Back from Holidays - Part 1

Well I have just had a full on two weeks of holidays, and am now ready to have another week of relaxation to recover. Unfortunately I've found that when I'm not doing much I have lots of time to blog but nothing to blog about; when I'm doing lots I have lots to blog about but no time to blog! So this might take a couple of blogs to cover all the incredible touristy stuff I've been doing.

First of all I should mention that I did most of this stuff with my friend Mick who came to visit from Australia. I was a little worried at first how he'd take to Korea, it being rather different and all, and him standing out (a lot!) but as it turned out he fell in love with the place from the first day (which is when I took him to a Noribahn to sing karaoke) and didn't want to go home.

Anyway, the first thing we did was get into a couple of palaces, mainly Gyeonbok Palace and Changdeok Palace, two of the biggest which are right in the middle of the city. Gyeonbok Palace was the grander of the two, but Changdeok was really quaint and cosy. The nice thing about both of them was that despite being in the middle of the city it was incredibly quiet there, so it was really nice and peaceful just walking around - although freezing cold I might add. For a $3 entrance fee it was worth it just for the nice walk, never mind the cool palace stuff. At the Gyeonbok Palace there was also the Korean Folk Museum, which had a lot of interesting stuff on Korean ancient history. I mostly loved the ring of statues out the front which depicted the 12 symbols for the Chinese - I mean Korean! - lunar year, i.e. tiger, rat, snake etc. I made sure to get photos of each one, so if anyone wants a photo of their sign let me know :-)

On the second (third?) day we went to the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) which is the strip of land that runs between North and South Korea. This was a pretty surreal experience, particularly as they have turned the place into a tourist attraction. In particular there's an area where you look through telescopes over North Korea, and it's like, "I see one!" or, "There's someone riding a bike!" like we were at a safari or something. That aside, it was eerie to be peering into such a secret place. We were also able to go down a tunnel that had been dug by the North Koreans in 1978 for a secret invasion of the South, which had been discovered in time after a tip off by a defector from North Korea. The funny thing was that after hearing that South Korea was making money from tourists visiting the tunnel, North Korea has demanded money for building the thing!

I think I'm up to the fourth day now, which is when we visited the Korean Folk Visit. If anyone's ever been to Sovereign Hill, it's kinda something like that where houses and shops and stuff have been gathered from all over Korea and preserved in their original condition. It was very picturesque, plus they have shows of traditional Korean drummers and other acts, and you get to do stuff like make traditional kites which make for a cool souvenir that I'm not sure how to get in my pack.

Finally (for this post), I dragged Mick to a Jimjillbahn, a Korean spa. He was rather horrified to find that I'd been completely serious about this, as he had assumed that I was just teasing him up until this point. I should mention that he is roughly 200 cm, so a fair bit bigger than the average Korean, and he'd just gone through a week of people giggling and pointing at him, so the prospect of 'nuding it up' with these guys made him a little, um... I think terrified is the word for it:-) I persevered however, (warning for those who come to visit me; you will have no say at all over what you get to do!) and I'm happy to say that he really enjoyed it. That is, he will deny it completely, but I know he did ;-)

Obviously I can't show photos of the jimjillbahn, but I can show you this cool fountain that is right out front; just goes to show how cold you are before you get in there! Oh and it looks as if I've now posted so many photos below that they go on for a few pages... finishing up for now!