Category: South Korea

One of the things that I have loved about travelling in South Korea has been how easy it is to access hiking. 70% of the country is mountainous and in each place that we have stayed we have easily taken the local bus to trails. We’ve hiked almost every 2nd day, always with great signage, views, and attractions. I read an article that said that Korean people value fitness and time in nature and it shows, given all of the hiking opportunities and the number of locals on the trails. It is not unusual to see elderly Koreans kitted out in hiking gear, often passing people on the trails.

We stayed 3 nights in Sokcho and explored Seoraksan National Park. We ended up doing 2 hikes one day, both of which had more than 600 stairs to reach the summits. We were shattered after all of that stair climbing!

Since we were on the coast we decided we wanted seafood. Our guesthouse host suggested a place that specializes in seafood hotpot. When it arrived to our table the abalone were still moving! I was way out of my comfort zone, but the waiter pushed them under the boiling broth and told us they’d be ready in 5 minutes. Can’t get more fresh than that!

We made our way to Chuncheon and explored the Samaksan area. We were rewarded with great city and mountain views at the top. The way down we took a different route that required a lot of crab walking, using ropes, and careful manoeuvring to descend.

This city is known for its Dalgalbi, which is a chicken stir fry that happened right at our table. I ranked it as a close second to Korean BBQ. So good, especially after a long hike!

We made our way back to Seoul for our final couple of days before flying home. We caught the changing of the guard at the Gyeongbok Palace and wandered the vast grounds.

The Bukchon Hanok Village was a great spot to explore art shops, cafes, and do some people watching.

We had to have one final Korean BBQ and spa visit before heading to the airport. I’m on standby to fly home, so fingers crossed that I get there in time for closing night of RobO’s musical (9 to 5). What an incredible couple of months of exploring our world. Now I have some time to enjoy good weather at home before I return to work mid-July. Thanks for following along.

On our final day in Gyeongji we wanted to go out for the famed Korean BBQ. I looked up some reviews and found a restaurant called Judon that boasts a rare perfect 5/5 score from 39 reviews. We used Google translate to let the waiter know that we were newbies and he set to work on showing us how to grill our pork belly, cheek, and neck, then which sauce combinations to use. Even though I am not a big meat eater it was so good that we had to order another round of pork belly. Suffice it to say that the restaurant now has 40 perfect reviews.

We made our way south to the metropolis of Busan, Korea’s 2nd largest city. It is a sprawling city with a good metro system. We enjoyed exploring the skinny walkways and streets of the colourful Gamcheon Culture Village.

The Igidae Coastal Walk was a great way to spend a sunny afternoon. We had great views of the turquoise ocean and the city skyline.

My highlight of Busan was Samgwangsa Temple, which was lit up with 40,000 lanterns in preparation for Buddha’s birthday. 

Because of the birthday holiday weekend we didn’t see any accommodations in Seoul that matched our shoestring budget, so we decided to do something from my bucket list that wouldn’t really appeal to RobO… stay at a jjimjilbang. These are public 24 hour bath houses that have a variety of hot pools, saunas, scrub-down options, and resting/sleeping areas. If you’ve been a longtime blog reader you may remember that RobO and I are not newbies in the bath house experience, but Korea adds another layer (or maybe I should say ‘takes off another layer’??) from my previous experiences. The place is divided by gender and the baths are FULLY naked. It only took a few minutes for Dee and I to shed our prudish cultural upbringings and feel pretty normal about hanging out (literally) in our birthday suits… for like, 5 hours.

We had no idea what to expect with the sleepover part of it, but it was… an experience. We were given these orange pyjamas that made us feel like we were on Orange is the New Black, and we laid on the heated floor of the sleeping room with a hard foam block for a pillow. When we went to ‘bed’ it seemed pretty organized, with women laying around the outside of the room, but when I woke up in the night I quickly realized that it had become a free-for-all, with people EVERYWHERE! There were women on either side of me like sausages in a pan and if I stretched my legs out straight I was kicking someone. I’m sure you can deduce that it wasn’t my *greatest* sleep, but I sure felt better after some early morning naked hot tub/sauna/scrubbing time with Dee! You’re welcome, RobO, for checking this one off the list without you!

We’re in wall-to-wall traffic (holiday weekend!), heading to the coast for some more hiking and eats. I’ll leave you with some more delicious food pics, as it has been so great to taste so many different dishes.

I arrived to Seoul late at night and met up with my OT friend Dee, who had been in Seoul for 5 days prior to my arrival. We hit the ground running, as she had booked us on the 6:30am bus headed south. One of the only things we had pre booked was a 3 day temple stay at Golgulsa Temple.

We chose this temple stay because it had a lot of activities, one of which being twice per day training in Sonmudo, a Korean martial art that includes a combination of yoga, meditation, qi gong, and zen martial arts. I fell in love with the training: the amount of concentration, balance, and power required, the slow movements to engage all of our tiny muscles, and the amount of improvements we saw after just 5 sessions. Since Dee and I were doing the moves and couldn’t take pictures of ourselves, I’ll post some shots of what we looked like.

We were given outfits to wear during our temple stay and, of course, one of the first things we did was a photoshoot posing in them!

We got to go to the beach one morning (in our outfits, plus a hat!) to do our training on the rocky beach.

We also practiced 108 prostrations (a difficult bowing technique), chanting, different types of meditations, yoga, and ate delicious Korean vegetarian food. It was a great start to my Korean adventures.

The temple was all dressed up with lanterns for the upcoming holiday of Buddha’s birthday (May 5 this year). We’ve seen this at all of the temples that we’ve visited.

Next up we visited Gyeongju, which is an ancient capital city and has been described as a ‘museum without walls’. It has ancient tombs throughout the city, which actually look like huge mounds of grass.

There is a palace and wooden bridge that are must-sees when lit up at night.

It also has lots of quirky little tourist things like themed cafes, scooters dressed up like Snoopy, and novelty foods.

After a long day of walking we went to a brilliant cafe… soak your feet in an epsom salt bath while drinking your beverage, followed by a foot massage.

We spent a day at the UNESCO World Heritage village of Yangdong, which has been around since 1459.

We hiked the Namsan Historic Trail, which took us past sculptures and carvings that were 1000 years old.

And finally… food. We have had some delicious eats, with highlights being dumplings, cold noodles, and bipimbap. We stood in line at a very busy place to try the famous egg bread stuffed with red bean paste, which was ok but not a ‘need to go back’ snack.

One night Dee wasn’t feeling well, so I went out on my own for dinner. I’ll admit it, I was a little too cocky. I thought that after all of this travelling I could go into a local restaurant without an English menu or pictures and order something that I would enjoy eating. Somehow I ended up with mystery meat/organ meat soup. The worst part was that the cook was so kind and was watching me for signs of enjoyment. After a couple of meaty bits and all of the side dishes I feigned being too full from all the deliciousness.

I’ll leave you with some other shots around town, as well as other temples that are all decked out for the birthday celebrations.