Adventures after the merger
Of all the places we have been so far, South Korea was the most surprising. It was a last minute addition to our itinerary, and over three weeks it solidly earned its place there. We had more funny, unusual, “oh my gosh, what is going on here” experiences in South Korea than any other place we have been thus far, and it was so much fun.
Continue reading “South Korea Wins the Prize”
After we returned the bicycles, we ate dinner at a ramen restaurant around the corner and then set off to find Siloam Bulgama Sauna Spa, one of Seoul’s jjimjilbangs. Now that we were experienced jjimjilbang users with two nights under our belt, we planned to spend the rest of our nights in South Korea at Siloam. A lot of jjimjilbangs discourage people from staying multiple nights in a row, but we had read that Siloam allowed it and was one of the nicer jjimjilbangs in Seoul anyway.
Continue reading “Three Days in a Jjimjilbang in Seoul”
When Ben talked us into going to South Korea instead of China, one of his selling points was South Korea’s amazing biking paths. Eric had told him about our bike trip from Maine to Minnesota, and Ben said we had to bike in South Korea. Some initial research suggested this could be a pretty expensive prospect with lots of people recommending bringing a bicycle from another country or buying a bicycle and trying to sell it later. This all sounded a bit complicated, but then Eric found a bike rental company, Bike Nara, that does one-week rentals, and we were in business.
Continue reading “Bicycle Touring on South Korea’s East Coast”
When we look back on our year of travel, without a doubt one of the highlights will be the time we spent with Young-Jae, Hoon, and their son on their pig farm. Their farm is beautiful and they were incredibly generous in sharing their culture and introducing us to all sorts of delicious Korean food we would never have tried otherwise.
Continue reading “Pig Farming with Jayeonttara (WWOOFing)”
Gyeongju is described as a day trip from Busan and one of the best places to visit if you want to learn about Korean history. We had some time before we needed to be at the pig farm where we were planning to WWOOF, so we decided to spend a few days there.
Continue reading “Making Friends in Gyeongju”
Our flight to South Korea departed at 1 am and arrived at 7 am which felt like 5 am to us, so our first day in South Korea was a pretty sleepy one. Luckily, being in South Korea felt like a welcome return to our normal life. Despite the fact that everything was in Korean, it felt very familiar. We took the subway from the airport to our apartment (Airbnb) in Suyeong-Gu. There were pedestrian lights, and cars (mostly) stopped for red lights. Everything felt a little bit calmer, and we realized that for 29 days in Vietnam we had been carrying a little bit of extra tension. We checked into our Airbnb using a keypad and opened the door to a cute studio apartment with a bathroom and small kitchen. Our first kitchen since we left the US a month and a half ago!
Continue reading “Hello, South Korea: Busan”