South Korea - Gangneung and around

After having spent a few days in Seoul (mainly to sort out our Chinese visas) we again escaped to the countryside. Gangneung is a small town, not much to see or do in the city itself, but we thought it would be a good base to explore the eastern coastal region. We checked into the usual motel (big bed, bid TV screen, big bathroom, but no computer this time) close to the bus station.

One day we took the train to visit nearby Jeongdongjin. It supposedly has the train station closest to the beach (in Korea? In Asia? In the world?). Anyway, it is very close. The village is not very interesting but has some oddities that make it worth a look: an American warship (gift from the USA to South Korea) and a North Korean submarine (that got stranded here and the crew had to flee) that we saw from the train, a huge hourglass that takes exactly one year to run through, and a huge cruiseship... on a hill!

Who could have had this idea?
There was also a nice beach where we picknicked and went swimming.
Ah, another korean oddity: people don't wear swimming suits! But no, they don't go naked, but in their clothes! Jeans and all... I guess it's something to do with being very shy to show too much of their body or something. Most people don't seem to know how to swim anyway, so they just go into the shallow water. A group of students seemed quite impressed when Miguel jumped into the water and started swimming... Of course we didn't go in our clothes but in swimsuits, but I guess westerners are pardoned...

Another day we took a bus (actually, two buses) to Odaesan National Park. On the way there, we watched TV in one of the buses, a travel show about Zermatt! Was quite strange to see something so familiar on TV in such a different country.
In the national park we climbed the highest peak, called Birobong, 1563m. Koreans have built nice walking trails, but they are steep. When it gets too steep to build a path, they just build steps straight up the mountain! So you can imagine that there was quite a bit of sweating and panting included.... but a beautiful view from the top:

The way down was also steep but not quite as much as the way up. We felt our out-of-shape legs after that!

The day after, we visited a huge cave near Samcheok, supposedly the biggest in Asia. It was very impressing, all the different stone formations were beautiful. Of course, every place had its own tacky name like "peak of desire" and "bridge of love", but hey, we're in Korea, they love that kind of thing here.
I didn't take pictures of the cave but Miguel might add one some time...

South Korea - Gonju

We chose Gonju because it's a small town, and there seemed to be enough things to do for a few days. We felt the need to stay longer at the same place and also relax a bit.
This time we decided to choose a motel from our guidebook, and it was a good choice. Friendly landlady, clean room, air-conditioning (it's a bit noisy but ok), computer with internet in each room.
On the first day we checked out the tourist information, where we got the usual tourist map of the city, which is absolutely not up to scale but shows the major sights. We then went to see the fortress, but the heat kept our motivation in certain limits. There were quite a lot of local elderly people sitting and lying around, chatting and sleeping, and a woman offered us pieces of watermelon. And there were some beautiful details in the temples:
We then went to visit the royal tombs, which are incredibly old and whose discovery have been very important to Korean historians. You can't actually visit the tombs (they're closed for protection) but a well done museum has exact replicas and shows what was found inside them. We got an audioguide - usually I'm a bit suspicious of audioguides, but this one was good, if you didn't mind the infantile way it was presented (a comic figure - a dog? - talking with a very american accent). There was a lot of interesting information about history.
Of the original tombs, all you can see are the typical mounds of earth, that one can see all over Korea.
The day after we visited again a temple - we actually went there because there was supposed to be a swimming pool, which turned out to be very small and shallow and very expensive, so we went to visit Magoksa temple, very beautiful and not as extensively renovated as most others. I especially liked some of the paintings.
From there we went on a hike - only 2 hours but very steep and tiring, even more so because of the everlasting heat and humidity. We made it to the top anyway.
The hike was followed by a nice bath in a cool river!

During the rest of the time, we relaxed, enjoyed the small-town Korea, and yes, spent some time in front of "our" computer.... ;-)

A few impressions:
A small street in which every house is a shop (although it might not be obvious from outside what they're actually selling):Managing the difficult task to eat dumplings with chopsticks:Enjoying the colours and unusual smells and sights at the local market:
Eating some bibimbap with about a dozen side dishes (mostly spicy):

So, this is my impression of Korea after one week: temples, a lot of history and kings, heat and humidity, nice but spicy food, people wanting to help in restaurants and bus stations, great opportunities for hiking, many new smells and tastes, a good place to relax and take things easy.

Tomorrow we're off to another big city - Seoul. Let's see what it holds for us.

Reshiri Island, Japan

We arrived in Wakkanai at the northern tip of Hokkaido on the 28th July. Wakkanai is a small town, there's not really much to do except very practical things for us: laundry and going to the post office. So the next day we took another ferry which took us to the island of Reshiri within less than 2 hours. The weather was nice and the temperature around 20 degrees which made the humidity easy to stand. We found a nice small, brand new hotel, with a young english speaking owner who knew all about hiking on the island. He also lent us a bike and we rented another one, and went cycling on the island's cycling path, which was perfectly asphalted, with signs telling you when it was going up and down and where to be careful about crossing cars and pedestrians. Just Miguel's bike was a bit small for him...

We also had the chance to observe several families drying seaweed by the shore, and tying them in neat packages:

The next day we went for a hike up a hill and on to a small artificial lake. The Japanese are great hikers, and even this small trail had its difficulties, being quite steep in certain places. As we hadn't done much hiking for quite some time this 3-hour walk was pretty tiring!
On the way back we took part of the cycling route to get back to the harbour. There were even bridges built only for bikes!

As a reward, we found a "foot onsen" (sort of a hot spring bath for feet) on our way back to relax our feet a bit before going to take the ferry back to Wakkanai.

Miguel jumping from a pole... crazy?

SSCN0051
Originally uploaded by eva_p

In Riga we were hosted by Inga, who invited us to join high rope climbing. One of the tasks was climbing up a pole (which was the easiest part), then standing up on top of it (which was the really difficult part). And then, just jumping off!

Kayaking

Kayaking in Poland
Originally uploaded by eva_p

Today we went kayaking near Stary Folwark in Northeastern Poland. Not on the lake, which is open only from the 1st of May (coinciding with the national long holiday weekend) but on a river. Some 15 km paddling, sometimes zigzagging because of the stream, wind and our little knowledge of kayaking, but good fun.

Adventures of a bike ride to Bratislava

Supposely there are about 65km between Vienna and Bratislava. Our bums say it was much more. Also our clocks, after 5:30 hours riding a bike not ours through the side of the Danube. We crossed a (is)land where clothes are just accessories and then a small stretch where they forgot to make an higher bridge. Pictures are around and lucky you we did not manage to take one of a jogger in that island.

Body Combat - stage I - Vienna

Today among other things I did a team-teach of Body Combat in a nice gym in Vienna (Beer's(!)) with Zuzana. We had great fun, even if unfortunately the class was not very full. I believe I was quite lucky to get accepted and I will retry to have more stages of Body Combat in other cities.

The after BodyCombat dinner (tradition in Geneva) was in a paquistanese restaurant of eat-as-you-want-pay-as-you-want (drinks excepted, but not expensive) together with Jan. Another very nice Viennese experience. Maybe Eva will write more about it.

Rest of the day activity was to re-see Hunderwasser haus, a photo museum (westlicht), coffee at muqua, lunch at nice inner garden and night drink at Flex. Once more things proposed by Spotted by Locals - this time with a link! :-)

How to get around Vienna for 1 Euro

Today we experienced the cheapest way to get around Vienna (without hurting feet): the Citybike. All you need is a credit card. You have to register and pay 1 euro once, then you can basically bike for free, provided you don't keep the same bike for more than one hour (the first hour being free). A lot of nice and secure bike paths, pretty well signposted, combined with a (free) bike map we picked up at a bicycle lobby event in town, was the perfect way to explore the city and at the same time enjoy the perfect spring weather we're having here.
Just perfect for us (who still think cars should not be necessary for anyone).

Rhine waterfalls

Visited the Rhine waterfalls, the biggest in Europe. Sixty kilometers of bike made me happy again. I was missing sports.