It is of some interest when your hotel room has an "Escape Rope" complete with mask and lantern. Especially when you are on the 8th floor! I'm not sure if I feel reassured by its presence or alarmed at the prospect of being rescued from the 8th floor by dangling on a rope, wearing my mask and holding my lantern! This is assuming I was the lucky? One of having the privilege of using the equipment, given their appeared to be only one set. Our hotel is a modern ...

"Won, too, tree, clik!" We are on a tour of the South and East of JeJu Island and our wonderful taxi driver, who we have hired for the whole day, loves cameras and insists on taking our photo with Avan's camera, at every available opportunity. We rarely put ourselves in photos, preferring to capture the scenery, people or animals, but our driver insisted “it is the Korean way” so we went with the flow and now have a lovely collection of some 26 ph...

Love Motels are a Korean Phenomenon - and an excellent one at that.For the equivalent of $A45 a night we are ensconced in luxury only known in 5 star plus hotels. The catch is Love Motels are hard to find and, well, there might be a little nocturnal noises of the amorous kind to contend with. We don't mind given the upside. Back in Seoul we ended up in a love motel by default, but this time we sought one out on the advice of a fellow backpacker who said, "You...

How would you preserve 80,000 beautifully carved woodblocks of the complete Buddhist scriptures for 7 centuries?You'd have to ask the original monks of Haeinsa in Korea because they succeeded where modern technology failed. During the 1970's the President of South Korea ordered the construction of a modern storage facility for the woodblocks which are UNESCO Heritage listed. The facility was equipped with advanced ventilation, and temperature and humidity...

"Ondol" is an excellent Korean word.Ondol is the word to describe the unique underfloor heating system that is a Korean tradition, going back to ancient times. Originally coal was burned in an oven under a clay floor, however now days hot water is pumped through pipes. It is cold here in Korea even though it is Spring and it is wonderful to feel the warmth come up through the floor.This is brought to mind as we are now in Gyeongju, after taking the metro first fr...