The time had come to visit South Korea. We had a comfortable departure time so we had time to pack, check out and relax before our 3 PM taxi to the airport. Plenty of time to take pics of the hotel space and thank our new friends. Our taxi was prompt and we were at the airport within 1 hour. We hit a little bit of traffic towards the airport which gave us a nice chance to see the local people and activities. The airport is really small with only 2 airlines and 2 gates. The check in counter person was very thorough and helped us through the adding of a few kilograms of weight over our 20 KG limit. Walking onto the tarmacs of these airports offers a glimpse of the plane not often seen at busier airports. Again we were allowed to walk onto the back of the plane and sitting back there made it quick to get on.
We wanted to avoid Manila for chose a stopover in Cebu Philippines. We need to sleep as much as possible on the ground and in the air.
Legazpi 6:20 PM to Cebu 7:30 PM
Cebu 12:30 AM to Seoul 6:00 AM
The sun was setting at we left the ground which made a beautiful flight. My neighbor turned out to be a Philippine traveling to a safety convention in Cebu. Nice guy. Waiting in Cebu was uneventful and soon we attempting to sleep on a moderate length flight. I think we each managed to get a few hours of sleep. Soon we were landing in Seoul, so cool. Customs and Immigration was a breeze and we found our taxi driver was patiently waiting. We had informed our hostel our desire to have a taxi earlier. The bus and subway services in Seoul are incredible but we suspected we would be too tired to navigate them. Our driver kindly waited as I found a Sim card location for our 3 phones. I felt kinda bad as we did not leave the airport until 7:00 AM. This is the peak of city highway traffic. I wanted to watch the landscapes as we traveled but nodding off seemed to be a priority. Our hostel was another located down an alleyway. Our driver struggled to get us close and instead parked and helped us walk. Although tipping is not part of the culture, I gave him a little for his hasle and he gladly accepted it. Cheryl the manager of Fully Hong Hostel greeted us with a smile and showed us our home for several days. This hostel is wicked http://fullyguesthouse.com
We had enough energy to fill our paperwork, dump our stuff, eat some toast and peanut butter and crash for a few hours. In the afternoon, Uni the hostels evening shift person suggested we try a fish place 2 steps from the hostel. We needed help with ordering and soon we were eating an impressively large meal. A large chuck of fish, multiple vegetable dishes, hot soup and hot rice are presented for each person. It's almost enough for 2. Their variety of fermented vegetables is impressive. We spent a few days literally walking and discovering. I could not get away from a impressive canal called the Cheonggyecheon. It's an impressive 10.9 KM urban renewal project costing $900 Million https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheonggyecheon. It's pretty awesome. The water is so clean, I saw fish several times. Michelle knew of a location on the river famous for the show Sense 8. It was not difficult to find and shoot a similar shot. Cheryl was amazed how much of it we walked. We learned from the staff that the air quality can be a bit concerning in the spring. They recommended installing the AirVisual App https://www.airvisual.com/ and follow the recommendations. I was kind of shocked how high the level was. On the worst day it was above 250. Shit. It was wise for us to purchase some good quality maskfs and wear them when the levels were high. You will see pictures of us wearing them. Don't be concerned. It fell to safe levels in the evenings and in 3 days it was much much better and rarely high like that. Upon further inspection, it looks like much of this poor quality air comes from China. The app lets you see all over the world where these monitoring devices are installed. Since it's a community based application, I think I will get one once home to help out.
Michelle and I walked past Gyeongbokgung Palace. http://www.royalpalace.go.kr:8080/html/eng_gbg/main/main.jsp This place was huge. Gyeongbokgung is one of many palaces including Changdeokgung, Changgyeonggung, Deoksugung, and Gyeonghuigung. All five palaces waive admission fees for visitors wearing hanbok. Hanbok is a traditional Korean dress for semi-formal or formal attire. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanbok. The palace entrance fee is waived for hanbok wearers which can be rented for a relatively low price. KT connected with some new friends and did this, it was cool. Lots of pics of that.
We wanted to some sort of tourist thing and our hostel had a flyer for a cool app called Trip Radius. https://www.tripradius.io/ This app connects tourists with a local guide. We planned a Friday tour with a well reviewed person named Stella. She met us promptly at 5:00 PM and had a really well planned 3 hour agenda for us. We visited;
Jogyesa temple
Ssamziegil - A colorful Insadon shopping and culture complex
Bosingak - New Years Celebration location
Iksundong - Best dumpling evar
Changgyeonggung Palace
Gwangiang market
At the Gwangiang market we ate;
Bindaetteok - Mung bean pancake
Tteokbokki - Spicy rice cake
Hotteoch - Sweet dessert
We had a blast and walked lots. We talked quite a bit and learned Stella had 4 jobs. Wow. As we went way over our 3 hour plan, I insisted in paying her for the extra time. I also insisted on breaking tradition and offering her a great tip. She struggled to accept but we insisted acknowledging how hard it is as a young person with 4 jobs to make ends meet. Man she was so happy :-)
We later walked to Bukchon Hanok Village https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bukchon_Hanok_Village.
This is a 600-year-old preserved urban environment of a Korean traditional village. Friendly guides provided us a map and directions. Locals live here so visitors are asked to respect simple rules like being mindful of noise, talking and respecting privacy.
Interestingly we noticed both to and from the village, a peaceful protest and relevant police presence was building. There were dozens of large police buses and hundreds of police in the area. The police here are not armed and simply appeared to be preparing to protect the protesters to allow them to say what they needed to say when they chose to begin their parade. We were able to walk along side the well organised police presence and watch the protest as well. A local man saw us and explained this was a protest of the current governments support of North Korea. He complained large amount of $ were being sent as aid to them. As good as that sounds, they suspect the aid is not reaching the people that need it but is rather directed to bombs and missiles. Crazy situation it is.
KT met quite a few friends and pulled some really late nights. It was nice to see her enjoy time away from us. She visited multiple cool locations including a dog and raccoon cafe. Michelle and I visited a cool spot close to Ganman community made famous with Psy's song Ganman Style. It was an interesting place with that included of all things a CNN Cafe and Goodwill drop off location. Weird combination. Outside we saw a massive pile of people preparing for something on the shore line. We suspect it was some sort of Kpop star getting ready for a show. 99% of those lined up were young girls. Whoever it was they who serious fans as it was a pretty cool day.
Walking back along one of may bridges crossing the river I noticed an impressive commitment to pedestrian traffic. 2 cars lanes were dwarfed by double the number of bike and walking lanes. The car lanes on the bridge even had a few car parking spots to rest and enjoy the view. This is so unlike other bridges we have seen most often dedicated to cars only. We dared to expand our use of the impressive Seoul subway system again. It's amazing. It completely blows Toronto's system out of the water. I don't normally like cities but I could easily live there. I'd like to see how I feel about that after experiencing a full year there. It does get kinda cool and seriously hot as well.
We were very fortunate to meet some hostel visitors from Uruguay. The had just been to Japan and told us about the Japan Rail Pass or JR Pass. We had planned to get one but learned from them it is necessary to first order the pass before you go to Japan. Eeek. We really need to research stuff more. Doing some digging I learned one option is to order the pass and have it delivered to a location in Japan. There were so many sites doing this it was tough to sort out. Another option was to purchase one through a travel broker. Luckily there were plenty in Seoul. We walked over to Hanna Tours with questions like cost, requirements and how quickly we could get one. A 21 day pass the "Ordinary" rather than the "Green" (first class) cars was about $2500 CAD. Ouchie. If you use the JR Pass quite a bit, this is a bargain. For 3 adults, a one way bullet train (Shinkansen) trip from Hiroshima to Osaka for example is $400. We learned ordering one was super easy with only a passport and online form Hanna Tours would do. They only charged $100 CAD for the service and the pass was available the next day. Whew. We decided to wait the weekend to get this pass and spent a few days booking our Japan visit. OMG the cherry blossom season was beginning to swell prices for hostels, hotels and AirBnB's. We could no longer wing it like in earlier countries. We made a quick itinerary booked some flights and accommodations for most of the following:
Okinawa
Kokura
Hiroshima
Kyoto
Tokyo
Matsuyama
Tokyo
Greece
Flight prices were reasonable but man, spring time accommodation in places like Kyoto busted the bank. Once we had our 2 flights to Japan (Okinawa and Fukuota) sorted out, we took time to find most of the city accommodations. A requirement to getting into Japan is a ticket out of Japan. It's weird having commuted with flights and rooms without a flight out. We decided our next destination should be inexpensive, warm, have clean air and access to the European train system. Poland, Turkey, Greece were all very cheap for accommodations but the chilly Poland and polluted Istanbul left Greece the winner. After a little money movement, we booked our Greece flight and relaxed a little on our last few days before packing and saying goodbye to our wonderful new Seoul friends. Cheryl wanted us back so bad after Japan offering to talk to the boss about a better room rate. I secretly wanted that as well. Seoul was beautiful and we had barely scratched the surface. We now know of another amazing place to visit on our next world tour.
Finally a view of the local volcano.
Fortunately it did not decide to blow while we were there
The evil eye from a stranger in front of me
Good night, morning, can't remember
Our Seoul taxi dude. Well dressed man, nice van
So patient. Arrived early 6 AM waited for us to get sims and dealt with crazy morning traffic
Let's check out this town
Sabrina's son Isaac has a nice sandwich shop in this universe
Awesome river walk.
We had masks on as the air quality was kind low :-(
These cool tents housed little roadside restaurants
Long way from home
We skipped this waiting for KT
Glad she made it back with friends
Michelle is now famous
Yum yum
Big chunk of fish, too much rice and a huge variety of veggies
The warmer weather has more visitors
Water from the upper drains eventually make it to the river
The incoming pipes are covered with a well designed automatic cover
The rains come fast so warnings and escape routes are frequent
The very cool wall of hope
I love the simple walkways here
Decent size fishies
Odd's and ends. Some call it junk
It's a well organized goldmine to me
Poo shaped yummies
Mmmmm poo
Ssamziegil - A colorful Insadon shopping and culture complex
More poo themed stuff (see I'm not unique)
A meal served in a toilet shaped plate
Jogyesa temple location
Dang we never did eat dinner there
Bosingak - New Years Celebration location
Changgyeonggung Palace
Long walk to Gwangiang market
Well worth the wait
Mung bean pancakes
KT's out on her excursion with new friends
How the river looked before the upgrade
Bikes on one side, people on the other
Lot's of nervous meows but no dice on getting to pet it
Just resting my head watching the world go by
A doorway to someones house in Bukchon Hanok Village
The police preparing to cover the demonstration
We were recommended this small place
Epic soups, 4 choices, super cheap
We had to go a 3 PM ish as it was really busy most of the time
KT at some pet cafe's
Fully Hong hostel, epic
Bikes for rent awaiting warmer weather
Ganman community described
Bike and pedestrian lanes dominate the roads
Just birds chillin
Impressive route to the subway
We ordered some take out
It was delivered in 4 minutes
A common ATM
The take out food dish is collected later
Uni, Eevone, M and I in the Fully Hong kitchen
It's a comfy little spot
Staff and us before we split
Some Movie Links
Sneak Peak of our plane departing Legazpi
These monks play some drums before dinner
The name of this statue sounds like a sneeze
Gong time
A happy man offering me some stronger drink. He liked Michelle quite a bit.
In tradition, you don't poor your own. As a lefty, I needed to be corrected to my right.
Temple trumpets
Cool tetris building
Police on the move during protest. Don't worry, peaceful protests are common here
Dog Cafe
Caught Uni and Michelle filming
