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

Getting off the train from Jeonju in Mokpo on 19 June. Once again I curse the Lonely Planet maps for their lack of street names! I have a good sense of direction, and always carry a compass, but as they only labelled two or three street names on the map I virtually only found a hotel that they recommended almost by accident after effectively becoming "lost" as there was nothing to get my bearings from. It's the Good Day hotel - a very narrow distinction between that and the Good Morning hotel I would think! And the supposed interesting restaurant which was supposedly virtually behind the hotel was nowhere to be seen or has gone out of business - the LP does not generally name restaurants in Korean script, which is also a problem as most ... read more

**Some parts deleted by the travelblog.org gods. They work in mysterious ways.*** It's starting to get good down here in our little coastal town. It's the time of year that reminds me why we chose this place and why I prefer living here rather than in the bigger cities up north. The mountains and feilds are dressed in green. A few azaleas are still putting up a fight and make for purple patches on the mountain sides and the water is warming up for summer time swims. Since the summers can get uncomfortably hot now is the time to do things outdoors. Even if that thing happens to be wandering the pedestrian street in the cool spring air after seeing "The Avengers" while looking for a place to grab a drink. Rather than head to a ... read more

Yesterday I left work early and headed home to put up a travel blog since I'd again be leaving town Friday night. I spent an hour typing it up and putting up pictures. Then the website wiped away all of my work and I was left staring at a blank screen. So I'm at it again but slightly unmotivated to retype everything, especially on my painfully slow work computer that lags about two words behind as I type. Here goes nothing. Last weekend Jen and I headed off for Wolchulsan, a national park in Jeollanamdo, our region, that we had both been wanting to do since coming to Korea and now that it seemed close enough to do we picked up and set off to complete the 8k, about 5 mile, hike from one end to ... read more

I was running around taking in all the new scents of the campsite. It smelled SO GOOD. There was all this food I had never seen! Luckily, I'm short and the people from Seoul easily lost track of me. I found a present of a whole loaf of bread just sitting in a bag for me! I felt sick after that, but it was the most fun I've had in awhile. I'm not really sure where my owner went, but I live with Paul now and he's the one that took me to meet his friends up on this hill above the ocean where they were setting up tents and hanging things in trees. Everybody kept picking me up. "Hey Sam, how ya doing buddy?" They put their faces so close to me. They don't smell ... read more

I decided to visit Yeosu—host city of the 2012 World Expo—for the long weekend. The bus arrived into Yeosu at 9:40 am on Saturday. The less-than-two-hour ride from Gwangju costs 9,900 Won. After finding out which city bus (1,100 Won) could take me to Hyangiram Hermitage, I was at the temple in 50 minutes—a taxi will be faster and costs between 22,000 and 25,000 Won. Buses 111, 113, and 116 will take you there. Restaurants and shops surround the street and long-steep-inclined pathway toward the temple entrance on both sides. Two-thousand won will get you into the temple, and a long and steep walk along stoned stairs will get you up to Hyangiram. The grounds are nice—crews were doing construction/renovation during my visit—and the views are amazing. After strolling everywhere, I hiked up to the top ... read more