Rakhi: It has been so much fun exploring Korea over the last couple of weeks. We've done and seen so many things I don't really know where to start.

The first leg of our trip was spent travelling down the east coast of Korea to Busan on the south eastern coast. Travelling around Korea is relatively easy as buses depart the cities bus terminals regularly and are fairly cheap. Our first stop was Gangchon in the north east of the country. Gangchon is a picturesque lakeside town popular with university students because of the outdoor activities on offer. Our main reason for going to Gangchon was to do a bungee jump; unfortunately as we visited just out of peak season it wasn't up and running yet. However, as there are more bikes (push, motor, moped, quad...) than people lining the streets, we did hire a moped (safe and easy to drive) for a couple of hours. Joel loved feeling the wind through his hair as we drove alongside the lake and up to a beautiful waterfall.

After leaving Gangchon we headed to Sokcho on the eastern coast. Sokcho is the gateway to the beautiful Seoraksan National Park- top of the list of Korean national parks. As it turns out, Sokcho itself is a happening city and was well worth a visit for it's beach and modern architecture. After relaxing on the beach, exploring the city and having a lovely dinner, Joel and I headed back to our motel to get an early night before hiking around Seoraksan (meaning 'craggy peaks') the next day. We'd been warned that the park gets incredibly busy and hiking can be frustrating as there are queues of people on all of the trails. With this in mind, we woke up at 5am and headed to Seoraksan bright and early. When we arrived at 6:30 am, we were the first people in the park! Seoraksan park is divided into 3 sections, outer, inner and south Seorak. The area is absolutely enormous and it would take days (not to mention super human strength!) to see everything. We opted for the sights in outer Seorak as they are the most accesible to visitors coming from Sokcho. We got a cable car to the top of one of the peaks, saw a ruined fortress and a buddhist temple and watched the sun rising over the East Sea and Sokcho. It was utterly beautiful and the air was so revitalising and clean; a welcome change to the smog of Seoul. After exploring the top of this particular mountain, we got the cable car back to the base and set off on a 45 minute hike to a couple of waterfalls. When we reached the furthest waterfall, we had a little rest and dipped our feet into the icy clear water to cool down. The next sight on our Seoraksan list was the Tottering Rock but that's another story and I think Joel should reccount this one! By the time midday had come, the park was filling up, we stayed for another couple of hours before returning to Sokcho to collect our things and head to the next place on our whistle stop tour of Korea.

After spending the night in Samcheok we travelled along the east coastal roads to Gyeongju, the ancient capital of the Silla Kingdom. Today, the area of Gyeongju is like an open air museum as there are relics such as tombs, pagodas, buddhist deities, tumuli (grass covered tombs) and more, everywhere you look. We didn't have time to see everything but we did go to the national museum and to a huge Tumuli park. Tumuli are huge grassy mounds which serve a similar purpose as Egyptian pyramids; royal members of the Silla dynasty are buried in these tombs with their treasures. The tombs are then covered with stone slabs, gravel, concrete, clay, dirt and grass until a mound shape is formed. The whole area is an archaeologists dream!

The last stop on the first leg of our tour was Busan, the second biggest city in S. Korea. In Busan, we experienced our first Korean hot spa experience. There are hot spas all over Korea and the one in Busan is the biggest. Neither Joel or I knew what to expect though what we did know is that we'd be going into seperate women's and men's areas and stripping off! As it turned out, the spa was a real treat and felt amazing after the gruelling hike around Seoraksan. In the women's bit, their was the main spa area, an aromatherapy spa area, an outdoor steaming hot spa which was great to sit in as the heavy rain was pouring down, a hydrotherapy spa which soothed by achy calves, cold water spas, beauty treatment areas and more. Although the genders are separated, they can borrow robes and meet in the sauna area on the floor below the spa's so after an hour or so Joel and I met up here. The sauna area was a real treat as well; there were numerous saunas designed to hinder various ailments and skin conditions. There were also restaurants and sleeping areas as people often go to the spa for the whole day to relax, eat and sleep. It was great and all for less than a fiver each. The next day, we wandered around Busan and went to Asia's biggest fish market. Needless to say, it was pretty smelly and there were a few stalls selling whale meat. Also, as the weather was glorious for a change, we went to Haeundae Beach, mainland Korea's most famous beach. The next day, we headed back to Seoul on the super fast KTX train for the start of Pentaport Rock Festival.

Whilst we'd been away, we'd heard from friends that the monsoon season which had come to an end over most of Korea, was still in full flow in Seoul. All our friends who had planned to camp at the festival had now bottled out and decided that they would get taxis home as it was so wet and the ground would inevitably be a mushy mess. After some um-ing and ah-ing, we thought it best to do the same. When we reached the site, we knew immediately that we'd made the right decision, we spent the first evening of the festival holding our flip flops, wading ankle deep in mud and sloshing around to The Strokes. The next day, we returned armed with wellies and it made such a difference as the ground had gotten even worse. Still, the whole festival was really good fun. We had good company and great music; I can see why Franz Ferdinand were the closing act on the Sunday- they'd be a hard act to follow.

So, yesterday we returned from the final leg of our journey. The last week has been spent lazing on the beautiful sub-tropical island of Jeju-do. Initially, we booked a hotel for a week on the south of the island in Seogwipo as we planned to stay in that area for the whole time. When we got to the hotel however, it wasn't what we expected and it was about 30 mins by bus from the nearest beach. We made the decision to move to a beach area on the west of the island and it turned out to be a great move. Hyopjae beach was beautiful with white sand and mottled green and blue sea, it wasn't too hot either unlike Seogwipo in the south which was unbearable. We stayed in a decent minbak (basic accomodation with shared facilities) a stones throw from the beach. It was the ideal location to rise in the morning, stroll a few metres bleary eyed and jump into the sea to wake up! Our friends Ryan and Kristin who were also holidaying on the island told us that the beaches on the eastern coast were beautiful too so after a couple of days on Hyopjae, we decided to check those out aswell. We stayed one night in the capital of the island Jeju City before heading on to the east. On the way to Jeju City, Joel and I thumbed through the Lonely Planet for accomodation reccomendations. Eventually, we decided to splash out as we were nearing the end of our holidays and for the past few weeks we'd been staying in basic accomodation. For the one night we stayed in the swanky Oriental Hotel, we were the pefect guests! The beds were so comfortable I had a hard time getting up for my buffet breakfast! Once in Hamdeok, we did very little but eat, read, sleep, swim and watch sun sets over the sea. It's been a lovely relaxing week.

Now, the start of summer camp is looming...