South Korea, April 2024

Towards the end of our trip to Japan we decided that it would be a good idea to visit South Korea before we get too old to travel.  On returning from Japan, Mary got to work. She found that there are not many travel agents dealing with trips to South Korea but that the Flight Centre, Kingston was very helpful. They booked our flights via Singapore to Seoul and back together with our hotel bookings. Mary got some South Korean wons from John Lewis. At the time of the trip there were 1700 KRW to 1 GBP.

We left Bill and Mary’s at 5pm to take the bus to Terminal 2 via Heathrow Central Station. It was a few minutes walk and up to floor 5. Checking in was easy and we made our way to gate B34. We were many minutes early. At 8:15pm a turbaned gentleman offered to board us. We accepted and took our seats in premium economy more quickly than others. We landed at Changi Airport, Singapore at 4:25pm on Friday afternoon. We took a taxi to the Parkroyal Collection hotel. On the 4th floor Lydia checked us into adjacent rooms. Bill and Mary have a king size bed while Graham has two singles. At 6:30pm we descend to partake in the Happy Hour of the Portman bar. After consuming the 2 litres of Tiger beer and admiring Bella, the robotic dumb waiter we go to the 5th floor to visit the pool and view the neighbourhood. We walk to the Makansutra food hall, a couple of minutes away. It’s buzzing. We order beer in a jug and satayed prawns, squid, beef and chicken. It was delicious and messy. We retire to the hotel and sample Bill’s Double Black Label. Mary has a bath. Graham leaves through the joining door.

Bill sleeps too well. We leave the hotel at about 9:29am and walk to the Singapore Cricket Club for breakfast. Mary has a friend who is a member but is visiting the UK. The friend tells Mary to use the family membership card to get into the club. On Saturdays the promotion-seeking Mollie tells us that guests need their host present when they sign in. Mollie tells us where we can get a bite to eat. We saunter to the Asian Civilisations Museum. We walk through the entrance and are ushered to the cafe. We order 3 Acai  Bowls and 3 teas. The girl at the next table has one and it looked good.  It is good. We pay and wander up to near Canning Fort and find the National Museum of Singapore. It’s housed in an old colonial building which is being renovated. We take the escalator to the second floor and walk down the spiral walkway admiring the digitised forest scenes. At the bottom we find there is an English guided tour of the Plastics department at 11:30am. We get free tickets and are escorted to the guide as the tour has already started. Diane welcomes us into her small party of four and we are given a fascinating tour of plastics. China recycles 20% of its plastics. The US manages 6%. We go to the first floor and learn a lot about the history of Singapore. It’s time for a beer. We are given directions to Harry’s bar but fail to find it. We discover the Krome Bar in the Chijmes. There’s an offer on - four pints for the price of three. We accept. Mary wants to go to Little India. We are 80 miles north of the equator and it’s very warm. The guide takes us to the Indian Heritage Museum. We watch a group of singers perform a short recital in acapella style - very good. We find a psychedelic painted house and have another beer. Mary wants to visit the Sri Veeramakutum Temple. The guide obliges. They are celebrating Tamil New Year. Shoeless Mary witnesses the inside of the temple. We walk to the Gurka Palace and have a very pleasant curry. A taxi takes us back to the hotel. We book a taxi for 4:30am tomorrow and return to the tourist’s room for a nightcap.

We get up early at 4:15am and take a taxi to airport. It is a longer ride than normal as part of the East Coast Parkway is closed for cycling races. At the airport we self-check in our luggage, with help. It’s a long walk to gate F58. It’s nearly a 6 hour flight to Seoul. We drink wine at the first opportunity. It’s about 9:30 am. We land in Seoul at about 4:30pm.  Passport control is not as slick as in Singapore. We wait a long time for our luggage. We are directed to post 6D to get a taxi to the hotel. We arrive at Hotel Thomas and find we have rooms on the 8th floor. The doors of the rooms open outwards. There’s a master switch for the lights above the bed. There’s an emergency rope mechanism which will take you to the street below. We convene in the lobby and walk down the street and turn left. There are lots places to eat at. We opt for the Korean Barbecue with the wooden shutters. We are sitting next to a policeman, his wife and their seven year old son who has yet to go to school which he will do when he’s eight. The policeman suggests what we should choose once the ordering device has been set to explain the menu in English. Seoul is a very safe place for visitors. The policeman’s job is in tracking down ‘voice fishers’ - people who scam using a telephone. We have a very pleasant first Korean meal eaten with metal chopsticks. Tipping is offensive in Korea. We return to the hotel via a 7-Eleven where we compare it to the Japanese version. The language has changed and pot noodles are in greater abundance. Back in room 810 we finish the Johnny Walker and discuss plans for the next few days.

The toilet is similar to those in Japan. It auto flushes. We have breakfast in the B2 dining room. Not an inspiring buffet menu. It’s 9:15am so most people have been and gone. We book a tour for tomorrow using the hotel telephone. It’s raining. We are guided to one of the two nearby 7-Elevens by the man in reception. He has lent us each a brolly for free. We purchase a Tmoney card for each of us costing  2000 won and top it up with  5000 won on each card. Our guide escorts us down the road and points out where the metro is. We get to the track entrance at City Hall and look at a metro map on the wall. A helpful person comes to our aid. He gives us a paper metro map and instructions on how to get to the National Museum of Korea. We follow them. The metro routes are numbered and coloured. We go one stop on line 1 and change to line 4 to Ichon. We walk to the very large modern building housing the nation’s collection of artifacts. Entrance is free. We wonder through F1’s ancient history artifacts. There are lots. We rest inside a digital immersive gallery showing a moving image of a tomb on three walls and the ceiling. It is mesmerising. We continue our trip around ancient history and enter another bigger immersive digital gallery. We find bean bags to sit on and watch the enthralling show. We leave the museum and begin the search for a beer. After half an hour we agree we are wasting our time. We retrace our steps to the 7-Eleven by the hotel and purchase beer, sandwiches and soju. We gather in room 810, consume the beer and sandwiches and then separate. We convene at 6:15pm for another beer and learn that Mary has found a couple of places doing chicken dishes. We walk down the street and select one of the busy ones Mary has found. Its speciality is beef intestines. We enter Chicken Mania and are ushered upstairs to a table. We choose two dishes of spicy chicken with prawns and one of soy chicken. The waitress suggests one of each should be sufficient. She was correct. We eat the delicious chicken with a fork. We return to room 810 and try out the soju. It is pleasant. Graham’s doctor phones him to book an appointment (£2.52 a minute)! We retire having left some soju for tomorrow. £2.52

We have breakfast at 8am with cabbage soup as starters. Eden, today’s guide, sends Graham a WhatsApp message. At 9:15am we walk to the Courtyard by Marriott and are met by Eden. We board the coach for a day trip to the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ). Eden tells us about some of the differences between North and South Korea. The North Koreans are living in the 70's. They are not allowed to move from the city where they were born to another city. After an hour we arrive at Imjingak Park which where there are memorials to those who fought in the Korean War for 3 years and 1 month.  Eden gives us talks at a variety of spots. She has never been to North Korea as she is pure bred South Korean and is forbidden by North Korea from entering the country. We have lunch in a small busy cafe. We reboard the coach and stop at a checkpoint where our passport details are checked against info we have already provided. We are taken to the Dora Observatory where we can’t see a lot as it is very cloudy. We watch a video which explains all. Next we visit the third tunnel (more...). Mary ventures down the steep 75m slope to the tunnel whilst the two wimps visit a museum. The final stop is a souvenir shop in the Unification Village. The journey home takes about an hour and we are dropped at City Hall metro at 17:10 - exit 2. We find exit 7 and our way to the hotel via the 7-Eleven. After a couple of beers we go out and find a restaurant. They do not speak much English. With the help of someone who does speak English we order just one pork bones stew which boils on the induction heater set into the middle of the table. The stew is delicious. We return to room 810 and taste the new soju - very pleasant.

We have breakfast at 8am and leave at 9:30am. It’s not raining. We walk to City Hall subway and get the 1 line. We get off too soon and reboard another train and get off where we can change onto line 3 - it’s orange and the end of the track we want is Daewha. We travel one stop to Anjuk where we walk to the old imperial palaces. It is free to enter them as we are so old. We buy tickets to enter the Secret Garden at 11:30am. We are too early so we have a coffee at the ticket box. We have to walk through the grounds of the main palace and join the queue waiting to enter the gardens. We walk up a walled lane and then down a slope. A lot of people are dressed in traditional costumes. Bill chats to two young ladies from the Philippines who have hired their costumes for 150 minutes. There are many pavilions and square lily ponds. There is a lot of shade making it a very pleasant walk. We leave the garden and enter the area of the Changgyeonggung palace (more...). We walk around it and then enter the grounds of the other palace - Changdeokgung (more...) We leave the palace to search for the ancient village of Bukchon Hanok Village but first we need a beer. We find them in a convenient store which has outside seating. After the break we cross the road and enter the very busy ‘village’. We climb to the top of the village but decline to pay for a view over the rooftops. We make our way back to the subway station and take the metro to Seoul Station. We are told to follow the KTX signs to get to the main line ticket office. We join the queue and after a couple of minutes we arrive at a window where we can purchase tickets. They each cost  37,600 won to go to Gyeongju. We get back to the hotel and have a short well-earned break. At 6pm we have pre-dinner drinks and at 7pm we wander to a place which each night has looked busy but is behind plastic walls. We enter and are shown to a table with plastic chairs and no drawer with all the table top accessories which seems to be the norm in restaurants we have visited. The waitress tries to dissuade us from having spicy dishes. We have blanched squid which was tasty once it has been dipped in chilli sauce. It’s not enough so we surprise the waitress and order spicy pork belly cartilage. It is delicious. The restaurant has now filled up. Lots of people are drinking soju in large plastic bottles. We leave and return to room 810 to finish the small glass bottle of soju. At 9:15pm Graham retires.

After breakfast we pack up and check out. It’s a fine day. We get a taxi to the station. It costs 5600 won. We wait on hard seats in the ticket hall. We board the train on track 8 and make our way to car 6 seats 4A, 4B, and 4C. We leave at 10:19am. We are seated as three around a table. A K-babe joins us at one of several stations we stop at. We pass through lots of built up areas. In the countryside there are lots of polytunnels. We arrive shortly after one. We take a taxi to the Hotel Swiss Rosen. It costs 30000 won. We are too early at the hotel so we sit outside and have a Terra beer. We check in and have a short rest. We wander down the street and find a craft beer brewery but do not taste its output. It is very warm. We arrive at the K-pop museum. Bill and Mary continue their exploration and Graham returns to his room. We meet at 6 for the pre-prandial drinks. We walk down the hill. Only one restaurant is open. It’s the one attached to the Whasoo Brewery. We choose some white beer and a sticky chicken dish using a tablet. The beer is delivered by a human and the chicken by a robot. It’s good but not enough so we order fried chicken. The robot delivers it. The meal costs us 54,300 won. We return to room 203 and have a taste of soju.

Gyeongju (more...) is a very widespread city.  There are 205 people per sqare kilometre of the 1324 square kilometres it occupies.  Portsmouth has 5200 people living in each of its 40 square kilometres.

 

It’s another fine day. We have breakfast at the hotel, similar to that in Seoul. We walk down to the bus stop. It has seating, free WiFi, and a display telling you when the next bus is coming. We are going to the Gyeongju National Museum. Some students tell us we need to get a number 10 bus going in the opposite direction. The map we have been given by the hotel receptionist disagrees. We get on a 700 bus and the kind driver drops us off at the junction nearest to the museum. We are given a good introduction to the Silla culture by a volunteer guide. Buddhism was the main religion from AD 500 till 1850 when Christianity took over. The museum is spread throughout several large buildings. We have a coffee break and plot how to get to the Tumuli Park. We set off to find the bus stop for the 604 bus. It’s down a small lane. After 15 minutes we retrace our steps and make our way to another bus stop on the main road. We clamber aboard the number 700 bus and have not got enough money on our Tmoney cards so Bill pays cash. We get off slightly further than we should have done. We are by a market hall which we enter and wander around. The tour guide directs his tourists down a street to the northerly approach to the park also known as the Daereungwon Ancient Tombs (more...). We wander around the tumuli and get free access to the Cheonmachong Tomb where there is a burial chamber and lots of recovered gold artefacts. We stroll out of the park and enter a CU store where we top up out Tmoney cards and have a beer sitting on the seats outside. In this city, which is spread over a large area, bus stops are not sited close to tourist spots. Google Maps says it’s a 7 minute walk to a number 10 bus stop. On the way a group of men confirm the route we are taking. They want a photo with us. We let them have one for free. We go down a narrow alley and end up by the number 10 bus stop. We are dropped off by the Hilton. The guide returns to his room whilst the others look for where to eat tonight. After our drinks and nibbles we descend the road to the Traditional Korean Restaurant which is open tonight but not last night. We have found that we don’t know how big a menu dish is so we order one plate of fish using the tablet used for ordering. The guide pays using his credit card after being helped by the owner. We sit down at a table. The owner gestures that we need to order three dishes. The guide orders another two. We acquire three bottles of beer and three warm metal beakers. The owner shows the guide how to pay for them using the tablet. The food arrives with a whole load of accompaniments. It is all very tasty though we are not totally sure of what we are eating. We are told the restaurant is closing as it is near to eight o’clock. We leave at 8:06pm and the lights are turned off. We return to room 203 and finish off the soju. One can get used to the national drink quite easily.

After breakfast the guide discovers he’s lost his room key. He gets another from reception. On entering room 201 he finds the lost key in the key holder. At 8:30am we check out and trundle our suitcases down to the bus stop. There is a beautiful garden behind the bus stop. The aim is to get the 710 bus at 9am to the station. By 9:20am no usable bus has turned up so we take a taxi to the station. We board the 10:11am  to Busan. We take a taxi to the hotel but we are much too early to check in. We go to the sky bar on the 28th floor and have a beer. We plan to walk 20 minutes to the fish market. We set off and a wind starts up to add to the drizzle. We wander down some side streets and stock up with refreshments. It’s still too early to check in. We find a nearby cafe which will serve us beer. We are provided with tasty accompaniments. We try to book a table for tonight using Google translate but fail to do so. The bill is much less than the earlier beer bill in the hotel,  12000 won versus 17800 won. We return to the hotel and check in. We meet at 5:30pm for beer and bits. We leave the hotel and go back to the place where we had beer but they are not serving food. Near them is another which we enter. No English is spoken. The menu is on the wall. Thanks to Google Translate we can see what is on offer. We order three beers and stir fried octopus. Accompaniments are brought to the table shortly followed by the octopus. We decline to have rice, well that’s what we assume the lady of the house is offering us. We eat the delicious food, pay, and return to room 1703 in the rain for a soju tasting.

The hotel room (more...)  has a kettle and unusual coffee bags but no tea and no milk. A mug of coffee is brewed and drunk. It’s cloudy outside. The toilet is one of the Japanese fancy ones. You sit on a heated seat. After evacuating you can be sprayed first with warm water and then with warm air all at the touch of a button on the keypad above the toilet roll holder. We meet at 9am in the lobby. The guide takes his clients to a nearby bus stop. We get the 6 bus to Jagalchi Station. We admire doggies in a window. We walk to the largest fish market in the world. The fish are swimming around in their small swimming pools. There are fish we have never seen before such as sea squirts and spoon worms. We wander back to the bus stop and get an 87 bus. We get off at a stop and visit a CU store to top up our Tmoney cards. The girl tells us the number 2 bus will take us to the Gamcheon Cultural Village. We get on the bus and it climbs up a steep hill to the village. Here we discover we should register our Tmoney cards as we get off the bus - no wonder we have had to top up so frequently. We start walking around the picturesque streets but first we have breakfast - fried rice with prawns and a hot drink. We wander along the streets admiring the views and the ladies dressed in their hired costumes. We return to the bus stop and get a bus to its terminal near BIFF square. We walk to where we got the 87 bus and board one going in the opposite direction. As we pass the Lotte Mall the guide realises he has made a mistake. We get off the bus and enter the Lotte Mall. We ride the escalator to the tenth floor where there are food stalls but no beer. We descend via the elevator and exit the building. We walk over the bridge to the area near our hotel and happen across last night’s eating place. We sit at the same table and order three beers but we declined the menu. The beers come but so do some bits including the smoked fish (eel?). Maybe you can’t drink beer without eating in Busan. We walk back to the hotel and rest. At 5:30pm we assemble for drinks and bits in room 1703. The guide suggests where we should have dinner and it is accepted. We walk for a couple of minutes and arrive at a Taiwanese restaurant run by Koreans. We have very tasty Taiwanese chilli shrimp with kimchi and yellow radish (danmuji (more...) ). After the meal we return to room 1703 for a sojurn.

It’s cloudy. We meet at 9:00am in the lobby and walk to the bus stop by the Police Station. We get the number 30 bus to Nampo Station and ask a K-babe where the 1003 bus stop is. We catch the bus and it takes us eastwards to Haeundae Beach. The men have a coffee and Mary has an ice cold milk shake. We ask at the information office what we should do. We stroll along the beach towards some very high tower blocks (the tallest in Korea but for one in Seoul) and then join a queue to buy tickets for the Haeundae Blueline Park train but we have to wait twenty minutes before we can board the beach train. Mary gives up waiting and accepts boarding earlier and standing only. The others in the party can’t leave Mary on her own so join her. The train trundles around the pretty coast and ends its journey after 4.5km at a surfer’s beach. We search for a beer and a bite to eat but are unsuccessful. We retrace our steps to the train station and don’t wait too long to board the train. Back at Mipo we find a smart place for beer and a bite to eat. We are the only ones in the six seater cafe. Between us we have pumpkin soup, anchovy and shrimps with pasta, pollack and shrimps with pasta and cream. The pasta is yellow and black spaghetti! It is tasty. We walk to a bus stop and get the 1003 bus back to near the Lotte Mall and then walk  back over the bridge to the hotel. After our early evening imbibing we go onto the streets and search for somewhere to eat. The guide has found several on Google Maps nearby. We enter one but there are no spare seats. We enter another and we can eat. We have to take off our shoes to enter the table area. The menu is on the wall in Korean only. A young man, who speaks a little English, helps the guide get connected to WiFi so the menu can be read using Google Translate. The grilled fish set is chosen. Beer is obtained from the fridge. Dishes of starters are brought to the table. There are pieces of smoked fish and the back part of a flat fish. We devour it all and wonder if we will get more. Then it arrives - three plates of grilled fish. We ask the translator what it is. It is black rockfish. In addition there is rice in small metal covered bowls and more vegetables. The fish is delicious. Next to us is a celebration of some sort, probably someone’s birthday. We pay 72000 won and the whole clientele leave at the same time. We thank the staff of two ladies and a man. We return to the hotel for our night cap.

It’s a bright day but very windy as we walk over the Yeongdo Bridge to town. We take the stairs down to the metro instead of crossing the road. We take a lift up to road level. We walk to the entrance of the Yeongdusan Park and take the escalator to the top. There are several Kodak spots. We descend to street level and find the Busan Museum of Contemporary History. We have breakfas t in what used to be the Bank of Korea until 1980. We wander around. There are a lot of English explanations. We learn much about the history of Busan and Korea. We walk to the Busan Museum of Movies. An app is downloaded which can be used with QR codes to give an explanation in English. Graham and Mary create a short video with the help from a member of staff. Bill has disappeared. We wander around the floor above still missing Bill. We descend to the exit level on B1. Mary finds Bill on floor 2. We go in search of beer. We enter what is probably a cheap hotel but it sells beer. We are given hand wipes, biscuits and beer. They charge hotel prices. We walk back to the hotel. The guide’s room has not been made up. A trip to reception and shortly after the room is cleaned. After our pre-prandial drinks we walk to a 5-star Google restaurant but it’s closed. We walk on further and enter a restaurant where one table is full. The man in charge says we can’t eat  but the people at the table ask him to serve us - well that’s what we thought they were saying, but he refused. The restaurant next door is happy to serve us. The guide and the lady in charge converse using their phones. We order three maekju and a fish dish. We start with corn on the cob, peanuts and mushrooms. The main course arrives. It is abalone and vegetables. It is very tasty. The guide, using Google Translate, tells the lady so. We pay  72000 won and return, in the rain, for our nightcap.

It’s a fine day. At 8:15am we check out of the hotel and take a taxi to the station. The taxi is fuelled by LPG a tank of which takes up half the boot space. Graham has a coffee and a bun with a frankfurter, potato and cheese in it. It’s ghastly but it fills a hole. We board the 9:06am train to Seoul. It starts by going through a 12.6 mile tunnel. There are many tunnels on the way. There are quite a few solar farms but not many wind turbines. In the cities are many high rise apartment blocks huddled together with large numbers on their sides like 102, 103. We arrive at Seoul station on time at 11:49am. Our tickets for the train were never checked. We find our way a long way down to the subway train to the airport at Luncheon, as Bill calls it. We get off at the terminal 1 stop. The guide has to top up his Tmoney card. We find our way to check in and wait for 15 minutes for the counter to open. Next is the tax refund for Mary’s Uniqlo dress. We find the kiosk and see that a small tax refund can be claimed at gate 28. Next we search for our Tmoney card refund place. To cut a long story short it’s at the CU store on floor 1 (arrivals). Mary buys a sandwich to share. We go through security, have our passports scanned and a fingerprint checked. We find a small cafe on floor 4 which sells beverages. There is no beer in the cabinet but there is soju so we buy a bottle together with some water. Once consumed we make our way to gate 46. An official takes pity on the three grey haired oldies and gets us to the front of the queue. We board the Boeing 787 to Singapore. We have a meal and wine on the plane and land at Changi airport at 10pm. We buy a beer at a Pret A Manger. We board the Boeing 777 at 1:10am and are fed supper and breakfast. We land at 8am, collect our luggage and walk to the bus station where we board a 285 bus which stops just round the corner from Bill and Mary’s. It's time for a glass of the red liquid to celebrate another successful guided tour. Later on in the afternoon we watch the zombie movie ‘Train to Busan’ (more...).

 

We enjoyed our trip to Korea because:

• The people are friendly, though not everyone speaks English. The use of Google Translate helps.
• The price of food and drinks is cheaper than in the UK
• Transport runs on time
• There is a better maintaining of the cleanliness of public places and vehicles than in the UK but not as much as in Japan
• There is much less obesity and tattooing than in the UK
• Hotels do not charge for umbrellas as they do in some hotels in the UK
• The Tmoney card can be used on most buses and trains throughout the country though you must remember to register it when you get off a bus. They can be topped up at stations and convenience stores like 7-Eleven and CU.