One would think that spending the night on a hard wooden floor, after a public group shower and only a hard rubber block for a pillow would leave aches in places previously unknown and a night of no sleep... Well, not our Jjimjilbang. It's one of first places I'd recommend for a cheap, completely stress unwinding, rest-filled night Our breakfast search lead us down into Namdaemun, one of Korea's oldest wholesale markets for a ho-dog (A thoroughly delicious cinamon flapjack), -I wonder what they call a sausage in bread? Sometimes I have to stop and have a giggle at the lengths we go to try and save a penny. I think it's from having lived in an insanely cheap country (our beloved SA) that sometimes we just can't bring ourselves to pay a first-world's reasonable ... read more

Ahhh, to wake up in a Yeogwan... After a fantastic night's sleep, we had the luxury of being able to wake up and take a bath! So different from the usual 3 day hygiene drought we've become so accustomed to Last night, as we were finishing off our pizza, we met a bunch of Korean folk who'd just finished off their shift at a rafting stall, and, after chatting a while they suggested we join them first thing in the morning for a river raft by their strongest driver. So, Good and clean and fresh (tra la la la) we headed off down to the river that runs through Muju. The slow cruise in the middle of the mirror water with the unusually fresh mountain air in our faces, early in the morning, was a ... read more

Learning to make silk Another long weekend, and this time, on a tip from two of our co-teachers, we headed off to the mountain town of Muju for the 11th annual Firefly festival. Muju's claim to fame is it's clean air. As we travelled on the 3.5 hour bus ride from the world's 10th largest city into the winding mountain roads, it was certainly clear that the air became clearer and more refreshing. When we arrived in muju, we found that the town had been decorated with huge helium balloons and there were little stally everywhere. We too some time to wonder along some of the stalls, where Cath found some beautiful dresses, and decided she would come back for one later. We managed to find the festival's info office, and on their advice caught a ... read more

So you've had enough. You've just finished teaching hundreds of Korean kids for 6 days in a row and the one thing that's kept you going is the though of a 3 day weekend. Finally it's here. With Cathy taking the lead and doing all the planning for this trip I'm completely ing the dark. All I know is we're off to the coast. And that's good enough for me. We both decided that after our tough hiking weekend we were rather looking for peace and relaxation. Feeling a bit more Seoul-wise these days, we managed to catch a bus down to the leeetle town of Seosan without much trouble. Here we found the one reason for stopping, a fantastic old fortress from the 1400's that has been carefully restored. Wandering around the old buildings and ... read more

Seoraksan Hike, Day1Darrell and Cathy We woke up in the middle of our beachside forest to the sound of fifty year-old women exercising next to us. It seems the ajummas here are far to tough! Within minutes we had packed our backpacks, found the public bathrooms to brush our teeth and caught a bus inland towards Seoraksan, Korea's biggest National Park. We got off the bus along the side of the road and walked the few minutes to the entrance to the hiking trails. As we reached the north entrance to the mountain trails, the friendly park ranger came out of his little booth to give us a fantastic trail map, and casually inform us that the trails are all closed. Apparently we had arrived on exactly the last day of the fire hazard (dry) season. ... read more