It’s 1:30pm in Korea. We are sitting at the airport terminal waiting for a flight home. We board in about 25minutes. Unlike Canadian airports who charge for internet access, the airport here gives it away, so we publish one final update. We arrived at the airport a fair bit early for our flight and have been rewarded with emergency exit seats so we have lots of leg room!!

Seoul A trip back to the Insadong area allowed us to finish up the souvenir shopping and even some Christmas Shopping. This must be a record for me for starting my Christmas shopping. I suspect the same cannot be said for Darlene. After finishing our shopping expedition, we tried to find a walking route that is listed in the Lonely Planet guide book. The walk would have taken us past areas where Shaman rituals are performed.

Seoul / Suwon The Korean Folk Village in Suwon, south of Seoul, is the Korean version of Upper Canada Village. It has replicas of traditional houses and some actual traditional houses that have been moved from different parts of Korea to give visitors an idea of how a village could have looked. As you move through the village you can see different classes of houses and how Koreans would have lived.

Seoul Just over 2 weeks ago we arrived at Changdeokung (Palace of Prospering Virtue) for the 11:30am tour to find out that it is closed on Mondays. Today it was open. You can only go into Changdeokung on a guided tour, so this was the biggest collection of English speaking people since we arrived here. Changdeokung was a backup palace for the Korean royalty used up to the end of the Joseon dynasty that ended in 1910 when the Japanese invaded and occupied Korea.

Seoul The morning was spent catching up on documenting the trip and photos from the last few days. Our nights had been late so that we didn’t work on it. The work was done as we rode the train from Busan to Seoul. We took the KTX (Korea Train Express) – Korea’s high speed train. The trip took 2 hours and 45 minutes. The fastest speed that I noticed was 298 km/hr.

Busan We traveled today to Beomeosa temple, an active temple. It was a 3km walk up a winding and pretty steep roadway. Luckily a shaded walk. For part of the trip we were not sure if we were going the right way – signs are not also where you need them (or at least where we need them). The roadway had 2 lanes of traffic going the same direction but I am not really sure why there were lines on the road as the use of lanes seemed very arbitrary.

Pusan We visited Hae Dung Yong Gong temple. It is another buddhist temple in Korea – there are a lot of them. This one differs from the last we have seen in that it is not set in the forest or up a mountain and isn’t a small hermitage on the shear face of a rock wall. This temple is set right on the coast facing the East Korea Sea. This temple would be exposed to the storms on the ocean and the “Dragon Sea”.

Busan Across from the Busan express train station is a sign “Shopping area for foreigners”. Obviously a sign like this must be checked out. It was a strange area with a very different feel to it. It creeped both of us out. There is Russian writing on many of the shops and bars. One man yelled at me, asking me if I wanted a hair cut. One think I have read is that a hair cut in Korea is not always just a hair cut.

Pusan (Busan) Darlene wanted a beach, so she got a beach! We are in Pusan which is famous for its beaches. We are staying at Haeundae beach. Apparently the beach can have ½ million visitors a day during the peak season. Despite the fact that it is 30 degrees the beach is relatively deserted. We went down to swim in the East Sea (Sea of Japan) and sat on the beach for the last of the afternoon sun.

Gyeongju We headed out to the Gyeongju National Museum this morning. It is a nice museum consisting of several buildings and some items that are outside to be visited. Outside there is a large bell which is the Divine Bell of King Seongdeok. Inside one of the buildings there was a depiction of how the bell was constructed – a large hole in the earth was dug in the shape of the bell and metal was heated until melted the the melted metal was poured into the “mold”.