(*Click on the title to see the pics!)
Better late than never... A few weeks ago it was Korean Thanksgiving, Chuseok, we had a couple of weeks off of school so we decided to go on a road trip around Korea. This vacation was well timed as Becky's Mum and her boyfriend, Ben, were in the country, so they came with us.
We started our vacation sightseeing around our local area. We went to lots of places we had been meaning to visit since we arrived. We particularly enjoyed our trip to the DMZ (Demilitarized Zone), here we got to have a closer look at North Korea but also got to have a look down in the infiltration tunnels which were dug as a route for the north to sneakily invade Seoul. It had a very eerie atmosphere. We also visited a few landmarks in Seoul, such as the tower and a few palaces. So after a few days of sightseeing around Paju and Seoul we began our road trip!
Our first stop was a nights camping near Mogok, we had previously found a really nice campsite which is by a river and is surrounded by mountains. We had a campfire and lots and lots of soju! We woke up dreary the next morning to find the car had a puncture, this delayed us slightly but once it was fixed we had a celebratory McDonalds in the nearest city. After a night of camping and a day of nursing our sore heads we decided to head to the nearest beach resort, Naksan.
In Naksan we found a really cheap 'condotel', this is just like a hotel but with a small balcony and kitchen. It turned out to be such a good deal that we ended up staying there for over a week! Naksan is close to Seoraksan National Park, which is home to the tallest mountain in Korea, but our resort was just on the beach about 20 minutes away from the park. Naksan is a great place to stay, on the beach you could rent tandems, quad bikes and small electric motorcycles, we opted for the latter and cruised up and down the seafront on our first night. Then we had some beers and set off some fireworks.
The next day we decided to rent some bikes and have a bike ride, after this we went into the National park and attempted to climb the mountain. The mountain, almost twice the height of Snowdon, was too big so we cheated and took the cable car most of the way up, the views should have been amazing, but it was quite a cloudy day and at times you couldn't even see 6 feet infront of you.
After a few days in Naksan Becky's mum and Ben headed in Incheon and we stayed behind. It was the end of the month so we tried to conserve our money but we still had a great time, on the first day alone we stopped off at Daepo harbour, a very famous port in Korea with a fish market, buts its real delicacy is deep fried prawns, we had to try these, so we bought a bag and ate them on the benches by the harbour, they were amazing, shortly after this we went to a mountain spa and had a very relaxing time. Once we were sufficiently relaxed we went back to daepo harbour to visit one of the restaurants we had spied earlier in the day. This restaurant was on a jetty over the harbour and served only sushi, so we chose a couple of fish from the tanks near the entrance and ate these with some hot sauce and salad. Then we ordered our favorite part of the meal, fish head soup! We didn't really know what we were ordering but it came with 7 or 8 fish heads looking up at us, despite this it was really tasty and we ate most of it. We definitely want to go back to it.
After a few days of sun bathing and taking it easy we finally got paid! We treated ourselves to a trip to 'Waterpia', one of Korea's best water parks, it was a really nice day and it wasn't too busy, we had a great time once we sorted out the problems of not being told we had to wear swimming caps. We also went in a pool of 'Dr Fish', these are small fish which feed off of your dead skin, they were so ticklish, but I managed to completely submerge myself and at one point you couldn't see my skin for all of the fish eating my dead skin. After the water park we decided to head back home so we could spend a few days at home before we had to go to work again.
Once home we met up with Becky's mum and Ben again and spent the last couple of days in and around Seoul. Overall everyone had a good break and we felt sad that we had to go back to work.
Our first stop was a nights camping near Mogok, we had previously found a really nice campsite which is by a river and is surrounded by mountains. We had a campfire and lots and lots of soju! We woke up dreary the next morning to find the car had a puncture, this delayed us slightly but once it was fixed we had a celebratory McDonalds in the nearest city. After a night of camping and a day of nursing our sore heads we decided to head to the nearest beach resort, Naksan.
In Naksan we found a really cheap 'condotel', this is just like a hotel but with a small balcony and kitchen. It turned out to be such a good deal that we ended up staying there for over a week! Naksan is close to Seoraksan National Park, which is home to the tallest mountain in Korea, but our resort was just on the beach about 20 minutes away from the park. Naksan is a great place to stay, on the beach you could rent tandems, quad bikes and small electric motorcycles, we opted for the latter and cruised up and down the seafront on our first night. Then we had some beers and set off some fireworks.
The next day we decided to rent some bikes and have a bike ride, after this we went into the National park and attempted to climb the mountain. The mountain, almost twice the height of Snowdon, was too big so we cheated and took the cable car most of the way up, the views should have been amazing, but it was quite a cloudy day and at times you couldn't even see 6 feet infront of you.
After a few days in Naksan Becky's mum and Ben headed in Incheon and we stayed behind. It was the end of the month so we tried to conserve our money but we still had a great time, on the first day alone we stopped off at Daepo harbour, a very famous port in Korea with a fish market, buts its real delicacy is deep fried prawns, we had to try these, so we bought a bag and ate them on the benches by the harbour, they were amazing, shortly after this we went to a mountain spa and had a very relaxing time. Once we were sufficiently relaxed we went back to daepo harbour to visit one of the restaurants we had spied earlier in the day. This restaurant was on a jetty over the harbour and served only sushi, so we chose a couple of fish from the tanks near the entrance and ate these with some hot sauce and salad. Then we ordered our favorite part of the meal, fish head soup! We didn't really know what we were ordering but it came with 7 or 8 fish heads looking up at us, despite this it was really tasty and we ate most of it. We definitely want to go back to it.
After a few days of sun bathing and taking it easy we finally got paid! We treated ourselves to a trip to 'Waterpia', one of Korea's best water parks, it was a really nice day and it wasn't too busy, we had a great time once we sorted out the problems of not being told we had to wear swimming caps. We also went in a pool of 'Dr Fish', these are small fish which feed off of your dead skin, they were so ticklish, but I managed to completely submerge myself and at one point you couldn't see my skin for all of the fish eating my dead skin. After the water park we decided to head back home so we could spend a few days at home before we had to go to work again.
Once home we met up with Becky's mum and Ben again and spent the last couple of days in and around Seoul. Overall everyone had a good break and we felt sad that we had to go back to work.
