Travelog

This diary tracks our progress along the Silk Roads, with episodes appearing in date order, most recent first.  You can get to earlier entries by turning pages at the bottom of the screen.

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Category: Travelog

We made it to Jeju!  After a very reasonable overnight ferry journey we fetched up at Jeju-si and headed straight for the south coast - we heard that the mountain in the middle of the island effectively divides it so that the north cost is temperate and the south sub-tropical.  I think the whole palm-fringed sandy beach and balmy days thing has got to us as we have slid from keen adventurous types into beach bums in an alarmingly quick time: despite the large number of fascinating things to explore here - volcanoes, coral sea beds, sub-tropical forests and lava tunnels we have the followng achievements to show for our first 5 days:

Bobbing around in the water; snoozing in hammocks; drifting off on beaches; gentle coastal strolling (this last, mostly out of a sense of duty!).

Actually that's not entirely fair.  We have for instance visited the largest botanical garden in Asia (Yeomiji); where we found the hammocks.  And today we actaully made it along the coast to a spectacular waterfall that crashes into the sea (Jeongbang Falls), albeit because we got wind of a great resaurant nearby.  The weather has been spectacular, giving us no rain, temperatures around 25, very low humidity and a constant gentle breeze.  Perfect for October, don'tcha think?!  We may actually make it to some of the sights before we leave on Tuesday but I wouldn't hold my breathe; this may not be paradise as billed (certain people are not present, for starters), but as a holiday within a holiday it sure beats working.  Wake me up in a day or two... 

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Category: Travelog
We're on holiday!  We have been on the road for 6 months and decided we needed a break, especially as we both have had gunky colds.  We headed for Jeju-do as planned, but instead of staying with a HC host in the north, we have taken a hotel room in the sub-tropical south, costing us a stiff but not unaffordable 15,000 won (GBP7.50) each a night.  It is a 5 minute stagger from both the town one way, and the harbour the other. 
We have a TV in our room, a bit of a novelty, so we have watched lots of movies on the English language channel, all subtitled in Korean.  We have been out a bit - to laze on the beach, to lie in a hammock on the Botanical gardens, to wander along to a local waterfall, and to eat.  The weather is fairly perfect - about 23C, morning, noon and night.  Just enough cloud to be pretty without getting in the way.  Blue sky, blue water, tangerine groves, lovely sunsets; definately beats working! 
The only down side is the never ending presence of tanks of sea animals languishing outside restaurants waiting to be dinner: fish of all kinds, squid, cuttlefish, octopus of various sizes, abalone and crabby thingies.  There must be hundreds of tanks at least, in this town alone.  I have rarely been so glad to be vegetarian, and not, at least, contributing to the suffering, although I feel a bit guilty about not fighting it either.  As a vegetarian, it is easier to eat here than Japan, as long as I like veggie bibimbap.  Tonight however, I did succumb to a huge mound of cheese calling itself a pizza.  Haven't really had cheese for ages, so a bit of a treat and have taken anti-foodintolerance stuff so maybe Andy will survive to another day....
Tomorrow we are going to try to bestir ourselves and venture to the east end of the island to a volcano and maybe, hmm, another beach.  The bus will probably cost us a quid, which is OK, but will take about 2 hours, which is not so good, and may well crash, which is a bit crap.  We have been in 2 near misses on buses here so far, but I suppose it's good training for S.E. Asia.
Current book: Les Miserables ***/*****  Was the only book that looked likely to last me long enough.

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This trip is 6 months old today!  What an amazing time it has been, and what a deeply wonderful country we are in to celebrate.  Mark - thanks again, if it wasn't for your advice we may never have come.

We arrived in Daegu on Friday night at about 11 p.m., met our host Matt (a really great guy, a Canadian teaching here for a while) and returned to his flat where Ellen chose sleep and  Matt and I hit the town where we started with an ex-pat bar and I was just in time for the second half of the quiz.  I was pretty useless but did get the token English question right (Westward Ho!), the one about Helena Bonham Carter and Fight Club which I was never in a million years going to fluff and almost got THX1138 except couldn't remember all the numbers.  I met a few of Matt's fellow teachers, drank pitchers of presumably recycled beer and generally had fun until his wonderful girlfriend Heather turned up and it was time to move onto another bar.  This place was run by a Canadian guy, was very cool and laid back, and will forever be etched in my memory for being the place where someone decided to make a martini based around Creme de Menthe (and not including any traditional martini items apart from the glass).  A ridiculous idea that nonetheless worked against all odds.  I saw it as my duty to find out how many were required to get absolutely slammied but had later moved on to the Long Island Iced Tea before memory loss kicked in.  A most refreshing evening all in all and as a bonus I woke up in one piece in the right place.

A naturally quiet Saturday followed, and in the afternnon we went with Matt and Heather into Daegu centre to sample traditional tea at a Korean tea house.  The place was beautiful and relaxing, and we sampled various teas - the most stunnig was the crysanthemum tea in a glass pot, where the adding of water really brought the yellow flowers alive.   The whole experienceis less formal or ritualised than in Japan, the emphasis bieng on natural ingredients and a natural process, and the effect was wonderfully stimulating and relaxing at the same time.  I really did feel filled with well-being just by being there (and actually was amazed that on stepping out of the shop I no longer needed my shades, until Heather pointed out that the sun had in fact set during the tea drinking).  We finished the day with a resorative curry buffet and some sampling of the local drinks:  the pretty odd and not entirely pleasant cloudy rice wine DongDongJu follwed by the significantly better Soju, which we had with fresh kiwi - a world class distilled drink that works from the feet up rather surruptitiously.

 On Sunday Heather and Matt took us, along with some American friends, to Andong to experience the Maskdance festival, a really amazing day that was spent firstly in the nearby Hahoe folk village and latterly in the town itself.  Wonderful to be at a festival again having missed the UK summer, and the whole mask thing was awesome; there are pictures in the gallery that explain it better than I can.  Monday has been a catch-up day  for us before we go to  Jeju tomorrow, which has been  wonderfully relaxing.  Thanks again Matt for your kindness in giving us space to recharge, and for all the wonderful conversation.  Our trip has been considerably enhanced because of you and Heather!

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Our most excellent adventures contiue, albeit at slightly higher altitude.  On wednesday we said goodbye to our very kind hosts and travelled to the north-east of the country to explore the Seoraksan National Park - a mountainous costal region well known for its stunning beauty.

We managed to find a motel in Seorak-dong, near to the nature reserve area, which was pretty much empty, cheap, and run by the Korean version of Norman Bates (although any unpleasant shower incidents were successfully avoided).

We had a couple of days of walking in this incredibly gorgeous area full of steep mountain peaks, tumbling streams and rivers, lush mixed woodland and views all the way to the Pacific which I cannot really do justice in words:  pictures in the gallery (coming soon) may do better though.  Sufficed to say that a good time was had by all, and the highlights for me involved a hike to a couple of stunnig waterfalls (Yukdam and Biryeong) and a walk to a truely incredible rock platorm (Biseondae) above a stream that lazily tumbled miles from one clear green pool to the next.  Each day we found it hard to turn back and only just made it back before the darkness came; we were very lucky to have many places to ourselves as although this is a big domestic tourist draw the peak times are July/August when it is hottest and Mid October when the autumnal colours are at their best: September is a lull between the 2 despite being the least rainy month of the year, and perfectly mild for walking.

Even luckier we think this year autumn is early as fantastic reds and golds have already started to show themselves in the hills.  We are now heading south where we hope to attend the Andong mask festival on Sunday before making our way down to Busan where we have a ferry booked for 3rd Oct to the local slice of paradise Jeju Island.  This seems like the ideal retreat for the first week in October, as at this time the country celebrates Chuseok, a lunar harvest festival which sends the entire nation on the move, uniting families while simultaneously gridlocking the transport network. 

On a more personal note this seems to be a time for anniversaries:  3 days ago I celebrated 100 smoke-free days, and in 3 days time we mark the 6 month point on the journey.  I was delighted to reach 100 days without tobacco and although I cannot say that the cravings have subsided in any way, I can taste and smell more subtleties, am much healthier and fitter, and can concentrate on the same thing for longer than half an hour without needing a 'break'.  All good stuff.  The 6 month point is also a nice milestone:  although time seems increasingly irrelevant to me it does serve as a point of reflection on how far we've come and how much we've changed.  That, coupled with some much-needed days in the countryside have really made me appreciate what an incredible thing it is that we are doing, and how many terrific things there are still to come.  Hurrah for life on the open road!

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Another first for us today, as Ellen and I became visiting lecturers!  Our curent host in Chuncheon is a professor and arranged for us to give some talks to his students at the faculty of social sciences at Kangwon National University.  Needless to say I was quite nervous, especially on finding out that the first lecture would be 50 minutes and the second 90: having never done this before it was certainly a challenge but luckily for me there was no time to plan so I could rely on just my mouth to do the hard work!

The lectures went very well, time just flew by and the students seemed interested in what we had to say (although on the whole they are more reserved than in England so it was a little hard to tell).  The professor was on hand to translate when necessary but I think the students all had a pretty good grasp of English, which is good as I still can't speak a word of Korean - its a tricky language as all Ural-Altaic ones are (but with a most elegant, logical and well designed written script - hangul).  A big screen and internet connection were to hand so we were able to pepper our talk with piccies from the web site and these had a big impact.  I was most pleased to find that the questions coming to us from the audience on both occasions suggested a keener interest in politics than I had experienced in Japan, and I felt able to bang on about the evils of capitalism, American Imperialism and globalisation in my usual unbiased way!

All in all it was a great experience for us and one that we would not have had if it wasn't for Hospitality Club in particular, and independent travel in general.  Hurrah for no package tour!