Breathing a little more slowly..

I have now found a Net cafe which doesn't charge by the wounded bull .. but still can't spend as much time as I'd like, cos we only gots one key to the hotel room and M needs to sleep soon.

Seoul? Well... hard to say. I've never been in a huge Asian city as clean as this one, which is a good and very impressive thing, given that this city is home to about 10 million people, and purrhaps could be furgiven a bit of grot. The smog is fairly light, even thought the traffic is heavy. But the downside is that people still have the habit of spitting, something I find really disgusting. It makes me feel icky enough to be unable to eat, if there's too much of it. As for the charming practice of blowing one's nose without use of a hanky or tissue ... irrggG.

We've been very slow to do much here, as our jetlag from Finland is still striking at unhelpful hours - one can't do day tours when one's internal clock says day is 2am - midday. Neither is room service quite possible, when it's not available 24 hours a day. I woke at 3am this morning, all fired up and ready to knock off a palace or two, and I couldn't even dial up a cuppa tea. Our hotel is not the most salubrious, even tho we're in the centre of the city. For a start, I think it's probably more focussed on Korean guests, as the possibility of English anything is fairly low. And our room has a wet spot... and the only truly edible thing on the room service menu (although this shows their excellent priorities!) is the coffee, which is served with cream unless you really DEMAND milk instead.

Seoul is so huge I don't know where to start - the night lights are spectacular, especially the 40 storey high graphics projected onto specially built panels all the way up a nearby hotel. The old palace grounds are across the city square from us, and this afternoon we wandered through them on our way to an exhibition of 20th C Latin American mural art. Most of the temples/residences are either 'new' copies, or radically revised/altered versions of the original, either because of something like fire, or something like a Japanese or Northern Korean invasion. I think it ends up a bit like the old axe story - I've had this axe for 30 years; I've had 5 new blades and 4 new handles, but it's still the same old axe.

I've tried to have some things made at the tailor, but apart from the cost, which is NOT Thailand-esque at all but rather expensive, I missed out when they underestimated how much fabric was needed for a coat BIG ENOUGH TO GO AROUND A HUGE WESTERN GODZILLA-GRRL LIKE ME. Oh, sorry, was I shouting??

Tomorrow we are going on quite a long tour around Seoul's hot spots, ending up at a huge street market. We walked through this same market yesterday, spending a couple of hours shuffling through the 'everything you could possibly imagine' stalls and tripping over the displays on the pathway... I didn't buy a single thing, I was too overwhelmed. And somewhat annoyed that the ONLY thing I didn't see was fabric. No point looking at clothes for miniature wimmin, or ceramics and glassware, or souvenirs (I'm truly over souvenirs).. or amazing displays of foodstuffs I can't identify. The fish market has species in it I reckon are actually plasticine models made by the local kindies on their sci-fi days.

I had a purrfume accident leaving Helsinki, so I'm not even looking at that here. Also, I have found in the past that Asian purrfumes tend to be either strong gardenia, or strong lily, or green tea. None of these scents are tempting to me, spoiled as I am by my very early venture into lily of the valley via Dior's 'Diorissimo' (and my good taste was vindicated when I read that it was Princess Diana's favourite). And green tea is a DRINK fagodzake!

I seem to be a bit speechless. News from home about springtime and the badness of the cats on the home front is just killing me. All I can think about is that, come Tuseday next week, I can begin a long period of deck therapy, with my fatty catty nearby in case I need to wuffle my face in his tum, and my Miss-chief Mummy-Mangler ambushing my ankles and returning them to their usual happily scarred state...

Today brought to you by large Asian city eau-de-rotten cabbage mingled with top notes of exhaust and dust, and a long after-whiff of 'orrible drains. My blasts of Magnifique are completely useless as a force field. I can't smell it at all, which is a bummer considering the city purrfume is up me nose with a vengeance. That is one of life's little nasal ironies...

Polish National Day!

Howdy from Krakow.. it's Saturday night here, with celebrations of all kinds going on outside (in the main city Market Square) - live music, stalls selling exotic cosmetics and beer and other useful things. It's warm (28ishC) and humid - yes, sigh sigh, my personal weather dark star is working again; locals tell me it's NEVER humid here, and hardly EVER this warm at this time of year. And our hotel, while purrfectly ok, has given us a west-facing room, oh sighhhh. We do have two fans however, cos we have our own as you know, and there is one in the room. We can manage a rather nice cross-current across the beds, which is enough to cool me, but not so windy that it bothers M.

I have travel-ennui.. perhaps partly because of the bloody Vilnuis fark-up and the physical and mental strength required yesterday. I will post the details when I come back to this 'net cafe with my lappie... but, briefly, nothing went wrong, it was a huge relief to get here so easily compared to the rather dire train option.

[We got into our room, changed to cooler clothes, staggered out to the nearest cafe selling sandwiches and fresh juice, and then collapsed for a long sleep. Then repeated the activity in the evening - up, out for dinner, then collapse for sleep again. Showers and sorting a big bundle of washing for the hotel laundry service happened too. Damn the expense, I'm sick of washing stuff in small bathroom basins..]

I had a big catch-up sleep (in part I think to help fend off a small throat thingie, which I believe I picked up thanks to someone sitting behind me on an airport bus, who sneezed several times before I had the chance to get a tissue over me face - 'airport bus' meaning the buses which took us from the terminal to the plane and vice versa; in one case, because of the long and roundabout route, we were convinced we were being taken to the back blocks to board an old helicopter or perhaps one of those bi-planes where you can get out and do Hollywood posing on the wings...).. I woke up very down. Why??? I asked myself, am I doing all this travel? Another bloody hotel room. More time to be spent finding things and hunting for food and managing suitcases and avoiding cigarettes etc etc. Moop moop I went. M was out, getting concert tickets for tonight and looking around and having a big 'net fix and being NORMAL. There was no chocolate left in our stash.. no trashy mags or new bottles of purrfume... I want a CAT, in fact I want TWO CATS. And my garden and ALL my shoes, and .. and .. home. Even the filing I haven't done yet, waiting for me in boxes in my study....

M returned looking very happy, with bananas, the concert tickets, and lots of news about various useful places he'd found. He tempted me with loving patience to have a banana (low blood sugar fixed), more water (ditto dehydration, probably), gave me a gentle pep-talk ('we can't go home now, think of all the ppl reading your blog who'd be disappointed'; 'our house-sitter would be suddenly homeless'; 'think of having to go home on one of those 27-hour flights with no stopping half-way to recover and shop in Hong Kong'... ok, he didn't really say that last bit but it's a good point - even with those super-don'tdropdeadfromaclot-socks my legs and feet swell alarmingly on planes. And yes, I DO twiddle me legs and walk and stretch and drink water like a fish etc etc... but I digress, again).

He asked me if I'd cut his beard and hair and that was excellent distraction; I spent a long time over it and made quite a big mess in the bathroom - which *I* don't have to clear up! That was enough to get me considering a bit of smiling again. Once we'd washed the hair off ourselves and dressed, it was a bit cooler outside and I was ready for some coffee. M took me to see the wondrous combination of goodies for droopy princesses - AIRCONDITIONING in a shopping mall which had a decent cafe/bar serving LATTE, emergency-strength CHOCOLATE CAKE (chocolate mousse with espresso cream and a praline topping, wowee!) and with a recent copy of The Times for me to read, while he went out to another Information Centre nearby. When he returned, the icing on the cake for me was the L'OCCITANE SHOP upstairs, which he'd noted especially for me. What a guy. No you CAN'T have him, I won't share!

I spent a very happy half-hour in there inspecting every item. Then, with some reluctance, I only bought things I needed ... well, 3 out of 4 were definitely 'replacement' items (skin care). M had suggested I get a candle there, to help with the 'make a hotel room feel like home' supplies. [We both enjoyed a lavender candle I bought from L'O in Melbourne earlier this year; found the scent enjoyable rather than soapy, as cheaper scented candles tend to be.] I chose a cinnamon and orange-scented candle, which on reflection is a bit Christmassy, but purrhaps that will help my Festive Attitude Problem!

~~~~~~~~~~

The concert was a wonderful performance of Chopin pieces for piano, held in a room at the Bonerowski Palace, built in the early 1500s. The pieces were performed by Pawel Kubica; a slim, intense fellow in his 30's I'd say. He had the knack of seeming to coax the piano to produce its music - I feel this sometimes when watching orchestral performances; the conductor seems to be 'magicking' the music from a space above the musicians. Kubica seemed to barely touch the keys, leaving the piano to 'sing' on its own. Fantastic. The event was slightly marred by several audience members taking flash photos. Surely the flash is distracting for the performer? Certainly the 'click' of the shot being taken was distracting for me. I disapprove. This is right up there with mobile phone pollution in concerts. Grrr...

Now I need to go, tomorrow is another day and all that. We're going to be up and doing at a reasonable hour (by 9am) to go on a 4-hour bus trip around Krakow to see the city highlights, and have a short tour through the castle. See you all soon!

Today brought to you by ... M. He deserves all the credit this time.

Where was I???

.. in Tallinn??? Well, now we've had a brilliant, wonderful, magical and very very interesting time in Riga, you all HAVE to go. It's beautiful and lively and the streets are full of music - I've never been anywhere where there were so many people busking and dancing in the streets. Bach duets and saxophone jazz and the lady in the square who dances to folk music and the two young gels who played their violins with great seriousness and ethereal beauty... we went to two premiere performances in two ancient churches, of choir with organ/choir with organ and saxophone octet. Super fabbo.

I realise you are all wondering why I haven't put up my usual eleventy pages of descriptions. The usual reason - no WiFi access. And because our time in Tallinn and Riga was attenuated after M's illness, we wanted to make the most of our time, especially in Riga when M had recovered enough to have some energy.

Now we are in Vilnius; arrived at 5pm today. And no too sure when we are leaving, because we weren't able to book train tickets before we left, and now we find that it will take at least 15 train hours to get from here, via Warsaw, to Krakow. We didn't know it would be such a circuitous journey, so there isn't enough time unless we do a day of travel like this:

- 9am - 12pm; Vilnius to ? (we didnt' catch the name of the town)
- 5 to 10pm; ? to Warsaw
- 11pm to 5am!!!; Warsaw to Krakow.

Hmmm.... if we have to take these trains, if there are no alternatives such as bus then train, or flying.. then we'll probably stop overnight in Warsaw. And I can't believe that that late train is the ONLY train to Krakow. I hope I'm right!!!

We had some Lithuanian Chinese tucker for dinner.. very toned-down Szechuan food. More like chicken with fried rice of no particular distinction. But it was purrfectly good to eat, just not real.

Today brought to you by a very wonderful cup of coffee made for me in a 5 minute stop - on the bus from Riga to here - in the kiosk, a woman put a briki of powdered coffee (NOT instant) into a briki, added water, and set into what looked like a tray of hot grey sand. It boiled up very quickly; she added milk, and there was my coffee. It was good, and very strongggg. Today was going to be brought to you by the ever-popular Chanel No. 5, but I packed it too cleverly. I've got some on now but I can't smell it cos of a lungful of cigarette smoke courtesy of a passing pedestrian, when we were walking home from dinner. So I'm koff-koffing and can't smell a thing.