Blogs from Gangwon-do, South Korea, Asia - page 3

My third visit to Seoraksan National Park! Since I would be leaving Korea soon, I took the opportunity to visit Seoraksan again. The first time I went many years ago, I wasn't really that impressed, but when I visited back in December I realised why everyone falls in love with the place. This trip that I went on gave me the chance to explore a new part of this vast national park. We started at Jangsudae ranger station, which is at the western edge of the park, far from the coast and the main entrance. This trail would take us 11.3 kilometres in a north-west direction to Namgyori park ranger post. We all had to pose with a big banner about not smoking in the national park for the ranger. One of those experiences of living ... read more

I had visited Odaesan National Park a couple of years ago in the autumn and it became my favourite national park in Korea. It was just so beautiful and the hiking wasn't too difficult. When I saw that there was a winter hike planned I really wanted to go back and experience the park in a different season. We left Seoul early as always. The traffic seemed pretty light, not too many travelling on a random Tuesday, even if it is a holiday. The bus journey wasn't too long maybe two and a half hours. I dozed for most of it. When I woke up properly, I looked out of the window and saw that everything was white. There was so much snow about, I was shocked, I really didn't expect to see that much, as ... read more

18th Jul: We had took the late night bus from Seoul the evening before, and had arrived in Samcheok around 2 am. We headed straight to the love motel next to the bus station. I had stayed there a couple of years ago, when I had previously visited Samcheok. Since we had arrived so late, we slept in until quite late. I love how dark the rooms are in love motels, no natural light to interrupt a good sleep. We headed back to the bus station around lunchtime and bought tickets to Jangho. The staff outside were lovely, asking where we were going and telling us where to stand. The bus soon turned up and we were on a proper posh coach, not the crappy public bus. The journey didn't take too long and we were ... read more

We took the shuttle bus from Jamsil at 9:40 am. The bus is easy to book, I think you just ring a number on the Nami Island website, transfer the money and they send you an email receipt, which you give to the bus driver and he gives you your bus and ferry tickets. Our bus driver was worried because we didn't have return tickets, but we explained that we weren't coming back on the shuttle. The bus journey was really quick. I'm sure it only took about an hour. Once we arrived at the ferry terminal, we headed straight to the coffee shop to get our caffeine fixes and have a good natter. We finally managed to drag ourselves away from the cafe, and we got on the ferry to head across to the island. ... read more

An early start! We left Seoul before eight am and drove north toward the DMZ. A brief break in Uijeongbu to pick so people pick, I don't think they turned up, and then a shorter drive to our first proper stop of the day. The Battle of White Horse was a series of bloody battles that took place during the Korean War, to gain control of the hilltop positions. Baengma-gji was the peak of the Iron Triangle, formed by Pyeongyang and Gimhwa and Cheorwon were the two points at its base. The hilltop and the surrounding area was very important as a strategic transport route in the central region of the Korean peninsula. During the ten day battle between the South Korean troop and the Chinese the hill changed hands 24 times. That's a bloody lot! ... read more