Week commencing Monday, 28 September 2026
Quantified Self
- This week: Stand 5/7; Exercise 5/7 and Move 6/7. (75%). Holiday time Total steps: 76,009.
Life
- We started the week in Busan, South Korea. A reminder that my Korea photo collection is on Flickr.
- Monday started at a railway station, where we met a bus for the drive to Haeundae Blueline Park. We’d booked a sky capsule tour, one of the things we’d seen on Instagram before arranging the holiday. The capsules are colourful monorail cabins that run along an elevated track on the coastal cliffs. The track follows the route of a former railway line.
- Busan’s Gamcheon Culture Village is known as the ‘Machu Picchu of Busan’, but thankfully without the climb. Local artists chose the French novel The Little Prince as a central motif to symbolise hope. Statues and paintings are everywhere, with queues of people waiting to have their Instagram photo taken with the character. I liked the view over the rooftops.
- Also on Monday, we visited the observation tower in Yongdusan Park, Busan, for impressive city views at sunset. The lack of crowds made it easy to get a window spot.
- Back in Seoul, PY surprised me by asking if I fancied trying noraebang, the local equivalent of karaoke. It literally translates as ‘singing room’.
- Related, we realised the remote was entirely in Korean. Our translation app couldn’t make sense of the buttons, so we spent most of the half hour randomly pressing them to get something to happen.
- Relatedly related, when I got home, I wrote about that kind of thing.
- Tuesday’s dinner was at Ten Billion Salon, where we were the only customers. The food was delicious, so I assume they’re not empty every night.
- The flight home took almost 14 hours and, as it was from daytime to daytime, I tried to stay awake. That’s why the Media section has so many movies.
- We had Korea in London on Friday, with the British Museum’s Korea: 2,000 Years of Creativity, which opened on Thursday. We both downloaded the audio app to listen to explanations of some of the artworks. It’s interesting because, although various Korean museums now hold the works, most came from the private collection of the late Samsung chairman Lee Kun-hee. Many had never been seen in the UK before.
- Thursday marked 35 years together, and we celebrated with a visit to The View from The Shard.
- Previously, 12, 13, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34.
- Sunday, we went to see Nataylia Roni’s cabaret, billed as Divas: Celebrating the Sounds & Songs of Dionne & Diana. She’s a very talented singer, but the show itself was hard to follow and lacked cohesion. The actual Dionne and Diana songs didn’t appear until the last 15 minutes, which may have disappointed some, although I enjoyed the collection.
Media
- In-flight entertainment:
- Pressure (Dir: Anthony Maras) turned out to be my favourite film of all my flight movies. Who knows if Michael Fish would find the meteorological content accurate, but the drama is well done and, given the British obsession with the weather, you’d have thought we’d get that bit right.
- In the Grey (Dir: Guy Ritchie): The relationship between Bronco (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Sid (Henry Cavill) is what keeps this movie interesting. It’s a bit like Ocean’s Eleven, with an enjoyable, if slightly ridiculous, set-up.
- Fuze (Dir: David Mackenzie) looked a bit like a film version of Trigger Point to me, and in some ways it is. It comes with a nice twist.
- Wicked: For Good (Dir: Jon M. Chu) was one I watched because I’d seen the first film but missed the follow-up in cinemas. Although the plot, with its links to other films and darker themes, might make for a better script, the songs fell flat for me. And by the end, I was willing it to finish.
- Finally, I went for Border Hunters (Dir: Joaquín Islas), which looked like another shoot-’em-up action movie that would pass a couple of hours. Unfortunately, it didn’t hit the mark, and I was glad when it was over.
