On the way to Cheolla, we stopped by Boryeon (where the Mud Festival takes place every year) for dinner. Really great fish and so cheap!

One of the activities you can do in Jeolla is, of course mountain-climbing. This is one of the buddhist temples we found during our course.

The temple had this immense rock on the top which looked like it was going to fall at any time.

View from the top of the mountain.

Another must-see place in Jeolla are the Boseong tea plantations (more info here). Unfortunately, it was really foggy and rainy the day we went there, but it was still worth seeing.

Funny revolving tree

We could hardly see the plantations due to the heavy fog.

When you travel in the Korean countryside, where people are not so used to see foreigners, it is not uncommon that strangers ask you to take a picture with them. Sometimes you feel like a movie star.

A bridge at the trea plantations.

This place kind of reminded me of Nami Island.

Can’t help my love for bikes

Another interesting place is this dolmen site in Hwasun. I already talked about dolmens in Korea during our trip to Ganghwa Island.

As opposed to Ganghwa where there are just a few dolmens, this park is full of them, near three hundred according to the Wikipedia.

Like I said, food is also one of the reasons to visit this province, in this restaurant we had the best Korean beef I have tried.

Main gate of the restaurant. Unfortunately I forgot its name, but it is very close to the dolmen site, and quite popular, so if you ask for a Korean beef restaurant near, they will probably send you here.

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The One Pillar Pagoda, one of the most well-known pagodas in Vietnam.

Another must-see is the mausoleum where Ho Chi Minh rests in peace (when tourists allow it).

At the Hanoi Museum, I came across these children, who given their faces when they saw a foreigner, must have come from some rural area in Vietnam.

After a long morning of walking around at over hundred Fahrenheit degrees, there is nothing like a Coke and a Vietnamese Pho. There are many Pho restaurants in Seoul, but I must say that the taste of this soup was totally different from what I am used to have in Seoul. You could tell by the taste that the ingredients are much more fresh and natural.

One of my favourite places in Hanoi is the Hoan Kiem Lake. It was quite close to the hostel I was staying at and I usally ended up my journeys having some drink by the lake. In a city full of motorcycles and hence quite polluted, this is one of the places where you can breath a fresher air.

It seems that many locals shared my opinion, as the lake shores were always crowded with people sitting enjoying the fresh breeze from the lake.

The Vietnamese people’s kindness is very well-known. This “taxi” driver did not hesitate to say hi to the camera when he realized I was taking a picture

Already in Ha-Long Bay, it is quite common for merchants to approach the boats with tourists offering fruit.

Ha-Long Bay, from the boat.

Floating houses in Ha-Long Bay.

The tour I took included a visit to the Dau Go Cave, one of the many caves in the area, located in the island with the same name.

The cave was quite impressive. It reminded me of the Caves of Nerja, near my hometown, although I would say the Dau Go is more impressive, maybe because of the lighting that they use, which helps quite a bit.

Hanoi is quite a messy city, you can feel that even on its buildings’ facades.

One of the charms of Vietnam is that some times it seems like time did not go by in this country. This picture could very well have been taken hundreds of years ago.

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The revolutionary leader Ho Chi Minh gave its name to this city, although still today its old name Saigon is more widely used among locals.

One of the first things that grab your attention in Vietnam is the amount of motorbikes everywhere.

There are almost no cars (apart from taxis), but motorbikes are omnipresent.

The Ho Chi Minh city hall. I was surprised to see many luxury shops near the city hall, specially considering that Vietnam is a communist country. Similarly to Korea nowadays, until 1975 Vietnam used to be separated into a communist North Vietnam and a capitalist (or “less communist”) South Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh (or Saigon as it was called then) used to be the capital of this South Vietnam. I guess this explains why the feeling in this city is not so communist.

Very near the city hall, another very visited spot of the city is the War Memorial Museum. In its gardens you can find war tanks, airplanes, cars, etc. all of them from the Vietnam War.

The Notre-Dame Basilica reminds visitors that this city was once French territory.

Some Vietnamese playing badminton next to an American war plane.

It is also common to find people like this woman carrying stuff to sell on the streets. By looking at her completely deformed shoulder, you could tell that this woman had been doing this job all her life.

As in most countries in South-East Asia, people spend a great amount of time in the streets enjoying the good weather, shopping, doing sports, etc.

More people selling stuff outside (they are actually sitting on the road).

In Ho Chi Minh, I had the chance to meet Oscar, friend of Alberto and also intern at the Spanish Embassy in Ho Chi Minh. Here we are relaxing after a hard day of sightseeing.

Next day we decided to visit the tunnels of Củ Chi, near Ho Chi Minh. At this place you can see how many Vietnamese lived under the ground during the Vietnam War. In this picture, a Korean boy tries to enter one of these tunnels. They made the entrance to the tunnels so tiny so that American soldiers could not find them, nor enter if they did find them. This curious Korean boy could enter quite easily though.

War left also many tanks abandoned in Vietnamese fields. After the War, people sold the pieces that they could, like this tank without wheels.

Of course the engine was also removed.

At the Củ Chi tunnels you can also see many kinds of traps that Vietnamese used against American soldiers, some of them really hurt only seeing them.

There are also some tunnels that they have made available for people to enter and experience .

What could be better than a beer and some Vietnamese food after a hard day of crawling in tunnels?

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There are not so many places in the world where you can enjoy 2.5 miles of white sand and glassy-smooth water. Undoubtedly one of the best beaches in the world.

Jairo and Alvaro. The weather was not so nice, quite cloudy most of the time and even it rained for a while. Neither this, nor the cold that had me in bed for almost two of the days could not spoil this trip

One of the few negative points of this beach is that sometimes it can be a bit stressing to see so many people around, specially when you are supposed to be getting a rest. This is specially true when you compare Boracay to other beaches I had been to in the Philippines like Camotes or Bohol.

Being Lunar New Year, it was obvious that we would see many Koreans and Chinese people in Boracay. We were not wrong. In this picture you can see a group of Koreans, hard to miss, with their sun hats and hooded jackets protecting them from sunlight.

We had some great seafood for dinner. Boracay is not as cheap as other places in the Philippines, but it’s still worth to eat some fresh seafood for quite a reasonable price.

Another advantage of Boracay is that, as opposed to other places in the Philippines, there are many things you can do at night apart from sleeping. A henna tattoo, a massage, or having some drinks in a pub are some of those. All in all, an island with an excellent nightlife.

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Map of the geographic location of the island. The white dotted line is is border with North Korea. The distance between the island and North Korean territory is about one and a half mile.

They say that around fifty percent of dolmens in the world are located in the Korean Peninsula. One of the tourist attraction of Ganghwa is this dolmen, the biggest one in Korea, measuring 2,6 x 7,1 x 5,5 meters.

This picture shows a completely deserted scene, with a fence and an empty gard post, the only South Korean defence against the communist threat.

Another cheerless scene.

This guy is one of the few soldiers we could see during the whole trip.

One of the empty guard posts, right in front of some North Korean hills.

One of the many bunkers available all over the island.

A trench with its (closed) window. The distance from here to North Korean land is only one mile and a half.

These two tanks are in exhibition at the “Peace Observatory”.

At the ground floor of the Peace Observatory there is this room with an exhibition of pictures and notes left by visitors whishing the reunification of the two Koreas. Unfortunately this reunification seems more unlikely every day…

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It seems that we happened to go during the low season, which is a bit rainy. But because of the low season, we had the chance to be a little more on ourselves (at some resorts we were the only clients), enjoying cheaper prices, and luckily enough, it only rained during some nights, although so strongly that rain even woke me up.

As soon as we landed in Cebu, we took a cab to North Bus Terminal. From there, we took a 40 minutes bus ride to Danao Port, from where we took the ferry to Camotes Islands.

Camotes Islands is a group of four islands on the east of Cebu. We were only in Pacijan Island, where among other stuff, you can visit this cave (I forgot to write down the name, I can only remember that it was at the north) which has a lake with crystal-clear water where many locals come to swim far from the burning heat in the island.

The island was quite peaceful (maybe too much), there are several resorts spread all over the coastline, but there wasn’t any area with restaurants and/or bars, so it is basically not worth it to leave your resort. Also, because of limitations on the electrical generator in the island, everyday there is a power cut from 6 to 7 PM, meaning that the whole island is completely dark during one hour.

San Miguel beer, one of the many good things that the Philippines gave us Spaniards

Jiwon, who is used to live quite far from the sea, had a great time looking for crabs.

The only thing that brought work to my mind was the constant feeling of having a Windows desktop background image in front of me.

To go back to Cebu City, we took a jeepney from Danao Port to the city (a true adventure). On the way we could see the true Cebu, which is more than wonderful beaches. I got the feeling that Cebu City is still quite far from being a developed city, and chaos was in every corner of the city.

After that, from Cebu City, a bus without air-conditioning would take us to Moalboal city. It was an over five-hour trip, during the night, and including a stop to fix some problem in the bus’ gearshift system…

When we arrived in Moalboal (after 10 PM), the first thing we did was finding a place to stay overnight. Next morning, this is what we found

Moalboal is a quite well-known city among divers. We only did some snorkeling, but still we could see some turtles like this one.

During our last night in the Philippines, already in Lapu-Lapu, near Cebu Airport, we could glaze at Philippines’ sky for the last time. Such a sky is impossible to see from Seoul.

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When you arrive in Hong Kong, the first impression you get is that of a developed city, but still with many characteristics typical of China. I thought Seoul was a city of contrasts, but in Hong Kong contrasts are much, much more exaggerated.

Hong Kong is one of the most densely populated cities in the world, and you can feel that just seeing some of its apartment complexes, true swarms of people.

Of course, one feels proud seeing Spanish brands so far away from home

The sea is one of the things I miss the most in Seoul. It definitely gives any city lots of life, and mixed with a great skyline… it’s just a perfect place to stay.

Hong Kong is also popular for its martial-arts movie stars like Bruce Lee or Jackie Chan. Here is Bruce Lee star.

The view from our hostal was probably the worst I have had to deal with, but it was cheap, the room was clean and there was hot water, so we decided to just keep the window shut.

During my trip to Hong Kong, I could meet my friend and former internship colleague Javier, also known as Chicharrero por Hong Kong. He also visited Seoul not long ago.

It seems that they also eat Jamón in Hong Kong.

Filipino women gathering on their day off. There are around 140,000 Filipinos in Hong Kong. Most of them are women who came to work as maids or nannies. On sundays, they gather together near Statue Square to socialize. We could see groups of Filipino women doing all kinds of cultural activities, traditional dancing, praying, playing cards… not a bad way to spend your day off.

Indonesians in Victoria Park. In a similar way to Filipino servants, there are also many Indonesians in Hong Kong. We could also see their gathering place, and I can assure that there were many, many of them.

But probably to see the most impressive Hong Kong, you have to see it during the night. The skyline, the lights, the life of this city made us forget how tired we were after walking around all day long.

The skyline light show takes place every night from 8 to 8:15 PM. It is recommended to get there in advance, as there are a lot of people and it is not easy to get a good place to see the show.

Street markets in Hong Kong are quite similar to those you can find in Seoul, selling all kinds of fruits, some of which I had never seen before.

Jiwon and Nuria at a street market near Central.

Hong Kong street market.

Awesome view of Hong Kong from the Victoria Peak.

View of  the Bank of China Tower at night, undoubtedly one of the most representative skyscrapers of Hong Kong.

During our last day in Hong Kong we decided to visit another attraction of Hong Kong, the Big Buddha, or Tian Tan Buddha, located in Lantau Island.

Nuria and Jiwon in the cable car that goes to the Big Buddha.

We were not very lucky, and happened to go on a very cloudy and foggy day, so we couldn’t see the Buddha from very far away, which is one of the best sceneries.

Jiwon with the Big Buddha.

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Udo Island location.

From Jeju Island there are ships going to Udo very frequently. It is possible to take your car if you rented one, but given the size of the island, I wouldn’t recommend it.

With Shienna, already in Udo.

View of the coast.

Pablo ready to rock on his quad.

The most fun way to see the island is on these quads (ATV) that you can rent for 40,000 KRW (20 thousand per person). It is also possible to rent a bike for only 5,000 KRW.

Despite being a very small island, Udo has some of the most beautiful sceneries I have seen in South Korea.

The quads made seeing the island a really fun experience. In the picture, from left to right, Luis, Manuel, Marta, and Juan Carlos.

The island’s beaches are not made of sand, but volcanic rocks like these.

Another thing that seems funny to me is that Koreans from the islands look quite different from those from the peninsula. These two brother and sister are a sample of this (don’t miss the boy’s earrings!).

Jiwon in an artificial beach made with white coral.

The owner of one of the many restaurants in the island, seeing how many people we were, and how hungry… did not hesitate to take us to his restaurant on his pick-up.

And after seeing the island, here is our reward: sea urchins and all kinds of raw fish for lunch

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Jeju has many characteristic things, nice people, fresh fish, black pig samgyeobsal, you name it. Also, on the island, a kind of Korean dialect is spoken. Even though the do use Hangeul as writing system, this language is so different from Korean that not even Koreans from the peninsula are able to understand it.

Hallasan soju (soju is the Korean national drink) is undoubtedly the best I have ever drunk. In Seoul it is quite difficult to find it, and even I heard that it is forbidden to sell it in Seoul since some local soju brands complained about it (I don’t know if that is true or not, but what is clear is that Jeju soju is quite better than that from Seoul).

The Seongsan Ilchulbong, o Sunrise Peak for foreigners. It is a crater that during sunrise is considered one of the most beautiful scenes you can see in Korea. You can see much better pictures than this one here.

From Jeju you can take this ship (you can take your car if you rent one) which in about ten minutes will take you to Udo, another island even smaller and prettier (I will talk about this island in the next post).

Jeju is also the preferred destination for many in-love and just-married Korean couples. When these couples travel, it is a must to wear these couple-t-shirts.

Jeju’s black pork is delicious! One of the things that makes it different from the samgyeopsal you can eat in Seoul is that in Jeju it is eaten with the skin.

Of course, we couldn’t leave the island without livint its nightlife. Thanks to Shienna and one of her uncles, we could go for free to one of the biggest clubs I have ever been.

In our last day in Jeju, we went to eat pheasant, another typical meal of Jeju. This is the restaurant where we had lunch. Like most restaurants in Korea, you have to eat on the floor and with your shoes off.

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The entrance to the little village.

Those houses on the background are the ones supposed to be French. Nobody actually lives there.

This is one of the nicest places. This plaza with its fountain and everything was perfect for having a cup of coffee and feeling like being in Europe for a while.

In some houses, the had also little exhibitions, like this one, devoted to French marionettes.

Would you say this is Korea?

Another view of the village in the middle of Gyeonggi-do mountains.

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