Korea

So, 6 months later, (and one baby almost ready…) our Korea photos are online!  Now, we’ll have to work on Hawaii (we just got back…) Enjoy and happy travels!

There are many ways to get from the Seoul Incheon International Airport, and more are even coming with a subway line being built that will connect the Airport all the way to downtown. The airport is actually quite a distance from downtown – it takes about an hour and a [...]

We found that making reservations ahead of time outside of Seoul was thankfully not necessary (at least in July when we were there).  People at the hotels did not speak English, so reservations would have been very difficult.  What we did do was to go to the nearest tourist info [...]

In the morning, we headed out to the Yongsan Elecctronics Market in Seoul.   It wasn’t really what I expected.  It is a collection of 20 buildings, and it wasn’t always clear how to get from one to the other.  The first building we went into was about 6 stories high [...]

We took the high speed train back to Seoul from Daegu. The train goes up to 300 km/h in sections, and was a very convenient way of crossing the country.  It cost us about $40 US per ticket. We got seats in advance, and the train left exactly on time [...]

Since it was our anniversary, we decided to go up the N’Seoul Tower to celebrate.  To get to the base of the tower you take a cable car, which provides you with great views too.  Once inside you take an elevator up to the observation deck with huge windows giving [...]

  We made not one, but 2 trips to Namdaemun Market – it’s that big.  Of course, it’s Korea, so it’s well organized with info booths with English speakers.  They have maps available, with bathrooms and banks clearly marked and all the buildings labeled and what they sell listed.    [...]

From Busan we traveled to Daegu.  From there it was easy to get to Haeinsa Temple by bus.  Daegu also had a huge market - Seomun – which seems to sell a ton of different food, mostly.  It was great for people watching and strolling. There’s also a great downtown area which [...]

  Daegu is a convenient base to head out to yet another amazing temple – Haeinsa Temple.  There are buses everywhere in Korea, and they all run on time, all the time, and are impeccably clean.  Amazing. The road is windy and steep, and so it took an hour an a half [...]

The subway system in Busan is like all the others we used in Korea – fabulous.  The trains run very frequently and the stations are well organized, announced in English (and Korean, and Chinese, and Japanese) and everything is, of course, spotlessly clean.  Naturally. Notice the arrows on the yellow [...]

From Gyeongju we traveled to Busan, a bustling port in the south of the country with plenty of US sailors everywhere – the USS Reagan had just docked, with 5,000 sailors on shore leave!  Plus there were other USS ships in port at the same time. We had an amazing hotel [...]

We stayed at the Goodmorning Haotel Motel, which was possibly the best value hotel we’ve ever gotten of all 51 countries we’ve travelled to. For $30 we got an exceptionally clean room, big tv, nice towels, bathrobes, huge shower with floor to ceiling glass windows to the main room – [...]

We stayed at Sarangchae Home Stay. We stayed in a tradiditional ondol-style room – basically this means the small room had a thin mattress on the floor, a fan, and nothing else.  Just a 30 foot walk from our room, the shared shower facility was clean, but very very small [...]

From the Wolseong Park we crossed the street and visited the gorgeous lotus flower ponds which are next to the Anapji Pond.  We didn’t actually make it into Anapji, we enjoyed the lotus flowers so much we stayed for quite a while.  There are a group of rectangular ponds, all [...]

From Tumuli Park, we crossed the road and checked out Wolseong Park, which was filled with beautiful orange flowers and more tumuli.  There’s also an observatory, which is apparently the oldest in East Asia, but to our untrained eyes seemed like a short tower…  We did, however, enjoy our stroll [...]

From the Seokguram Grotto we headed back into town and strolled through Tumuli Park.  The tumulis are grassy hills that enclose tombs built for the Shilla monarchs in the 5th century AD.  It’s a very pleasant park, with lots of trees, and some small ponds.  All the paths are clearly [...]

From Bulguksa Temple, we took the bus up to the Seokguram Grotto.  It’s possible to hike, but it would have been a very long 3.2 KM (2ish miles) in the 30C (90F ish) heat with incredible humidity!  Even from the parking lot there’s a bit of a walk in, but it’s [...]

We arrived at the bus station in Gyeongju this morning, and immediately went to the excellent tourist info booth.  They’re all over and always seem to have at least one person who speaks English.  They were fabulously well organized and very helpful as usual.  They called and made a reservation [...]

Through our Lonely Planet, we discovered that a lot of the cheaper motels were categorized as Love Motels. We had heard of these, as they are prevalent in Japan where they are used by unmarried couples wanting a few hours “rest” away from their parents.  In Japan, the rooms have [...]