I arrived in Incheon and it took about 3 hours to get to my host’s place in downtown Seoul. The transportation wasn’t slow. It was just that it’s actually quite the distance to cover.

One of the first things I did was to go to Gangnam. I know it from the song, of course, but it’s actually just a district in Seoul, but there is a monument to the song.

The Starfield Library was also very impressive.

After that, I made my way over to Lotte World. It is a huge mall that also has a huge Duty-free section, like in an airport. But the main attraction is the indoor theme park. It looked neat, but I didn’t feel like paying the approximate 50 USD to enter.

I strolled around the Gyeongbokgung Palace.

There’s also a Folk Museum nearby that I went into.

Near the palace, there’s a historical neighborhood called the Bukchon Hanok Village.

Later in the evening, I hiked up the Namsan Park hill to the Seoul Tower with my host.

Somehow, the convenience stores encourage drinking a bit. You can buy one beer for about 4k won (a little over 3 USD). But you can buy 4 beers for only 10k! It’s a no-brainer in 2 senses—in the fact that you would be a fool not to take them up on the deal, and you have no brain after drinking that much. Which I did. Maybe twice…

Since I’ve been to the DMZ from the north side, I really wanted to go from the south side too. Unfortunately, when I went there, there was an outbreak of swine flu at the border, so tourists were forbidden from visiting. I saw some tour companies that were still offering full-price fares for alternative tours, and I decided to use some instructions I found to get as close as I could by myself. I took the subway to Munsan station. From there, you take the 58 bus. Confusingly, there seem to be 4 different 58 lines. I don’t understand why they couldn’t give different numbers or even letters like 58A, 58B, etc. They do say the destination but in Korean, and I couldn’t discern quickly enough where each bus was going as it pulled up. So, I had to wave down every 58 bus, and it was the 3^rd or 4^th one that finally went where I wanted to go.

I got to Imjingak, and I was hoping that another bus might be able to get me closer. But, due to the outbreak, that was closed down, so I only got as far as Imjingak. So close, but oh well. I just hung out there for the day before coming back in the evening.

The area had a theme park that was eerily empty. Maybe more tourists come in the summer, but while I was there, it felt like a perfect prop for a horror movie.

I had exhausted what I wanted to see in Seoul, and it was time to move on. I hate to say this, but I struggled to find interesting places to visit outside the city. Even googling things like “what to see in Korea” would usually just yield attractions in Seoul. I ultimately settled on going to Seoraksan National Park as my next destination.

I took a bus to Sokcho, near where the national park is. I got there late in the evening. I managed to connect to Wi-Fi and was shocked to see that one bed in a hostel was more than 30 USD. I was walking to the cheapest one to see if I could broker a deal, all the while keeping an eye out for potential places I could just throw down my tent.

I saw some other tents on the beach, so I joined them. I asked one couple if it was free to camp there, and they informed me that it was. It was an Indian husband and a Korean wife, and neither of them spoke English all that well. But they were very kind and gave me free beer and even cooked me dinner, even going as so far as to cook me a vegetarian meal when the dish they first prepared had fish in it.

I packed up my tent the following morning and took the bus to Seoraksan National Park. I hiked around all day. Upon seeing some signs, I had decided that I wanted to hike up Daecheongbong Peak, but it seemed much farther than 10km.

I gave up with about 2km to go. I had a mild cold, so maybe that’s why, but I just got so exhausted. And my knees were aching for some reason. I came back down the trail and set up my tent off the path after it got dark.

I packed up the next morning and walked back into the city. I secured a bus ticket to Andong, my next destination. I had decided on that city since there was supposed to be a really nice cultural village nearby.

Once in Andong, I went to the Hahoe cultural village. It was nice, but there was not much to do other than checking out the buildings. There was a Confucius school nearby, but according to my phone, it would take 3 hours to walk there and back, and I didn’t want to see the school that bad.

Entry to the village also included a Mask Museum, so I went in that too, and it was actually fairly interesting.

I desperately wanted to make something other than instant noodles, which is what I had been eating for days at that point. Since my hostel had a kitchen, I wandered through the market looking for some ingredients. At one stall, I wanted just a couple of potatoes and a clove of garlic. I think she felt sorry for me or just didn’t feel like dealing with such a small purchase, so she just gave it to me for free, which was nice. I tried my hand at making Bibimbap, and I was pleased with the results.

The next day, I took the train to Gyeongju. Part of the reason I went there was to see the folk craft village. When looking online, the main thing I found were the folk villages in the 2 towns. Unsure of which to choose, I decided to visit both. Hahoe near Andong was nice. The one in Gyeongju sucked.

It was just some shops that didn’t interest me in the least, and the architecture was nothing unique at all. There were other nice things in the city, though.

The National Museum was free and provided some interesting history about Gyeongju, which was the old capital of Korea, and the seat of the first unified Korea.

There were also old burial tombs that one could walk around and go inside of one.

I then took the train to Busan. I got to my hostel and checked in, but the guy never showed me how to get in my room. He actually led me to my door, but then just ran off down the stairs. He never gave me the code or showed me how to open the hatch to even enter the code. I went back down to reception, but he was not to be found. I ended up needing to enlist the aid of the cleaning lady that didn’t speak English. Another guy in my room had a similar experience. I don’t understand why the guy just couldn’t take the 30 seconds to actually show you how to open the door… Also, breakfast was included, but it was nothing more than some cereal with some milk from the fridge.

There is a street called Texas Street, which was close to my hostel. I walked there with another guy from the hostel, and there were dozens of Russian escorts, which I found to be funny on “Texas Street.” Going farther, the road turns into Chinatown, which was nothing out of the ordinary.

After waking up the next day, I went to the Busan tower, Bosu book street, shopping area, and then Gamcheon. By then, it was getting dark.

There was an unexpected black-light room as you exit the tower.

I also day tripped outside the city. I went to the Yeonggsung temple.

After that, I went to Haeundae Beach. The beach seemed nice, and if the weather were warmer, I would have fancied a swim.

I tried to find some local food and/or local beer. I tried a few bars, but while the doors were open, they all told me they were closed and ushered me back out the door. I tried finding some vegetarian food, and I was about to give up until I found some egg pancakes. Not bad.

I kept walking along the coast until I got to a spot that afforded a good view of the Gwangandaegyo bridge.

There was supposed to be a light show, but after waiting for more than a half-hour after sunset, it just seemed to be illuminated at night. Mildly disappointed, I then took the subway back to my hostel.

My time in Korea was at a close. I could have spent longer there, but I decided to go to Japan earlier. I was more interested in seeing Japan, and I was getting kind of bored in Korea. I was going to buy my ferry ticket at the station, which would have cost me about 115 USD. The attendant told me that if I bought the ticket online through the Japanese site, with the aid of google Translate, I would save a lot of money. I did so and saved about $40. I’m not sure why they do that, and I don’t know if it works going from Japan to Korea, but keep that in mind if you ever do the same trip!

Korea was all right. I was kind of expecting something more for some reason. It wasn’t a bad country by any means, but I just also didn’t find that much to do. I had around 3 weeks to spend there, and after Seoul and Busan, I struggled to find things that truly interested me. Stopping in Andong and Gyeongju were more out of finding something to do than genuine interest in what lie there. It also wasn’t really cheap, and one could do very similar activities in other SE Asian countries for a much lower price. I don’t regret going there, and nothing really soured my trip in Korea, but it’s not a country that I plan on returning to any time soon.