Everywhere in South Korea

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South Korea!! Where do I start?? We have done soooo much travelling around the country. Much more then we have done in any other, and in doing so have learnt so much about ourselves, eachother and more importantly, culture....

We were lucky enough to be able to stay with my good friend Vicky and her family across the country. Not only did it save us a lot of money but it also gave us true insight to the Korean culture, i.e housing, eating, tradition and etiquette. It was a great experience and we were so appreciate of their generosity and hospitality. We truely had a great time meeting them all. Vicky's Ma and Pa are so cute, even learning a few english phrases to greet us with.

The weather has not been very kind to us... Most days have been max 10degrees, and we even saw snow on the mountains as we drove higher and higher. Not some thing you expect to see in Asia in spring. But we layered up and were lucky enough not to get sick.

Jeju Island was absolutly beautiful... A volcanic island, listed as one of the worlds 7 natural wonders (so that's two we've been to now) With its quirky theme parks/museums and gorgeous rocky shorelines, I can honestly say the only thing missing was the great weather to match... Very windy!! 😞 The funniest experience ever was 'Loveland'... A sex theme park equiped with staues, scuptures, paintings (all of sexual nature, of course) It even has a sex shop!! Wow! Pretty funny stuff considering the Korean culture is seen to be that of a conservative one. Believe it or not the art there was actually pretty tasteful. In Jeju we were lucky enough for the first time in our lives to fly business class.... Oh and did we milk it!! Lol. The seats lie right down, the staff are soooo nice and there is so much space... Absolute luxury!
We can't believe the technology is this country.. Far better than that in Australia, with toilets with seat Warmers, recycling systems, underground subways, everything is computerized and in some parts makes Aussie look third world. It's crazy!
We have learnt a lot about the history of Sth Korea through their very large war memorial. And have also visited royal palaces and temples of all kinds. By far the best temple was Beomosa, where we were brave enough (through encouragement from Vick) to do an overnight temple stay. The idea of it is for you to learn more about Buddhism and to experience what the monks go through on a day to day basis. And that we sure did!! We left all western practices and luxuries behind and changed into our uniforms, bound for a journey we will never forget. We ate staples, performed prayer rituals to Buddha, practiced zen mediation and had tea and life conversations with the monks. One monk in particular had been there since he was 13 yrs old, he is now 70!! The temple housed all different types of monks... Differing in age and nationality, all there for the one goal. To become enlightened and find peace in oneself. And to be honest, as extremely hard as it was, I can totally understand why they would prefer to live that life! Learning to appreciate simple things and relieving yourself of stress and worry. It actually seems pretty ideal. The experience in itself was unique!

Gyeongju is an ancient village, about 2 hours drive from Busan. Full of lakes, gardens, temples and tombs of previous royalty.... We took a vigourous bike ride (was really bloody hard) around the lake to see the sights.

Seoul is AMAZING, a huge (about 3 times bigger then Sydney) first class city with beautiful buildings and shopping and dining everywhere you look.... We rode the cable car to the top of Seoul tower to view the city from the highest peak... The view was incredible. Especially watching the lights come on everywhere as darkness fell. It is so easy to get around the city too, a good public transport system with around a billion different train lines (well ok, not quite that many) Without Vicky im thinking we would have been just another very lost tourist. We stayed here with Vicky's sister and nephew in Incheon, who treated us like part of the family... Soooo nice and when we said goodbye it was honestly like saying goodbye to my own family 😊 We had grown very fond of Ryan, who speaks reasonably good english and we had many talks and laughs (Mostly at Peters expence with his chopstick Skills and inability to sit on the floor for too long, lol)

Busan is different to Seoul, but just as equally amazing... Unfortunetly we didnt spend too much time around Busan as we were so busy going in between places, but definetly the parts we did see were cool. Haiundae is a very popular beach area located in the city (I suppose similar to Bondi or Manly) with gorgeous coffee shops and restaurants for miles. In Busan we stayed with Vick's brothers family, they were so lovely and accomodating. Her adorable nephews even provided us with entertainment after a delicious BBQ dinner by playing us the violin and a dance routine which included shuffling... LOL very cute!!

We crossed to the Nth Korean side (for a split second) when we went to the JSA (Joint Security Area) That was a really eye opening experience with alot of rules and regulations as to where you go and how you behave in that area. I.e NO communications with the soldiers, no waving, pointing, laughing etc etc... I little scary but definetly very interesting at the same time.. We visited the DMZ (Demiltilarized Zone) where we were allowed to enter an underground tunnel that the Nth secretly created to use as a surprise attack on the Sth. We learnt of the properganda, hostility and division and the hopes for some day peace and unification... We really didn't realise how full on it all was!
Korean bbqs are AWESOME!! If you have never been to one then you must try it.... Its a DIY hot plate in which you choose different meats, vegetables etc to fry off and comes with assorted side dishes.... Not complete without bibimbop,kimchi, bulgogi and the very famous (Korean style vodka) Soju!! Many great nights on that for sure... Will definitely miss the food here. I was only one day off spending my 27th birthday in Korea. We had a really nice dinner and drink equipped with bday cake on our last night... 3 btls of soju and half a btl of vodka later, we had many laughs to go with! A big thank you to Vicky who made our stay in Korea complete!!

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