.

Was, and it was.

It was a half day, it was probably three quarters of a day. It was a big It's an hour out of Soul and there's a lot of waiting, a lot of like logistics between sites. But it was one of the most interesting things I think I've ever done. So if you guys aren't to where the DMZ is the zone between South and North Korea which was separated

It's very interesting. You've got to do it in a tour one. I think you have to to go in there, but also just for them to explain it to you. And the tunnels is what's interesting. So after the war they found tunnels in I think the sixties, seventies and nineties, and they go for kilometers underneath the DMZ. Now we went into the third tunnel, and we're talking big tunnels. The fourth tunnel is three meters by three meters. It was like that could have brought artillery and troops through it.

Like I think it was one of those one of those things where you have no idea what it's going to be like, but you sort of think I'd rather go and have said I've seen it and learn something. But we were quite blown away by how much we learned. And I think the crazy thing, like you said, Nick, was that I hadn't understood this either that on one day they truly drew a line and if you were on either side of the board at shopping or at

Blows my mind. I learned so much.

But what is also amazing about the desert About the DMZs, you can see the tunnels. They actually built it for tourists to be able to look at it. But there's also an observatory where which we found fascinating, where you can see the South Korean flag on a pole on one side and the North Korean flag on a slightly higher pole. They had a pole competition literally meters apart from each.

Other, poles apart from literally.

Poles apart from each other. And then there's all these binoculars on the South Korean side where you can see the nearest town and people on bikes walking around doing their life. I mean, one of the towns is a propaganda town. It was built by North Korea literally just for display. But there are other parts of that area where like you saw, we saw people.

Yeah, yeah, it was It was just strange, like just to know that the juxtaposition between the two countries, I mean, South Korea is GDP higher than Australia's like a North Korea is extreme poverty. So really that guy was the guy on plowing the field was Ko And it's just such a big change. And you talk about that whole North Korea South Korea thing. I mean, the founder of Hyuende he's an incredible story. Wikipedia the hell out of

It was also fascinating to see that because North Koreans don't really have access to the internet, their media is very controlled by the state. It's so interesting to sit like we learned a lot about their laws as well, and like how controlled. So you know, we went down a wormhole of course of looking at North Koreans who had escaped, and there's a few who are quite well known that they didn't know there were countries outside of North Korea. They literally had no idea and they are

You can't fold money because it's got the leader's face on it. And when you do finish reading a newspaper, you can't throw it out. You have to leave it flat somewhere so it's not folded, and have someone who's authorized to dispose of it. And you can't take a photo. Was it? You can't take a photo of a statue unless you get the entire leader in the statue in the insert in the photo.

Which fascinated me so much, like to understand that there's a country that's literally next all we could see it and it was just so ideologically different, like it was what I think, coming back to the whole highlights, surprises and lessons, all of my highlights, surprises and lessons were the DMZ from the last two days.

All my cameras have prime lenses on them. I don't know how I'd not crop them. I'd have to run across the road.

What were your highlights, surprises and learnings from the last two days.

I've found a bin which was a good chance not carrying the coffee cups in it. No, their highlights was was definitely the facial and the DMZ were like two things that I was actually looking forward to in your facial ape here because obviously one of my businesses is a beauty company, and we have investors in a large company in Korea as an investor, and Korean beauty is the epitome of beauty, especially now, So that was great. And the DMZ I find things like that so interesting.

But they don't open until eleven am, which is so weird.

It's it's bizarre for me, Like I'm like, what someone's why are you having a double espresso. It's eleven o'clock, go to bed.

Yeah, but also have a cama mile tea and a lie down, a lie down, a lie hyphen down. I can see that the cultural significance of Korea has gone over Nikki Boy's head and all his highlights are related to bins and coffee behaviors over here.

Yeah, and the fire hydrants and the little stands. No.

I definitely think the DMZ was something that we did amina a little bit about because it's out of Soeul. There are a lot of different tours and it's sort of hard to understand to choose what's the right thing and which parts of it. But we can include links in the show notes if anyone's interested, because I highly highly recommend it to understand the history of the two

And there's two words that make there's not two words make me shut out more than anything in the world, and that's bus tour, right, Like, honestly, tour groups alone sometimes, but bus tour was not up there with things I wanted to do in my late thirties, but it was

Yeah, we had an amazing guide as well, who was so knowledgeable and shared so much. So yeah, I'll popplink to everything we did really in the show notes, but I highly recommend the DMZ.

I can't even remember what we did after that. We were pretty cooked. We walked around, we went to go get dinner, traditional Korean dinner, and we ended up eating at dntai Form, which was Taiwanese dumplings.

Since what do we had last night's pizza and dumplings? Our food during the day has been very Korean but at night somehow, but I've had some street food at night as well, like my potato and they called it a tornado.

Potato potato nado.

Stop it. That was so good.

Potato Nato, potato tornado. Okay, well that was day three and four.

I'm also going to put together a highlight video of everything in a more concise order than this dear diary that has become quite chaotic. But tomorrow I am taking Nick back to the orphanage where we were from and where our adoption took place, and where meeting well, he's meeting my foster mother and foster father for the first time.

Will be back. I know myself too well.

That last day was definitely worth an episode in itself, and I've since uploaded both the full chronological itinery to social media few guys as a list, as well as all the photos from reuniting with my foster parents. It was such an incredibly special day, and I just I can't still explain all the emotions that burst forth interestingly in a way that have never before, even though I've met them before. And have had all my life to

And in the meantime, I hope you're seizing your ya