Blogs from Jeollabuk-do, South Korea, Asia

We left Seoul around 7:45 am and drove for about three hours to reach Deokyusan National Park. The drive wasn't too bad as the traffic was pretty light, and I caught up on my missed sleep. My ears did begin to pop as we drove higher up the mountain. The car park was a short walk from the start of the trail. We walked through the small village between the car park and the entrance to the national park. We were shown the restaurant that we should go to after the hike to have dinner. When we reached the entrance, we put on our crampons as the trail would be snowy and possibly slippery. We consulted the map, which would show the route were very taking today. The first part would be an easy slope, then ... read more

We were up at the crack of dawn, 6 am. Not that I really slept because the room was too hot (as always), and the walls were paper thin, so I could hear some drunk girls chuntering away and also someone hacking up a lung. When we were leaving the room, we saw the bus driver coming out from the room across from us, so that was the coughing culprit. He really needs to cut down on the fags. We headed over to the other pension and got some breakfast. I had a huge headache last night, and it was still lingering this morning, so it took me forever to eat some breakfast. After a bit of waiting around, we were on the bus to head to the national park. We drove for over an hour ... read more

1st Jun: Up far too early. 5 am! I managed to leave the house not long after half past and headed to the metro. Got to Suwon station, not long after six. Bought some breakfast from the shop, and sat eating that, while waiting for my train. My train left about ten past seven. I put my ear phones in and tried to sleep. The bloke next to me was a bit chatty, and I was in no mood for it. It was too early. The train journey took about three hours. I almost missed my stop as I was asleep. However the old bloke told me, it was my stop. Thank goodness! The train station in Jeonju is gorgeous, it's built in the hanok style. After asking at the tourist information office about how to ... read more

We had one of the most unpleasant bus journey's that lasted about 36 hours to get here. * The typical mile long queue at the border, where we found a spot of luck and created a new queue and bypassed about an additional 2 hours waiting time * 3 men and Rach squeezed into the back of a small minibus with very little aircon img=http://i1290.photobucket.com/albums/b534/Rachel_1988/8FC1E21A-3D6B-47BE-B6CC-6E5848F7EDFA-5304-00000A4E2985FEF8.jpg * A sleepertrain with some morons from Bedford who blatently did not understand people pay to travel this way as they actually want to sleep... the clue is in the name!! * A very unpleasant bumpy boat trip that advised us the 'have our seasickness pills at the ready' comforting!! img=http://i1290.photobucket.com/albums/b534/Rachel_1988/A3EB33A1-C4EB-4411-86ED-8A147F799EFD-5304-00000A4E2B9E72E7.jpg Finally we arrived... read more

Travelling light is a thing of the past! Gone are the days of only having a backpack and day-pack each. (Hopefully not gone for good, they can return when the kids are bigger!) We are still “backpacking” with a backpack and day-pack each, plus a small holdall for the girls clothes and the Macpac possum child carrier which Colin uses to carry Samara. She has her own day-pack but we try to put it in one of our bags when travelling. It doesn't help that we are carrying a travel cot for Katrina. Its a great small one (small relative to other porta cots!), a LittleLife Arc2.Even with all our baggage, we are still stopping in several places during our two weeks in Korea. If you don't count an over night stay at an Incheon Airport ... read more