South Korea 2013

15/05/2010 – 21/05/2010

Seoul (Changdeokgung, Secret Garden, Jongmyo, Cheong-gye-cheon, Bukchon Hanok Village, N Seoul Tower, Gyeongbokgung Natonal Folk Museum of Korea, GwangHwamun Square, Deoksugung, City Hall,Gilsang-sa)
Suwon (Hwaseong, Suwon Cultural Foundation, Suwon Royal Palace)
Seoraksan National Park (Sokcho, Seoraksan, Yongdae-ri)


Total cost 830 000 KRW (= 15 000 CZK)
Number of days 6 days
Cost of flight 330 000 KRW (= 6000 CZK / 8900 NTD)
Cost of accommodation 76 000 KRW (= 1400 CZK)
Cost of transportation 55 000 KRW (1000 CZK)
Cost of food 100 000 KRW (= 1800 CZK)


I decided to go to the South Korea about one week after Kim-Chong Un officially show he is the same ignorant like his ancestors and threatened South Korea and the western world with total war. You can imagine, how happy all my relatives were. Begging me to do not go was a daily bread for me that time. Despite their endless arguments I went there.

The flight itself was tragedy of its own, as we had huge delay and the flight attendants failed to provide everything. (Note to mention I flew with Korean Air, with which I had previously good experience.) As a result I landed at Incheon airport about 2 hours late. I promised the hostel staff in the Inside backpackers (highly recommended!) to be in the hotel at 1am and that seemed to be suddenly impossible.

When I reached the Arrivals, I was not able to find an ATM that would accept VISA cards. All of them were broken and not operating. After about 20 min of searching I found finally one that worked. But to be horrified accordingly, the machine knew only one English word and that was "English". I stepped back and observed the next guy what he is doing with not much prevail. I started to be desperate, it was already almost midnight and I was not even able to get the money! But then suddenly a guy with obviously Korean girlfriend came to withdraw the money. They struggle the same as me, but as the girl can read the characters, they eventually won over the machine and get the money. I asked them for help, ask her for procedure (not let her withdraw the money by my card, of course). And thus I got my money.

But lets make the story more spicy. Just when I reached the information booth I was informed that last metro/high speed rail leaves to Seoul at 23:20 (why so early?), about 7 min from that moment.

I rushed down from the escalators and almost broke my legs to catch the high speed rail. And when I reached the gates, I had to deal with only Korean vending machine again!

Luckily there were two guys, one British and one Korean, who were buying the tickets and helped me to get the ticket. We chat a lot inside the metro and at the end they also provided me WiFi hotspot so I can call the hostel and inform them that I will be late.

When we arrived to Seoul one hour later they helped me and directed me to the taxi loot. I waited in the row for taxi approx. 10 minutes and came up to a driver that cannot speak English even a word. He unfortunately also didn't know how to red the Latin transcription and therefore we spent about 20 minutes searching the way to my hostel from my notes, still in front of the train station.

I was almost prepared to give up, when suddenly policemen sirens rang behind us. The cop came to our car and exchanged some unpleasant words with the driver. He just hysterically waved with his skinny hands like a wind mills on Netherland tulip fields and suddenly took my notes and push it to the cop. The policeman pointed right and left and straight and suddenly the driver knew where to go.

The driver dropped me off on the main road and signaled me that the hostel is across the street. But I was walking there and back and can't find it at all! It was already 3am when I finally found it and entered. The entrance was from a small street hidden in a dark corridor where I would never expect it.

The clerk was sitting in front of his PC and waiting for me. He told me he had to wait more than 2 hours, but that it is ok. And because it is late, I will pay the dorm price, but he will put me to a single room instead! Hah, very nice!

Seoul – part 1

The next day in the morning I used the privilege and made my breakfast for free. I made fried eggs and strong coffee to wake me up. In the morning I moved my luggage to the dorm place. It was outside, in a very small building looking like garage and with very small doors looking like for bigger dogs. Still the dorm was nice, clean and not crowded, quite comfortable.

I put my stuff in and left toward the Changdeokgung palace (3000 KRW). It was about 15 minutes by walk from my hostel, and the only reason was that the gate was far, otherwise I was literally living beside the palace gardens.

The first impression about the gardens was very nice. Old japan-style pavilions, nice, clean ponds and not much tourists. Soon after I entered the Secret garden and that was even better! I loved their gardens! And our guide was the prettiest girl I have met in South Korea :-)

Because the next guided tour (for the royal palace) started within 90 minutes, I returned to the first garden and observed the Japanese Orangery. Its a truly beautiful structure, but inside doesn't have much things to see though :-/

The second guided tour was as good as the first one. It was completely for free and it made an impression that guided tours anywhere in the world are just poor resemblances of these two. I usually don't take any guided tours, I don't consider them too interesting, because they usually don't tell you more then the two paragraphs in Lonely Planet. However these two? Just amazing!

The main (throne) hall looked a bit petty and it resembled me some huge cottage rather than main building of the palace. But the palaces in Asia are generally less wealthy, the rulers were somehow more modest than in Europe.

I left the palace around 3pm and headed south to the aboriginal village and the Seoul N Tower, the highest structure in Seoul (despite the hill on which it stands helps a lot to make it high :-) ).

On the way south I saw Jongmyo (1000 KRW), the place of rest for Korean kings, and also a canal, that was recently transformed to a clean stream used as a park in the city center. It is surprisingly clean and nice place. If you want, you can follow the stream for several kilometers.

The aboriginal village was in walking distance, approximately 20min by walk. Have to admit, that there was almost nothing to see there. The performances already ended and houses were empty, except on couple taking pics for wedding.

When I was just about to leave I have met some guys who got lost. They searched for the N Tower. I told them to come with me, that we can go there together, because its also my next stop. On the way they told me their story - they were here with their company, but they were sent here for one week and they needed to work only 3 days, have the rest just for themself. Wish to work for such a company, hahaha ;-)

The tower is (as I already mentioned) on a hilltop, and therefore it was necessary to take 30 minutes sweaty walk up, or use a cable car. I felt tired and thus chose the cable car. The ticket was for 5000 KRW for a student.

At the hilltop there was nothing to see but the tower. The entrance fee was quite high (7000 KRW), but I of course went anyway. You can have it with dinner in price or without, but generally speaking it is not worthy the money to have a dinner there.

On the top, you can see the whole view around Seoul. There is not much to see though, except few mountains on Seoul border, that are used by locals to hike around on weekends. Don't understand me wrong though, they are pretty fierce hikers, but I will speak about this matter later.

On the observation deck you can watch the sunset, preferably, if you are lucky, from the window dedicated to your city/country. I was lucky, as Prague was to de west - as is the sunset :-) after I gently pushed away the people standing there I enjoyed the view while sun was setting down.

The way home was on dark streets that were already completely abandoned. It looked a bit crazy, because there was literally nobody there. I reached my dorm very late, close to midnight, because I walked about 6 km to my hostel. paid 15 US$ (= 400 NT$ = 280 CZK) per night. For further reference just take a look to the link below.

Suwon

The third day I traveled to Suwon, one of the historical cities that should have become capital and never became. The place offer first class UNESCO Historical site, 12 km long city walls with beautiful pagodas and towers along.

To get there, 40 km from Seoul, I used the metro. Yes, the metro in Seoul goes as far as 50 km from the city, connecting the major cities in the Seoul surroundings with the city center. That is an amazing achievement and we all should take an example from such approach!

The ride takes about one hour and requires 2 transits from Inside Backpackers (the Palace area). Very simple - very convenient.

I arrived there before 10am and walked to the city walls. It is not really close though, it took me 30 minutes. I immediately joined the city walls walk and thus entered the historical site (1000 KRW). The wall is not really huge, but pretty long. It takes about 3 hours to go around. I went only one half, it was definitely enough.

It is interesting how Koreans built a beautiful city walls that are actually completely impractical. Just imagine that walls built in 19th century possessed on its 12 km only 2 towers dedicated to (yes I am serious) crossbowmen. Being 3 centuries behind and have completely false concept (walls were sometimes only 2 meters high, surrounded by trees you can easily use to climb in) you can understand that Koreans didn't have experience with widespread war, despite local battles were quite common.

You can unfortunately enter only one tower and see few more from outside. Some of them are really beautiful structures. Interesting was also the system of the main gate - and have to admit, it was rally brilliant solution when considering a fortification without water moat. There was a half circle wall that protected the main gate so the attackers cannot have space to operate with rams and also the defenders can get into their back and drove them away. That was definitely more practical concept than the density of towers and height of the wall.

I took a rest on one of the pavilions built on the way and almost fell to sleep. It was a lunch time, bit I actually didn't have a thing to eat. I had to continue hungry, err. I got off the wall after almost 8 km. I walked through the city and stopped in the local museum, that depicted the story of the city and its fate to do not become the capital, despite it was built for that purpose.

The idea to move the capital from Seoul more south to better protect it from northern countries died with the king Jeongjo who came with that. Therefore city was finished as well as palace, but never have been used for its purpose.

The palace (1500 KRW) was very small, but had some very nice buildings on its yard. However the throne hall was only poor copy of already poor secondary throne hall I saw the day before.

The way back was swift as the way there. From MRT I directly went to Gilsang-sa temple to celebrate the Buddha’s birthday with locals. There was a huge concert with many artists performing in front of the audience. It was very nice encounter with Korean culture despite I didn't understand a word :-). Nice people are anywhere and therefore we all also got a rice cake (so dry, even difficult to swallow - I really didn’t enjoy it).

There were drummers, singers, story tellers and Buddhist monks there. In one moment the crowd get so excited the singer took the chief monk and wanted to dance with her ... With no prevail :-)

Seoul – part 2

The fourth day was again The Seoul day. I went to see the Gyeongbokgung (3000 KRW), the main royal palace. The palace was significantly bigger with significantly less splendid gardens. I entered by east gate a bit by accident. That was because of small street net in front of the gate with tons of souvenir shops made it was pretty much impossible to find the way.

At first I went to local national Folk Museum of Korea (free), that praised itself to be very interesting, but I actually didn't see much, except brief history of the palace itself. However just beside was an old street, a set of old houses of Koreas 1960's, that was partly accessible. The interior was a nice place for photos.

Just around the corner was the highest building of the gardens and palace, the seven stores pagoda. It was not accessible and therefore not really interesting. Passing around, within few minutes I have reached a small, willow-surrounded pond with pagoda on it. The pagoda was linked with banks by a bridge. The view was really nice! Just pity it wasn't spring or autumn, where the trees are more colorful, as you can see this place typically on pictures.

Behind the pond was a stage where artisans show their crafts as a part of celebrations of Buddha’s birthday, which was the day before. Dancers, singers, and others were trying to astonish the audience and were generally very successful. The colorful traditional dress was just amazing, despite the huge fake hair they had to use (and which were recognizable only by tele-lens).

Later I just sat on the grass on northwest corner of the garden and eat my snack, no time for proper lunch, as it is typical for my journeys. I stayed there for about 30 minutes and then decided to go to see the main halls.

There were totally two main halls, where one was surrounded by water (pond) and was on wooden pillars and the second one was just in the center of a huge square inside the palace complex. The first one, surrounded by water, looked, of course, much more impressive, because it embedded interesting concept, not just a wooden structure.

The second main hall, the throne room, was merely a bigger copy of the one in the second palace I saw the first day. There was actually not much to see and I felt it is just like a huge cottage again.

I also visited a Korean springs in the Seoul city center, just beside the main train station. It was very interesting. The entry for about 10 000 KRW is valid for 12 hours (24/7) and therefore it is possible to use it for sleeping in this place! There are several hot basins with hot water around 40 degrees and various ingrediences inside that should help various diseases, skin diseases and other. Cold bath is to cool down when you are overheated. You can have a massage there for additional money. Very, very nice place, highly recommended!

In the evening, I start preparing my trip for the next day. I needed to catch a bus to Sokcho on the east coast, leaving from Gangnam district early in the morning. From there I planned to hike up to Seoraksan Mountain, the highest mountain of the Seoraksan National Park, where I had to be before 7pm, otherwise my reservation (for overnight stay on mountain hut) shall be rewoked. I booked the very last bed from 120 beds available and therefore I was very concerned about this issue.

On the other hand, the weather shouldn’t be nice in the morning and therefore there was no reason to climb up early in the morning. Thus I was able to take a rest a bit longer and sleep comfortably till 7am.

Seorakan National Park

I woke up around 7am and went for breakfast. Had fried eggs and toast with jam with cup of tasty coffee as a start of hard day. I really liked this hostel and thus made a booking also for the last night.

The bus left the Gangnam district (approx.. 30 minutes from the Inside Backpackers) around 9am and reached Sokcho at 11:30am. To find a connecting bus to the national park was more tricky then I though, because in Sokcho, nobody (and I really mean nobody) understood English - at all. It turned out to be across the road and about 300 meters to the right, which took me about 20 minutes to find out (the description in the guidebook was a bit misleading).

The driver didn’t understand English but luckily it was quite obvious where can I probably want to go. In 30 minutes we reached the main gate. I bought the ticket (1000 KRW/student) and additional drink, a bottle of coke to get additional energy if necessary.

Assuming that the mountains shall be like Yellow Mountains in China, I expected there will be places to buy food. I couldn’t be more wrong! I didn’t eat ANYTHING all the day because I took only 2 packages of cookies and I wanted to spare them for the second day. Later on I was able to buy only additional (small) cookies, because the hut where we slept didn’t have anything else to eat! So to sum it up, if you want to climb up, prepare well!

After 15 minutes of walk I reached a statue of Buddha. A monk was praying there. Passing through thick woodlands for about one more hour I eventually emerged on series of suspended bridges and suspended walkways. The walkway passed several times across a river, however thick fog blocked any further view to see any mountains around.

After another one hour I found a small hut, which obviously should work as a restaurant (but it wasn’t opened that time) and a ranger outpost just behind it. From here on, the road was opened only if the conditions (weather and other) were not too crazy. Just behind the outpost was a split. Left, the shorter, 4-6 hours walk (experienced hikers) and longer 6-9 hours walk (professional hikers). Because it was already almost 2pm and I should be at the top at 7pm, I chose the easier one.

Distracted by the estimates in Taiwan, where 5 hours for Taiwanese usually means 3 hours for Europeans, I was convinced, that if I would take the more difficult one, I would probably make it in 5 hours, but I would suffer a lot. Well - I couldn’t be more wrong! I made the shorter hike in 3,5 hours and I was totally exhausted! Thus there is a second advice, do not underestimate Korean hiking trails, they are not like in other countries in Asia!

After I passed the outpost, the sky cleared more and I finally saw mountains around me. It was so beautiful! At some places pretty much like Czech Paradise … or Zhanjiajie in China. Some of the views were truly marvelous! I enjoyed the way up a lot, it was really amazing!

More troublesome was the fact, that there were no people climbing up except me. Only several hikers descending down, amazed and amused by my attempt to climb up so late. And there was also one (yes, only 1) Korean guy who went the same direction as me. I managed to keep pace with him for about 2 hours, when he finally disappeared from my grid, being too fast for me.

During the ascend the directions changed from very well organized signs to merely any. At the ground level (Sokcho, 100 m above sea level), there were signs in Korean, English, Chinese, Japanese, German and probably other languages I cannot recognize. However with every 200 meters higher, one language disappeared, and at the end, only Korean language left. I cannot recognize anything in Korean, except I can understand it’s that language. The further ascent was sometimes a Russian roulette and it is surprising I didn’t go wrong even once.

At 4:30pm I passed the first mountain hut. Everything was automatic there. You put your registration document with barcode (that you printed ahead!) on the reader and it will let you in. No stuff inside! Damn! At this moment I finally understood that it was wrong to do not bring more food!

The path then changed to many flights of stairs, making almost instant altitude difference of 200 meters. Really exhausted I emerged in thick layer of clouds where visibility didn’t go far from few meters ahead. The path changed to rocky, with huge boulders on the way. Temperature dropped significantly and I had to put on my pullover (I guess the temperature could be around 8 degrees, but while constantly walking, I didn’t feel too cold).

Ground was wet and slippery. And then it happened. I was just trying to pull myself on one of those huge boulders when my leg slipped and I fell. Nothing happened to me, but my trousers were torn almost in half – torn in my groin area, starting from the zipper going down on my right knee and ending just on its level. The temperature was already pretty close to 5 degrees centigrade and OH BOY, that was not comfortable walk up. The freezing wind blown just into my pants, making my ascend even slower and more uncomfortable.

It took me additional 2 hours (!!!) to reach the hilltop. My right leg was deep-freezed that time. At that moment I saw other hikers, finally. Three hikers with winter clothes were trembling beside a signpost. I passed them with my pullover and torn trousers with their awe.

After 30 minutes I reached the hut. Inside I got a set of 2 blankets for 2x2000 KRW and bought another cookies to have a dinner. (Booking ahead cost 8000 KRW for one night for space to sleep, the reservation has to be printed out and brought up.) I also asked them for a needle and a string. Again, fighting with their inability to speak English, it was really difficult task, but I eventually succeeded, when I showed by finger to come out from their selling window and showed them my exposed legs and then repeated the movement of sewing. I got the needle for sewing leather. It took me about 2 hours to fix the trousers as the needle was too big and the string usually passed through the hole all the time.

I fell to sleep at 9pm, totally exhausted. At 10pm, however, a new guest came in. The room was dark. He climbed on my level (we slept on several tiers of wooden floors, laying on the “ground”) by ladder and walk all the way on the other side of the room. On the way, however, he bumped by his head to the ceiling and start screaming so hard that all other were immediately awaken. Screaming and stepping back, he fell over somebody laying under him and hit the ground – screaming like a pig again. It was almost unbelievable, that this idiot managed to hit the ceiling once more time before reaching its place. Everybody was awaken. Everybody upset … Why the hell he didn’t use his own ladder to climb to his place – nobody knew.

The second day I woke up early to see the sunrise, that was claimed to be the best sunrise spot in Korea. However when I reached the top, there was only clouds and extremely strong wind. I waited for 1 hour, but I didn’t see the sun at all. There was only few brave enough to go up with me, because it was even difficult to stand in the wind. And all of them including me left disappointed that time. It took about 2 more hours before the sky cleared and we can see the view. And at that moment, the sun was already too high and the feeling from the sunrise was forever gone :-( So that ended my sunrise experience in Seoraksan National Park.

I left the hut around 9am and start my descend down. I chose the more complicated path this time, because I had much more time. There were some Koreans on the way with me, but this time I outran all of them with ease. Soon after, I was alone.

The reason why this path was more difficult than the other one was, because it was not going only up (down). It was up-down-up-down kind of hike, that made you climbing about 50% more. At moments, I was cursing my decision to walk such way, because even after 2pm it didn’t seem I am reaching the end of the path and get to the split I saw yesterday.

I saw a temple in the mountains, surrounded by stone pillars, almost like from some kung-fu movie. Passing around, I went down by small, almost secret-like path, that was everything but safe. Slippery, wet, with not enough support ropes and with muddy surface, it was a challenge of its own. It took me about an hour do get down, before I reached the abovementioned up-down part of the trail, that seemed to be endless.

After 2pm, I reached second temple and there I met 2 Koreans. One of them knew a bit of English and explained me, that I am too far from the main course back to Sokcho and I would reach it probably around 8pm, if continuing this way. I was very close to western border of the park, not eastern, where I started. It meant I crossed almost all the 30km wide park within those 2 days. They told me that I can catch a bus from the western part back to Seoul too. Well, why not?! Thus I went with them.

One of the guys tried to talk to me, whereas the second didn’t know a word, thus he was silent all the time. After 2 more hours, when we passed around 3rd and 4th (endpoint) temple and cooled down our legs in freezing water, it was a time to split. The English speaking guy wanted to stay, but he said the second one can show me where is the bus stop.

I went with him. Suddenly he came to a car, open it, get in and wait. He wanted me to go in. I didn’t want to – well he didn’t even know how to speak English, how we should communicate. Not to mention it was pretty dangerous. Well, but I sat in. On the way he started to talk … in Korean. He tried to tell me something, but with not avail. At the end, he was so desperate he used the body language. Pointed at me and say “Seoul”…, pointed at himself and repeated “Seoul”. Then start pointing at both of us, padding the car with other hand and repeating “Seoul”. He was going to Seoul too … hmmm … he wanted to take me there … hmmm. I was hesitating a lot, but then agreed.

It turned out, the Seoul is about 250 km away. The ride took about 4 hours, including a short stop for food and drink. And we talked – almost all the time! That was truly amazing, using only body language, we discussed cars “KIA, Korea car, brrrm brrrm, *thumbs up*”, singers “* pointing at me and touching heart* PSY hmmmm Gangnam style”, football “Peter Čech, football *thumbs up*” and others. He was so kind, even bought me drink and food on gas station.

The break moment however came later. His wife (obviously) called him. I didn’t understand a word again, but assuming from his intonation and the kind of screaming from the phone I can approximately reconstruct the phone call as follows: “Where are you, you should have been at home already 3 hours ago! Do you think I am your servant, just sitting at home whereas you have fun in mountains with your stupid friends?” – “ But honey, please, I … I … I am already on my way, but … “ – “But WHAT?! Where are you now? Go home immediately!!” – “I am now at the highway, but it will take me longer, because I need to go to Seoul” – “Why? To drink with your stupid friends? Or what? Do you think I am so stupid I don’t know why you are late?!” – “That’s not true … “ – “It is true, don’t lie to me!” – “But honey, I have a foreigner in a car! He is lost without me, I need to take him to Seoul, or he will not get back to his country! Really!!!” – “You think that I will believe you such a piece of shit?! YOU have a foreigner in your car? YOU!? Who cannot say a word in English? YOU? You cannot come up with better lie?!” … and then, the grotesquely poor guy, who was screamed off about 5 minutes at that time handed me the phone and by body language almost screamed out “SAVE ME!”. I held the phone and with respect slowly spoken out “ehm, huh, hell-lo there” … first nothing happened, but suddenly from the other side of the phone just came “oh … ugh …. Oh … ouuuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhh *and some Korean sentences*”. I handed the phone back to the guy. The course of discussion changed immediately. “See? See!!! I told you. I have a foreigner in the car and I am on very important quest to save him by taking him to Seoul.” – “ Oh, honey, I am so sorry, I didn’t trust you, and … and … you are so kind, you … oh, of course, of course, just get home whenever you will be able to … oh, oh”….

Soon we reached Seoul. He even dropped me at my metro line so I didn’t need to search how to get to my hostel again. Such a nice guy! I waved him from the metro station and he left. We didn’t exchange any contact information. I almost feel sad for that now, when writing about it.

In the evening, I went to a restaurant close to my hostel and had a huge dinner. I deserved it. And went to sleep really soon.

The Demilitarized Zone

The last day of my South Korea trip, I went to an organized tour to the borders (using Panmunjeon Travel Center). The cost was quite high (77000 KRW), but I considered it worthy the visit. The bus drove directly there and we had our own tour guide. This lady was so awful, that I several times considered to tell her to shut up. Just imagine the situation “Dear guests, we are now entering the DMZ (demilitarized zone) … oh, oh, you are SCARED!!! Oh, don’t be, I am with you … and a handsome soldier will definitely accompany us too!” – God! It was really awful treatment with customers.

We saw a very fake museum, where they introduced us a defector, girl that “run out of North Korea” … They told us an amazing story how she did it. And I truly wonder, to what extent is it true. Was it a complete fake? Partly fake? Complete true? Hard to say. Many things she said were unbelievable. And also how the guide treated her was unbelievable. However the agency claims to be the only one having the defector as a guide, but later on other people taking different agencies told me the same story. And that seems not too trustworthy.

When we actually reached the zone, 3 soldiers with submachine guns at hand checked our documents. We weren’t allowed to wear ugly clothes and we should have cameras. Interesting contrast. I was afraid my torn trousers might be a problem, but at the end I managed to camouflage it well enough. If you wonder why we CANT have ugly clothes and why we SHOULD HAVE cameras, it was claimed to us that otherwise North Koreans will take picture of us and use us for propaganda, claiming that “the Westerners are so poor they cannot even buy clothes”. Heh.

One soldier stayed with us all the way through the DMZ. We saw the two building and the line that represent the borders and in one of the small buildings that are divided by the borders in half, we can actually cross the border. The building is meant to be neutral, but due to the fact North Korea will not give up even one inch of their land, we were officially on their land. These buildings are otherwise used for negotiation between the two countries. In this area we had to wear United Nations bathes and take pictures of only the North Korea, they were afraid of spies …

We also saw a train at the Bridge of No Return. The last real train with goods went there several decades ago, now only empty train commemorate what happened that time, when north Koreans opened fire at it. The locomotive was hit by more than 2000 projectiles. The machine is completely corroded and the holes are clearly visible. It is a strange feeling to look at it, you can feel the inability to do anything against twisted minds of Kim-Jong family.

When we returned back to Seoul, I wanted to send postcards to m friends and family. I searched the mail post office in Seoul. It was quite difficult, though, but I did it. But I underestimated it and when I was done, it was just 2 and a half hour before my flight and I was still in the center of Seoul!

I caught the metro to the Main Train Station. Run out of the underground and turn wrong and run out of it !!! I realized it after several hundred meters. Turning back, ran back and came to the train station 1 hour 45 min before the flight. I caught a high-speed train going just in 3 minutes and thus made it in time to be at the airport just about 50 minutes before the departure. I was the last one to be checked-in. The clerk was sitting on the desk, kicking by his ankles to the desk (ugh), waving at me when he saw me rushing in - I made it!


2013/05/15 - 2013/05/21 – South Korea [97 pictures]

Inside Backpackers hostel
National Parks of Korea – Seoraksan National Park
Panmunjeon Tour
Changdeokgung
Deoksugung
Jogye-sa
Jongmyo
Gilsang-sa

Demilitarized zone
Seoraksan National Park
Hwasong Fortress
Gyeongbokgung
Buddha
Korean War
Merlion
Kim Jong Un

South Korea 2013 Phorum [0 posts]
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