Blogs from South Korea, Asia - page 19

Busan is a brief 1 hour bus ride from Gyoengji. It’s the second largest city in Korea and was its capital during the Korean War after the North invaded and quickly occupied Seoul. It sits on hills overlooking the Sea of Japan, has an efficient metro system and is a major port. It’s rainy season here in Asia. I’d been lucky to date. On arrival in Busan it was raining fairly continuously. With only 2 days in town before I had to head back to Seoul and fly on to Shanghai, I couldn’t let a little rain slow me down. I headed for the one starred sight in Lonely Planet, Gamcheon Culture Village. It had been a slum clinging to steep hills above the city. Artists and students partnered with the community to refurbish it with ... read more

I’ve come to South Korea having done little in the way of research. Seoul has been wonderful surprise. Once again, I'm reminded of how Eurocentric my education was and how much I've missed as a result. After years of visiting cities in China, Seoul seems cleaner, better organized and the locals seem calmer. Most of what you see in Seoul is relatively new. It was almost completely destroyed during the Korean War, when the North Koreans quickly took over Seoul after invading the South. Driving the North out destroyed the City which had already suffered considerably from the 35 year Japanese occupation before the beginning of WWII. Even many of the historic sights are actually new. The Japanese destroyed many long before the beginning of WWII. Most have been rebuilt from scratch over the years since ... read more

I took the subway to Yangju Station on line one. It is really far north, about an hour from Seoul Station. We went left and then turned left somewhere along the road. There was a map near the station. I think our trail started from near Yangju City Hall. It was about 11 am and already it was a scorcher, someone said that it was going to be over 30 degrees Celsius. We hiked up for about an hour to reach the first peak. It was tough going in the heat and we took a few breaks to drink water, I had definitely lost a lot through sweating. This mountain isn't very tall and the first peak, Sangbong, is 470.7 metres above sea level. The first part of the trail was shaded by trees, but soon ... read more

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

14th May: I had taken a late night KTX down to Busan the night before. We stayed at the Busan Inn, a small love motel very close to the station. I didn't spend much time there, but it was a great little place, clean and right next to the train station. After a quick breakfast in one of the many coffee shops near the station, we set off on our journey. First, we took the subway to Hadan Station, which is located on line one and it took about twenty minutes. I don't know if Busan is the best place to get to Geoje from, maybe Tongyeong is better, but this worked well for us. We came out of Hadan Station at exit three. The bus to Geoje comes from the island in the middle. It ... read more