This is the more or less complete script

left UK with snow coming down as we climbed up into the sky. It was dour and drizzly in Beijing on transfer. But arriving in Seoul - I think I must have died & gone to heaven _ NO litter.no gum trodden into the pavement, friendly people who ask if they can helhelp, lots of hot sun..... what's not to like?

week 4 of korea

Take two trains to Gyeongju, northeast of Busan in a generally agricultural area., I had seen pictures of huge rounded artificial hills, which looked interesting,lots of them. Way back, this was they way to give the local big cheese his final send off. A pretty enormous project with today's earthmovers, so with only spades and baskets to move the earth it must have been a monumental effort. Also it is the town with the 1st ever astronomical tower.

On arrival, the lovely lady in the rail information office had directed me to the Gyeongju guest house 3 mins walk away.So checked in there, it was "get bearings" time. Most amazing markets - the only other place i've seen a row of chicken heads for sale was Moscow. So glad I didn't have the language skill to ask how, let alone why they were cooked. Bet Taal is too! Regretably, also discovered that the sleeping mat stuff is sold by the meter, fortunately in rather horrid colours. Took mind of the matter by finding a city tour for the next day which would reveal all about the royal tumulli. What had not been admitted about the tour was that it 'd be entirely in Korean. Luckily for me a Japanese passenger had lived 10years in the US & happily was ready to practise his language from time to time, am I fortuate or what. Whatever, it was a great way to get a handle on the place, with a lot of ground covered in a day. The 'guesthouse' had great serve-yourself breakfasts. This made for sociable occasions. I thought I was being a bit hurried having only 3 nights there, but most were only there for 1 night. Also, oh joy, they had 2 mini washig machines on the covered bit of roof. Day 3, I went free range to the museum for a free guided walk around. This was pretty good & I ended up getting adopted by a korean lady who wanted to practice her english. So after, she drove me to a charming tea house where I had the full works of a tea ceromany (wow, that has just spellchecked as Viena or Germany). I was just checking the Insight Guidebook re the tumulli we'd been talking about, and she'd looked at it & asked where it was from & how interesting as there was nothing like it she'd seen. We ended the day with me offering her the book, and her giving me a lift back. Saved carrying it around for a few more days!

Last of my whirlwind visits was to Deajeon, mostly because it was halfway back to Soeul and an airplane.

Deajeon was my last 4 nights of wandering. It looked like the pits on the map, a big industrialised city, but of course, appearances on a map are different from bricks & morter on the ground, well in S Korea that should be bucket loads of concrete. Not to waste a good experience, I made a beeline for the information desk.The lady had a badge saying she spoke english, she was a gem. Not ony did she speak english, but she found me somewhere to stay, and when I protested the price, Godot it reduced to what I was willing to pay. And again 2 minutes from the station, so off I went. Turns out be a 'motel', on the 3rd,4th & 5th floors. So I have a room ensuite, with a TV, non-working electric blanket & a window overlooking the local cop shop - which was to provide me with much entertainment over the next few days. Daffodills in pot to the lady, who became my source of information about so much, although she hadn't known about the cops.

All Korean towns seem to have extensive underground shoping centres (I think they were built as fall out shelters in case of attack from the north, without any evidence of course). Anyway, all human life scurries around down there. The array of shops is amazing. Absolutely everything that you never even thought of, let alone wanted, is available. The smell of hot sweetcorn does not live u to it's promise, sadly. Plus lots of .market hallls above ground.

Each mornig there was singing from next door at 6,30 . Then followed physical jerks. The second morning they added holding guns and walking around, bent over, in lines. Zip over to the station to check the one paper in english, it seems sabre rattling is going on. The early morning exercises get more elaborate, and seem to happen several times a day. Sometimes they are doing judo-like stuff, sometimes pretend tracking, sometimes hand to hand wrestling, sometimes all three activities are happening with others chatting or doing press-ups.

In between gazing out of the window, I do lots walking around (no metro as there is only 1 line). Having got instructions from the information lady, I go 2 bus journeys out of town for a "mountain walk". A 13 k circuit with 2k each to get to &from the bus stop. A beautiful sunny day, bit breezy, around a quite high mountain with lots of splendid views and cherry trees in bloom. Snakeing along any valleys are block upon block of flats, so the high bits with trees present as islands in a concrete sea. It gets quite windy after a while, but still clear & sunny. Buses back to town & a meal.

This particuar walk was called the barefoot walk, and was finished with sand 'to give the feet a healthy massage', supposedly elimiating blood pressure(sic) diabetes, joint pain and 5 other horrid bodily afflictions. Whatever, the sandy finish made it easy to follow - no map, no language to ask the few people I did see and lots of branching off paths...... it was great.

All four towns were completely different from each other, the train journeys covered a fair bit of ground, at he end of a month I want more! But alas it's the slow train back to Seoul for onne night, use the washing machine, a last visit to the Paris Baguette for a hot octopus. Then out to get a cablecar to the Skytower on top of the hill behind the yha. This ls at the south point of the wall of the old city, stunning view, plus I get there & discover a show about to start - a load of guys in medieval dress doing war dances & stuff. All reminiscent of Maori ones as they grimace & stick out their tongues. But they do other stuff, slaying bunches of hay in between doing sumersaults and breakdancing. Very odd.

Time to pack, go catch the metro to the airport & catch a midnight flight to Kathmandu to join an Exodus fortnight in Bhutan. So long Korea - it's been a brilliant, too short a time. OK, I did discover it wasn't actually heaven, but it was such a great place to be - clean, friendly and welcoming, which is more than you can say for a lot of places. I shouldn't care to live in a tower block with 1000s more so close, or to have to wonder how to cook chicken heads, but believe it or not, one up-market supermarket had a Waitrose selection! So what's not to like?

hweek 3 of korea

Book myself a train to Busan in the southeast, the slow one takes 5 hours at 60mph, which means i can at least see what is happening outside; the fast one goes at 120 mph. The Seoul yha has booked me a place5 mins from station which isreally convenient.

Busan is a busy seaport & the bit of Korea nearest to Japan, so a) has had military invasions from there in the past & b) is a popular ferry point for todays visitors, of which there are many.

First day is general explore for the lie of the land, big surprise is to find the sea just behind the station -& it's being pushed back by landfill it seems. The metro is about half the size of Seoul's, but this is later discovered to be just less lines, when l try them out, they go forever. Again there are endless 1984 clusters of 20/40 storey blocks of flatsflats.

I've already some stuff on Busan (also Bussan) which seems to have gone awol & will have to be stiched in on return home. Briefly day 2) two city tours of culture and environmental interest - this last was st as dealing with e of the delta which is an important bird stop off point on long flights. Day 3) a hunt the post office & try not to give way to the wish to buy a sleeping quilt. These are so comfortable, make perfect sense with underfloor heating & I WANT one!

week 2 & 1/2 of korea

my progress is slow as i get to terms with this new toy, plus the iteresting lumpy electricity being experienced. Much seems to have disappeared into the ether. However,hope springs, or rather limps along. The weather gets a bit warmer, the wind reduces and I'm te.pted to venture afield.

The subway is brilliant, I suppose developed for visiting Tourists to the '88 Olymplcs so more or less idiot proof. A really helpfull outcome of the US presence during the Korean war (for me) is the use of english here, although there are interesting pitfalls. For example, in bookshops titles are in english _ but inside it's all korean script. Down another rabbit hole, as Jen would say, they have a brilliant alphabet, based on phonetics. This was developed under the direction of a far sighted ruler some hundreds of years ago - in great secrecy. The literate classes being in favour of maintaining their speciality were against a language that even the downtrodden farmers could understand. Consequently not only was it possible to inform of better ways of agriculture, but it has been simple to use on computers as unlike chinese & japanese pictograms there are only 2 dozen characters to combine rather than a separate character for each word. Out of the rabbit hole, it makes for a very easy lace to get around. Railway stations have the lcd screens in both languages for example. To get a railcard, the ticket machine can cope with half a dozen languages, plus how lovely, when I was contemplating the machine, a friendly voice murmed in ear 'do you require any help?' He took me to a kiosk to get a plastic card, inserted into the machine with money told me which buttons to press & the activated spat out - we high 5s to our mutual surprise.

week 1 of 4 in korea

• The hostel is easy to find right near the center of town, lovely & warm with underfloor heating.. At first I have a 10 bed en suite to myself for four days. The breakfasts are enough to sustain me all day with staples of rice, kimchi (pickled vegetable mix), roll & jam sachet. This last is a cunning eastern version, bent in half, it squirts out the jam directly onto the bread - and since a cutlery set is a soup spoon & needle thin metal chopsticks, this is pretty handy. Daily variations of a meat dish, savoury type custard or tofu (hazelnut flavour I' m told), salads & some vegetables make for an interesting start to the day.

Only booked 4 nights, so start ticking off the explore list. Discover that the DMZ (demilitarized zone) has to be by special tour which has to be booked 3 days in advance. Plan change - stop over the w.end, plus Monday is a public holiday, and Tuesday they are ´busy'. The predictive text is getting me down - it has twice turned D M Z into FOX, now 3 Times & suddenly put T not t. W here are you Bob?????!

Anyway, extend Seoul stay by 6 more nights, as army on manoeuvres on the Tuesday, pleased really ( It just suggested orally for really!!!!!). Chase up palaces,genes, no you sky ma gone I was Ted genes - it is going bonkers - that should have read - palaces, temples, no you silly machine I intended temples.

It takes a while to correct, which gets me down as I loose the thread. Just thought I' d explain why it seems to be getting turgid.

My big excitement has been discovering the Cheonggyeneon stream. This small river had gradually become clogged & contaminated due to lack of maintainance so in the 60' s it was built over to get shot of the problem. With an enormous shopping centre. 60' s conCrete not so great, rotting like no tomorrow. Big city rumpus when then mayor suggested demolition & stream revitalizing, but he won the day - hurrah as it is a fabulous environment - birds, fish, planting and interesting landscaping, all leading to a vast improvement in air quality. But it' s not just a stream - lots of bridges, all different as the stream proceeds down, steps, "hopping stones" at regular intervals, wheelchair access ramps each side, fountains, water walls, huge covered & open spaces for concerts/parties etc www.cheonggyecheon.or.kr Various points along the way have brass signs nothing historical remains found in the process. There' s also a museum devoted to it all, with a great model 3x4 meters of it in the city context.

NOW saving - holding it will behave better tomorrow, am knackered.uh