"Backpacking Korea in Winter / Spring" Seoul by bpacker

Quick Update, Apr 04: This little webpage has received some attention since it was started early in Jan this year. Many of you read my ramblings on my first trip to the Land of Morning Calm and tolerated my complaints about fierce night vendors. Well, I've since returned to Korea on a sponsored trip. Yes, life is not fair. Somehow, there are people who think I can write well and they gave me a prize for it. But thanks to these poor sods, you readers will get to read more of Korea , particularly on Gyeongju, and see beautiful pictures of Cherry Blossoms. My thanks and appreciation to those who have dropped by, your comments and questions cheered me tremendously:)

Written in Jan 04

Are you a Singaporean? Well, if you are, you probably would have been tempted by the the many cheap tour packages to Korea. Multiply that probability if you have watched the sappy serial "Winter Sonata" - a schizophrenic love story set admist spectacular Korean scenary.
Yes, there are a lot of attractive packages over here to the Land of Morning Calm. An 8-day tour costs only about S$1200 and many Singaporeans have enthusiastically grabbed the offer like durians on sale.And like durians,these tours are genetically engineered to suit local tastes (snow ! ginseng chicken meal !shopping !). Unfortunately, I share more enthusiasm for the fruit than the package so I chose to do Korea on my own. Hell, I figured that if I could backpack Scandinavia on my own, Korea should be ok. Luckily for me and my hair, it was so. I probabily tore out more hair in frustration over some hopeless Finnish navigation than trying to talk to a hapless Korean local. More hair came out when I had to foot US$1 to go to the Finnish loo but that's another story.
Korea is relatively easier to get by on your own. More so, if you can read and write Chinese. ( Many Korean words sound similar to Chinese and every location has a Chinese translation. eg.Donghae -Dong Hai ) Well, even if you can't, grab a lonely planet phrase book and amuse the locals with your own brand of Korean.Most of the road signs , tourist site signs are printed in 3 languages- Hangul( that's korean lang for you ) , English and Chinese so getting around is not really a problem. But just to be on the safe side, try learning a bit of hangul before you leave for Korea.
Hangul is the Korean alphabet and it's way easier than Chinese. The inventor, King Sejong bragged that it takes only 1 day to learn but he was probably affirmed by his quivering subjects. Even with my dull IQ, it took me about a week to recognise the letters. Come to think about it, I used hangul more for recognising the word "mek-joo"( beer ) than for reading road signs but there were times when it came in handy as most express bus signs came in hangul.
Nonetheless, persist in your spirit of adventure! I've decided to put my research info here to encourage you to explore Korea on your own. Going free and easy gives you room to navigate through a kaleidoscope of activities that would never be possible by a pin-hole tour package. The last time I went with a "premier" tour agent, I nearly went mad with the incessant prattle from old ladies and an impatient sheepdog of a tour guide who could not wait to dump us at a hotel. That's half the story, the other half belonged to needless visits to retail shops that had "tourist trap" written all over them. It took me a long time to recover...and when I did, I don't remember a damm thing about the trip.

Dreamy , romantic jeju

My first trip to Korea was to fulfill my wanderlust for mountains. I fulfilled every bit of it, not only did I journeyed south to Jeju to scale Hallasan, I scaled the peaks in SorakNational Park and skied in YongPyong
After all that torture, I soaked myself silly in Osaek Hot Springs Hot Springs...

Spring in Gyeongju

Trip 2 wasn't planned. Hell, how often does one get a free trip to Korea only to be told to use the prize by 3 months? Well, something's better than nothing. I used my prize to see beautiful Cherry Blossoms in its land of origin. I went to Seoul, Gyeongju and Songnisan this time. No doubt, on an intinenary more sensible than the first though little was planned.

• Pros:Good local food, interesting street life
• Cons:expensive western hotels, rude commuters, chaotic traffic
• In a nutshell:Gd place for hiking and soaking in hot springs...