Back in Seoul

Yes, we are currently back in Seoul. But we had a busy weekend, and we really want to tell you all about both days, so...we'll get caught up on two posts during the next 24 hours!

So first, let's go back to Saturday morning.

We got up at 7:00am, because we had bought tickets on the 9:40am bus from Gyeongju to Gimcheon. A direct bus only leaves three times per day, so we had bought tickets a day ahead of time to make sure we had seats on that particular bus.

Overall, a good day. But a little disappointed...

We came to Gyeongju because there are three UNESCO rated heritage sites here.

The city itself is nice enough, but I'm not sure I'd plan a special trip here. Our preference would have been more time in the southern coastal area.

A look at our "love" hotel!

Late last night there was a knock on the door and it was our couchsurfing host Kim. Ruth had left her cheap reading glasses in the restaurant the night before, and Kim had made a special effort to go get them and bring them back to her!

Have we mentioned that Kim is a great guy?!

Great plans, but...

This time, things didn't come together.

We wanted to see the show at the world's largest water fountain. We had read that the Sunset Fountain of Dreams musical water fountain was really something to see, so after the morning rain cleared up a bit, we headed out on an excursion to Dadaepo Beach where the fountain is located.

Overwhelmed by the generosity of strangers

It was forecast to be a rainy day here in Busan, but we figured we would make an effort to get outside anyhow. And, we had heard from another couchsurfer here who offered to get together with us and show us around, so we asked her if she wanted to join us. She said that she had a car and would meet us at a nearby subway stop at 10:00am.

It was almost 10:10am and I was about to give up when we heard a call from across the busy street.

Couchsurfing comes through for us again!

Just after I lamented in a recent post that I was a little frustrated with couchsurfering, one of the hosts came through for us in a big way!

But before we get to that, I need to update you on the last three days...

Our Beomeosa Templestay experience!

When we were discussing our current trip with Korea Tourism's Toronto office, they asked if we were interested in taking part in their Templestay program. We had heard about it, and thought that it would be an interesting experience to learn about Buddhism and experience a day in the life of a Buddhist monk.

They have quite a few different programs available, but when we read about one that has a "trekking" option, we had the pen in hand, ready to sign up!

Joined the Korean Navy!

What a beautiful day today. We just wandered the city of Yeosu, and what a lot of fun we came across!

Tom and Elicia had come up with a bit of a walking tour for us, and we figured we could do it in somewhere between two and four hours depending on how many little side trips we did along the way. But we found there is simply too much to see! What a beautiful city!

A temple with a view

We had stayed up late last night (past midnight!) with Tom and Elicia. Great conversation, and a few laughs too. They're a fun young couple with a fantastic future ahead of them. Anyhow, 8:00am came around pretty fast, and they still had to go to work. We were up pretty much just in time to say goodbye to them, but thankfully we didn't have to rush off anywhere.

We've been going pretty much nonstop since we arrived here just under two weeks ago, but of course we're only here for 28 days and we don't want to waste any of our time.

A long travel day

I think we traveled about 250 kms (155 miles) as the crow flies and it took us 12 hours to do it! But everything happened according to plan, including a great evening with our new friends for the next three days!

It was an early start to the day. We were up at 5:30am!

The Koreans have this right...

Our plans this morning depended on the weather.

If it was nice and sunny with a clear blue sky, we were going to be headed up to the top of Mount Hallasan. No visit to Jeju Island is complete without a hiking trip to the top of the highest peak in South Korea.

And if the mountain looked too cloudy, we would do a hike along the coast.

Lava tubes and volcano craters

Last night as we went to bed, the wind was blowing like crazy! The windows were rattling, and with the forecast calling for the edge of the typhoon to brush against our area, we weren't sure what kind of sleep we were in for.

Next thing you know, we woke up and it was morning!

The typhoon has begun...

We left Jeju City this morning and headed down to the other major city on the island, Seogwipo. We had read that it wasn't that easy to figure out the intercity buses on the island, but we didn't find a problem. In fact, we thought it was relatively easy!

We took the number 780 bus. It stops at various points around Jeju City and we thought the stops were all well marked. The only problem we encountered was knowing where exactly to get off once we reached our destination, but the bus driver made sure to let us know. There is an automatic route callout system on the bus, and it does so in English as well as Korean, so that helps as well.

On Garbage Detail

We had been communicating with a fellow named Jim who runs the Jeju Island Tourism facebook page. He asked if we wanted to join him on a volunteer trail hike whereby the volunteers pick up trash along the trail. They're having a trail festival here next month and they want this particular 18 km section to be as clean as can be so they're doing "clean-up" hikes four times this month in preparation for the festival.

We volunteered to join in!

Love it when a plan comes together - Jeju Island!

We had a plan, but a lot of things could have gone wrong. So we were totally happy that it came together the way we wanted it to.

The plan started with getting up this morning. At 5:30 in the morning!