Diary of a Wanderer

True to her word, Katie, came to visit towards the end of the month. She was staying at mine for two weeks and we planned a short trip to Tokyo in the middle. I couldn’t wait! I headed to arrivals on Sunday morning, (feeling grateful for dodging a hangover form the salsa Halloween party the night before), and stood excitedly waiting, as I had done a couple of months before when my parents had come to visit. Before long we were heading back to mine, catching up and planning what we were going to do together. It seemed she had brought the cold weather across the world with her, as it literally turned cold as she arrived. Having told her that she would only need a light jacket despite it being October, she was feeling somewhat cold and slightly unimpressed! I was to spend the next two weeks lending her jumpers and scarfs and feeling slightly guilty about my seemingly inaccurate advice! We introduced Katie to the wonders of Korean BBQ in the evening and planned what she was going t...

The blow of returning back to work after the Chuseok holidays was softening by knowing that I would soon enough be heading off of adventure again. At the end of the week, in fact! With Ramsey's birthday soon here, we decided to take the opportunity to go to Busan to celebrate. It that wasn't exciting enough, I only had a half day at work on Friday, and started early, so that we could take a train in the evening.  We KTX-ed it and were soon in Busan and making our way up 36 floors to our guesthouse! Wow! We were going to be enjoying spectacular views of the sprawling concrete jungle of Busan for two days! Despite being on holiday, routinely weekly wake up times aren't easy to shake off and we were up at around 8:30 on Saturday and ready to explore after filling up on the guest house breakfast.  We headed to Igidae Coastal path, ad after an unexpectedly long walk to find it, we weren't too sure we were up for a hike in the end! Nevertheles...

Our last day of adventuring was to take us to Yeosu, a coastal city about 40 minutes from Suncheon. After a practically private bus ride there, we took a local bus to Hyang-Il-Am, a temple situated on the top of Geumoam mountain. Once again, it was a beautiful , sunny day and my jacket spent the day couped up in my bag, whilst my jumper was around my waist, 90's style. A ten minute walk and quite a few stairs later and we were looking out across the ocean, with the temple behind us. The hoards of tourists reminded me of my time on the templestay in Bulguksa, causing the place to lose its serenity and feeling of spirituality. I felt almost guilty for being there amongst the throng of noisy people. They were even filming for a Korean TV drama!  We wandered back and headed towards Odongdo, an island connected to the mainland by bridge. We hiked its shady trails through the trees that covers the majority of the island, stopping every now and then to take in the view...

Saturday was going to be the busiest day we had so far. I woke up early, had a fantastic breakfast of toast, eggs AND cereal before meeting Yiak. As if the universe know about our plans for the day, the sun was shining and it felt like a beautiful summer's day, despite it being October. The rain of the day before felt like a distant memory. Our first destination of the day was Daehan Dawon Tea plantation in Boseong. Two buses and a fair few hours later and we had made it.  The journey was absolutely worth it, as the green tea plantation rolled out over the hills in front of us. I had feared the Autumn would have painted the leaves an orangey-brown already, but any worries quickly subsided as it looked like we were visiting in their last couples of weeks of green glory. Despite the hoards of people the had come due to the holidays, the area still retained some magic, particularly with the spectacular sea views, tucked away at the very top of the hills. I had no...

The rain still hadn't stopped as we woke up on Friday and left our guesthouse in Gwangju. We hopped on a bus to Suncheon and I soon found myself leaving my bags at the next guesthouse. Thankfully this one had a bathroom for just the four people in my room, making a nice change from the previous one which had just one bathroom for all the guests! The passive aggression of the unclear shower queue was almost unbearable.  We headed out to catch the bus to Naganeupseong folk village, about an hour away from the city. The rain stopped just long enough for us to explore the village. Still lived in, the beautiful houses, with their thatched rooves, have maintained a unique character that is unseen in the modern urban cities of the country. Walking along the fortress walls surrounding the village provided marvellous views of the area against the mountainous background. There was not a tall building in sight, but acres of open land. What a rarity in Korea!  The ...

As the Chuseok holiday (the Korean version of thanksgiving) drew nearer, the dream gift we had all been waiting for arrived. An email from the CEO giving us all the whole week off of work. Including the weekends, one of which I would have otherwise had to have worked, it was an amazing ten days of freedom. As the new top dog of Wall Street, he had shown everyone he meant business with some brutal firings of the majority of people in Head Office and some centre managers, including the one at Gangnam. So we all breathed a sigh of relief upon opening our inboxes, reassured that in fact he was human after all... Unfortunately, the timing of this fabulous email was merely a few weeks before the holiday itself, meaning all flights were extortionately priced if not already sold out as all of Korea was on holiday and determined to make the most of it. Sadly, I also found myself travel buddy-less as I had previously told Ramsey I had to work the latter half of the week while he was...