Above:  Ice-cream is good and cheap in Korea.  It’s tempting to have one for dessert after every meal.  Fortunately I found dessert-flavoured chewing gum.  Eg. tiramisu- or affogato-flavoured.  Spirit of Sir Freddie I departed at 2325 from Incheon Airport on board AirAsia X’s aircraft named Semangat Sir Freddie (Spirit of Sir Freddie Laker, the pioneer […]

I had made my way to Seoul yesterday from Sokcho. I have a full day here which I’d fill with an excursion to the border or Demilitarised Zone (DMZ). I couldn’t have picked a worse day to do an excursion. The rain was relentless and the wind had picked up a little due to a […]

Despite the wet weather, I made the trip to Mt Soerak National Park by bus and walked/climbed 4.3km to Ulsan Bawi, a granite outcrop at 873m.  It took over two hours going up and an hour to come back down. I was drenched … raincoats don’t really work … if it protects you from the […]

I travelled up the coast further today by bus (changing at Gangneung).  The weather clouded over then started to spit.  It is miserable and wet … but at least it isn’t cold or windy … maybe not yet. Sokcho is in the north-east corner of South Korea.  There used to be ferries from here to […]

I’m headed North and chose to break the journey in Samcheok to avoid a long day on the bus. There isn’t much that I wanted to do around here … it has some great caves but I’ve seen some cavernous ones in recent times. So I chose to visit Haesindang … it is a garden […]

I headed out to the Jagalchi Fish Market early today, thinking that it may be like Tokyo’s where it is best caught early.  The streets near the market were lined with live fish and other seafood, plus surprisingly frozen fish being thawed out! I then found the actual Jagalchi Fish Market which is an impressive […]

Arriving in Busan It was a very quick intercity bus ride from Gyeongju to Busan taking only 50 minutes.  The metro ride from Busan’s bus terminal to Indy House hostel, on the other hand, took about an hour. Busan is a big city of about 4 million spread over several valleys and it must take […]

Sights in and around Gyeongju Gyeongju is referred to as a museum without walls because it is home to more temples, pagodas, Buddhas and other historical artefacts, compared to anywhere else in Korea. I started by visiting two that are out of town … firstly it was Bulguksa, a temple originating from the 700s which […]