Gyeongju is up next and as I got on the train to the bus stop, which is out of the main city, aren’t they always?! Least unlike SE Asia you don’t have to rely on rip off taxis taking you. I could sense this guy with bright purple hair staring at me, then he came over to talk to me because I looked ‘bored’. He was Korean but just returned from living in Singapore. It’s funny what complete strangers what to divulge to you, as he proceeded to tell me that ...

After a minor delay I boarded the budget Peach aircraft and hit the cloudy wet skies bound for Busan. Immigration was a breeze and eventually after people seemed to have gone my bag appears on the carousal with a snapped umbrella poking out. I got chatting to Verena, a German girl in the bus queue and we boarded the airport limousine bus, greeted by the most miserable driver imaginable, for Paradise Hotel (the closest stop to my hostel) for 7,000 won (£4.50) whi...

Here's to getting my final bullet train for a mere 20 minutes to Osaka, where I was due to meet my friend Greg as our travels overlapped since we last saw each other in October back in Borneo. How time flies! I arrive at Osaka on a wet and miserable day but see Greg stood at the ticket barriers. Having spent the last week and half doing Japan on my own, it was nice to see a friendly face again. We went to find my hotel - Buisness Hotel Wako to dump my bags befo...

KYOTO! I have been so excited about the stop here and it couldn't have lived up to expectations any better. It was a bullet train to Kobe, then a bullet train to Kyoto where I had to get my bearings as to which station exit to head out of. I walked a few kilometres through the backstreets to the Nine Hours Capsule hotel, had to experience it again for a couple of nights! Walking down these backstreets, was like being in a scene from Memoirs of a Geisha (without t...

I love orderliness of this country, there are lines painted on the platforms so that you can queue and file onto the trains. I never saw the clichéd image of these trains where the guards push people into the carriages so that they can close the door. Maybe because I didn’t travel during peak hours very often. Still today I was travelling down to the Kitakyusha, on the southern island some 7 hours away. I made an early start and grabbed my first train down to ...