I Got Seoul And I'm Super Bad (At Coming Up With Titles)

April 29th-May 6th, 2019, again

So a week in the capital of South Korea requires more than one page to do it justice. Who knew?

(And to head off a question that we've been asked a couple of times since we got back: no, we never made it into North Korea. It's not entirely impossible, you understand: there are organised tours of the DMZ you can go on, some of which even offer you the chance to wave a tentative toe over the border. We were under the impression that they're the sort of thing that a friendly hotel concierge could book for you, but that was never going to happen with the non-English-speaking landlady at the Haemil Hanok. It looks like Kim and his guys need you to book several days in advance for security checking purposes anyway, so bear all that in mind if you're planning to do something similar.)

Still. Enough of that. We've already covered the hotels, bars and restaurants of Seoul: let's talk about the other stuff.

BrewDogging #63: Itaewon

April 29th-May 6th, 2019

Well, you knew it was coming. We've done Japan: we've entered Korea via the back door of Busan: and now we've made it up to Seoul, where they've got one of these bad boys.

Was BrewDog Itaewon the only reason we went to Korea in the first place? Well, no. But it was probably the final nudge that drove us into visiting the country after several years of talking about it. And after a weekend in Busan bookended by horrendous weather, you'll be pleased to hear that our week in the capital is blessed with glorious sunshine throughout. It's a week that takes in two hotels, five palaces, and countless bars, cafes and restaurants. Plus, just like Busan, there's a bridge that needs to be named and shamed for its FILTHY LIES about a light show. (But that'll have to wait for another page: this one is just looking at the bars, restaurants and hotels.)

Train (then bus (followed by jetfoil)) To Busan

April 26th - 29th, 2019

When was the last time you picked up a leaflet from a tourist information office that read like a taunt from a James Bond villain?

I'm guessing you can spot the subtle subtext in the typography here. Even when you've just come from Japan, a country notorious for the impenetrability of its address system, Korea turns out to be operating on a whole other level. It's difficult enough finding out Korean addresses in English, but then you find that Google Maps is incapable of calculating walking routes - you'll either be told one doesn't exist, or made to take a three-mile detour along a motorway and back just to get across the road.

That's why, as we enter the Korean section of this year's holiday, you can expect to see lots of GPS co-ordinates shown for all the places we visited. Slap them into your phone mapping application of choice - maps.me is still my personal favourite on my vintage Blackberry - and you may be in with a chance of retracing our steps. Cool? Cool.

Rising Monkey 2019: Sayonara Heisei

April 19th - 26th, 2019

It's the end of an era. Literally. At the age of 85, Japanese emperor Akihito has made the unusual decision to retire and have some fun during the last years of his life, rather than work himself into a not-so-early grave. The Japanese measure their calendar by imperial reigns, so we know in advance that Akihito's era, known as Heisei, will come to an end on April 30th. As seasoned Japanophiles, you'd imagine The Belated Birthday Girl and I would want to be there for the changeover.

Unfortunately, planes and hotel prices for that week have inevitably skyrocketed, so we're going the week before instead. Sorry about that. We have other plans for the changeover week, though, and you'll get to hear about those. Eventually.

BrewDogging #64: Le Marais

As of Friday June 14th, 2019, The Belated Birthday Girl and I have been doing that thing we do for eighteen years. That thing has, over time, come to involve beer and travel in large quantities, so inevitably our anniversary celebrations would involve those too. And thanks to a pure fluke of timing, we could combine them all in one fell swoop.

Did you know that there's a Paris Beer Week? I know, it's a set of words that refuse to sound right together, like London Fashion Week or something. But it exists, it happens during the middle of June every year, and this year it coincided perfectly with the weekend of our anniversary. Which is handy, because we've had other Parisian beer business on our schedule for a while now.

And before you ask: yes, I know these are still appearing out of order. BrewDogging #63 is coming soon, it's just going to require a bit of a run-up to get to it.

Nadolig Llawen Eich Anifeiliaid Fochaidd

One of the advantages of starting a new job in late November is this: all those Christmas parties in December give you plenty of opportunities to meet up with your new colleagues. This, inevitably, leads to a number of conversations along these lines.

"Doing anything nice for Christmas this year?"

Yes, we're spending it in Cardiff.

"You've got relatives there, have you?"

Well, no, actually. We're going up there to visit the BrewDog bar. We've been to 58 of them so far, you know.

"...that's rather a lot. So it'll be your first visit to this bar, will it?"

No, we originally went there back in 2015. This time we're going to get our Beer Visas stamped. There's this little booklet they put out last year, let me show you -

"Oh, are those mince pies over there?"

...well, I'm sure they'll get used to it eventually.

Portugal 2018: Porto (The Sandeman Can)

Yes, I know, the timeline for these Portugal 2018 posts has become so ridiculously convoluted it could be a season of Westworld.

Let's take it slowly. Towards the end of July, The Belated Birthday Girl and I set out from London on an epic train journey to Lisbon, which took about 72 hours and included stopovers in Barcelona and Madrid. That journey's covered in the first half of Nobody Expects The Spanish Expedition. Once we got to Lisbon, we spent six days there, and they're documented in Free As In Jazz Or Free As In Beer. There's then an awkward gap, and after that there's another epic three-day journey from Porto back to London, via Vigo, Hendaye and Hondarribia: that latter journey is the second half of Spanish Expedition.

So this final part of the trilogy will address that gap in the middle - the three days we spent in Porto. Compared with Lisbon, there's a lot less cultural enrichment, and a lot more travelling around between nice places to eat and drink. You only get the one video this time - that one at the top there - but it shows you one of the best bits of travelling we did in those three days.

Get To Da Choppah

I can tell you exactly where this all started: it was in Hong Kong, in 2005. The Belated Birthday Girl and I had checked into the Excelsior Hotel and bought ourselves a room upgrade, because we were feeling a bit fancy and because I didn't realise I was going to lose my job five months later. I mentioned at the time that our premium highness allowed us a great overhead view of the Noon Day Gun, but it also gave us a view of something else – a nearby helipad, from which we could see helicopters taking off and landing every few minutes. This delighted The BBG no end.

Ever since then, we've joked on and off about how doing a helicopter ride together would be a fun thing, but never quite got around to arranging it. Until last Christmas, when I finally cracked and bought her an experience package that would allow us to do just that. The story that follows spans a period of eleven months – and if you've been paying attention, you'll know some of it already. Does it have a happy ending? Well, don't watch that video over there if you want to avoid spoilers.

Portugal 2018: Lisbon (Free As In Jazz Or Free As In Beer)

As I've mentioned before, I first visited Lisbon back in 2009. I brought back a souvenir for The Belated Birthday Girl - a t-shirt featuring a whimsical illustration of how the city's trams work. Which is odd, because I don't think I encountered a single tram while I was over there: I've looked at the route between the airport and the industrial estate I was trapped on for two days, and I wouldn't have crossed a tram line at any point on that journey. I'm guessing I saw the t-shirt at the airport and thought it was fun.

Nine years later, we finally got to ride on one. They don't have a plug on the end at all! This is just one of the many discoveries we made during our six days in Lisbon in late July. Here are a few more.

Portugal 2018: Nobody Expects The Spanish Expedition

Portugal! Home of Cristiano Ronaldo, custard tarts and [find third Portuguese thing starting with C before this goes online]. The Belated Birthday Girl hadn't been there before: I'd only spent two days in Lisbon a decade ago, or more accurately in an industrial estate to the west of the city centre. But in July of this year, we travelled to the nicer bits of Portugal and hit them like they owed us money. (Which, of course, was the exact opposite of how it ultimately worked out financially.)

So why are you about to read four thousand words about Spain?

Because, inevitably, we did this year's big holiday by train. We could have just flown to Lisbon and made our way down the road to Porto, but that would have been too easy. No, we took a rail-only route that went London-Lyon-Barcelona-Madrid-Lisbon-Porto-Vigo-Hendaye-Paris-London, adding another five days to what was technically a nine-day stint in Portugal.

Rest assured, the Portugal section of the trip will have plenty of space dedicated to it here, and soon. But for now, let's look at the Spanish bits either side of that, which neatly break down into four different cities.