An early start, as I was heading to the highest peak in Thailand. I went off in search of some breakfast, I headed to the main crossroads and came across some stalls. I tried to order of the menu, but the woman explained that the menu was for the night stall, not what she was selling. She opened two big pots of rice porridge to show me what was on offer, one looked kind of plain and the other looked a bit more exciting, so I opted for that. I got to pick which meat I wanted to add, there were a few on offer and I picked pork. The lady bagged it up for me and gave me a bowl and spoon, and I took it back to the hotel to eat. It was definitely ... read more

It was quite noisy outside last night, so I didn't sleep too well. The bags under my eye were huge and no amount of slap could hide their existence, however my headache had gone! I didn't think that would have happened due to my lack of sleep. I went down to the reception/cafe/lounge room to pay for my room for the week. The two ladies working there were lovely. They sorted out my payment and then sat me down with several maps, one of the neighbourhood I was staying in, a one which had the whole city on it, and another one for Maerim (which I didn't end up visiting). It was so sweet of them, on the map of Chiang Mai, they pointed out the main sites to visit in the old city, and other ... read more

15th Nov: We had stayed the night at Incheon, so that we were close to the ferry terminal. We had tried to stay at the same motel as we had when we went to Baeknyeong-do, but since we had arrived late, after 11 pm, it was full. But the lovely man pointed out another motel to us. We were up early, as our ferry left at nine am, luckily the motel was a tow minute walk to the ferry terminal. It wasn't as busy as it had been back in May, I noticed that the old information board had been removed and replaced with a brand new electronic one. No sign left of the Sewol now. We got our tickets from the desk, they were very efficient, as they had them printed out ready for us. ... read more

We left around eight, the traffic was a nightmare, as everyone was travelling south. This is the peak weekend to see all autumn colours at their best. We had quick pit stop in Daejeon. We picked up some kimbap to keep us going. We drove on further and arrived at our first destination, Sinsido in Gunsan. Sinsido is the largest of the 24 islands in the Gogunsan Island Cluster. It is located at the centre of the Saemangeum Seawall, which connects Gunsan and Buan. It is the longest seawall of its kind in the world. We did a short hike, olny about half an hour up to a view point. The hike was quite steep. We thought that we were at the top, but we weren't and we had to go a bit further to reach ... read more

Iv'e been wanting to do this hike for ages, and I finally had a free Saturday morning on which I could do it. I always pass this area on the bus, and see all the hikers alighting the subway. I took the Shin-Bundang line, to Cheonggysan Station. The Shin-Bundang line is pretty fancy and the trains are driverless, however that works. I came out of exit two, and there were quite a few hikers about. I had read on someone's blog that this hike is very popular, so try to get there early to avoid the queues. However eight thirty was too late in my book as there were a tonne of people already about. It was a sharp contrast to my hike last week, which was largely people free. I though that the trail would ... read more