28th of August and there I was sitting on the bullet train sipping my English tea and eating a raisin bun (how I miss these pleasures) waiting for the trains departure bound for Odawara and onwards to Hakone for a full day of adventuring! It turned out to be a rather hectic but serene day all at the same time starting off with a jolted off the bullet train in Odawara because I had it in my mind that I had a 55min journey when in fact it was only 35minutes. Lucky I managed to jump off the train before the [View Full Entry]

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Arriving a little after 11pm in Kyoto I missioned strait for a pay phone and managed to secure a bed for the night on my third call. I had grand ideas of making a night adventure of the walk to the backpackers but after leaving the station it quickly became apparent that it was perhaps a silly idea to get lost in Kyoto at 11:30pm so I refrained from indulging in adventurous temptation and opted, rather, to hail one of the myriad of cool Japanese old school taxis. Man Japanese taxis are cool. They are all old style Toyota Corolas with [View Full Entry]

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I couldn't believe it was already 6:30pm, 36hrs after arriving Tokyo and it was literally the first time I had taken time to absorb and fully take in everything and where better to take the time to reflect than sitting in a coffee shop in Shibuka overlooking Tokyo’s finest! Tokyo really is just brilliant! I arrived around 12ish the day before but by the time I had collected my luggage , always a fun past time...NOT, exchanged JR rail pass vouchers and navigated my way across the city to Asakusabashi it was already 3pm when I got to Khaosan Tokyo Ninja [View Full Entry]

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Summer is in full swing and what better way to enjoy some sun than at the beach. Annually Boryeong, some two and a half hours by train South of Seoul, holds a mud fest. Yes, an excuse for just about every westerner in South Korea to hit the beach and get silly and dirty....it’s a recipe for fun! 7:40 am, excitement at an all time high and time to taxi to the train station. We got lucky that our seasoned mud festing mates organised us train tickets so that we weren’t subjected to a gruelling 6 hour bus ride! Getting to [View Full Entry]

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I am increasingly astounded at how quickly time flies. I have now been here close on 9 months and I just don’t know where time has gone. As I mentioned my co-teacher Robin sadly couldn’t get her head around the crazy disorganization which is a common occurrence at a Korean Hagwon and I think perhaps the whole Asian experience was just not quite what she expected so she did a mid-night run back to Canada. (I think the number 302 airport bus which stops just outside her apartment had been tempting her since her second week here). As a result its [View Full Entry]

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Wow a week flies! The folks kept themselves well occupied checking out the sights and sounds of Seoul, Incheon and the surrounds and then it was Friday again, much to my delight. We had been invited to have dinner with all the staff from school and admittedly I was worried cause I had been told that we were going for a traditional Korean meal, how the three of us were going to make it through a traditional Korean meal without being rude and declining something that looked undesirable, was going to be a challenge. Lucky for us at the last minute [View Full Entry]

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It’s quite strange to have family around 24/7 for two weeks and then suddenly wake up on a Saturday and they have gone home, now how to occupy yourself. After missing it on our Seoul city bus tour I decided that Gyeonbokgung deserved a visit the lazy Saturday. It turned out that I got even more than I bargained for and my fairly average Saturday turned into a really lovely Korean experience. I arrived at the entrance to the palace just in time for the changing of the guards which is an event I have wanted to see. Again as Murphy’s [View Full Entry]

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Yay finally a clear day in Seoul, about time! You always read that highly industrialized countries like China are so polluted but you never really grasp the immensity of the pollution! In fact even when you get here you kind of brush it off thinking that it’s maybe just a little fog until you head down south to places like Gwanju and you actually experience a truly beautiful clear day where the sky is properly blue and not the murky grey which is what we experience here in Seoul on a “beautiful day”. What is sad about the murkiness of Seoul [View Full Entry]

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I had been looking so forward to this trip and even more so cause I would have a couple of good travel companions for the trip! Tea picking in Boseong in spring, what a treat! 7am and we were on our way to the Incheon bus terminal soon to be on rout to Gwanju. The buses in Korea as I have mentions so often are fantastic but the half way stops (AKA Engen 1 stop type spots) are even more incredible, in fact I think astounding is a better word! After two hours on the bus we pulled off the road [View Full Entry]

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There is nothing better than family normally but it’s even better when they manage to make the long treck east to visit! After lots of discussion my folks finally arrived on South Korean soil. It was brilliant to have them here for a two week visit to see where I work and live and just to experience South Korea, a county that would ordinarily not be a spot I nor they would ordinarily think to visit. After spending the night of their arrival catching up and chilling we woke up early the following morning for a tour of the Seoul sights. [View Full Entry]

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