Blogs from Chungcheongnam-do, South Korea, Asia

David here... The first bus journey from Gyeongju to Daegu took 50 minutes and was very comfortable. Arrivals was on the 2nd floor. Ticket sales and departures were on the 3rd floor. We made our way up and found the ticket counters. While looking at the boards, which did have English on, we were approached by a gentleman in uniform who asked us if we required any assistance. We asked about onward tickets to Daejeon and he promptly led us over to the ticket counter, ordered the tickets for us, translated the sellers information and then led us to the platform gate we required. We were astounded and very appreciative of the assistance. We would've been able to figure it all out given time I'm sure, but to have some official assistance made it really easy. ... read more

Off to see the lovely lotus flowers. We took the bus from Suwon to Buyeo, it was less than 15,000 won for the ticket and there is a bus pretty much every hour. The journey took two hours and we were deposited at Buyeo bus station. We bought our tickets for going home for later in the evening and we set off to explore the city. Armed with a free tourist map of the city, we headed off to check out some of the sights. Buyeo is famous because in the past, it was the home of the Baekje Dynasty. Buyeo was the capital of the Baekje Dynasty from 538-660 AD. It was known as Sabi Fortress back then. The Korean peninsula was ruled by three kingdoms in acient times, these were the Baekje Dynasty, Goguryeo ... read more

I think we left around 7:30 and we drove for a couple of hours. We arrived at Taean and headed to the beach. We went to Sambong Beach. It's a nice beach and I had been here previously, last summer when we came to Taean and Anmyeon-do. We had good weather and we spent about an hour to an hour and a half wandering along the beach. There were a few people on the beach, but it was really quite empty. We walked along the beach, looking at all the little crabs that were scurrying about, I'm sure I accidentally scrunched a few under my boots, sorry little crabbies! There were also some beautiful shells and The walk was going well, until we hit a spot of water that was flowing down the beach to the ... read more

Boryeong mudfest is an annual summer festival in Korea that traditionally celebrated the cosmetic benefits of the mud in the Boryeong area. Of course now it is a week long drinking festival with various mud related activities to enjoy! Boryeong is a 6-hour drive from Busan and we left at 6am on the Saturday morning on chartered buses to enjoy the weekend. Our bus turned into a party bus as we turned on the kareoke. We got our rooms sorted out in the town on arrival and hit the beach. We were expecting a mud beach but what the organisers do is truck mud in from nearby mud flats, and there wasn't a lot of it! It was watered down and poured into several 'fountains' for people to help themselves. They had left large paintbrushes for ... read more

28th Sept: Made it to Yangjae station in plenty of time. Traffic going to Seoul was fine. Stopped off for a Maccy Ds. On the bus by 11 and ready to go, however some people were stuck in traffic, so we sat on the bus and waited for them for 45 minutes. Personally I would of just left them. Once they arrived we started our journey south. The traffic was horrific, as expected at Chuseok as the whole country travels to their home towns or villages. Leaving Seoul there was a sea of red lights on the motorway as far as the eye could see. 29th Sept: The traffic seemed to ease up once we had left Seoul and then Gyeonggi province, and we started to move at a better pace. The bus was no longer ... read more