With a spread of vividly colorful houses sitting atop a seaside cliff, Taegeukdo Village in Busan (aka Gamcheon Culture Village) looks more like the scenery you’d expect to find in South America or along the shores of coastal Italy even, not South Korea.

This stark contrast to the ultra sleek buildings found in Gangnam, the pale high rise industrial-esque residential apartment towers that swallow most of Seoul and even the traditional Korean Hanok homes, has made the area a popular sightseeing destination for locals and foreigners over the years.

The village, originally formed in 1918 as a community for followers of the Taegeukdo religion, and later refugees during the Korean War, derives it’s name from the ‘taegeuk’ – more commonly known to westerners as the yin and yang symbols, which represent the balance of the universe.

There are many museums to see in Korea. In fact, sometimes I feel like it would be an impossible dream to be able to see them all. All kinds of historical museums, art museums, memorials, etc. are found throughout the big cities in Korea as well as the smaller, historical regions like Gyungju, for example.

The ferry made its way out of a bustling Busan Bay on that bright Monday morning. As they passed through the heads, the waves had already begun to get bigger. Nev raised his eye brows to see if Yuki was bothered.

“You would expect the waves to get bigger as we go, wouldn’t you?” she said.

Yuki whispered that most of the Korean tourists were off on a once in a lifetime trip. They watched as many of them ate, drank and laughed voraciously. They were devouring pork filled buns, bundles of sticky rice and biscuits while drinking copious amounts of wicked Korean soju.

The Japanese staff were polite and friendly in their own detached way. Once all the tickets had been checked, they sat fully upright in the staff chairs, gazing past the faces of the passengers, towards the bow, with soft eyes.

First thing is, there are two types of categories for Koreans who’ve made Russia their home.

And when I say Russia, I actually mean the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).

One of the places in Korea that I had wanted to visit more than any other attraction was the DMZ. Korea’s Demilitarized Zone.

It’s not an easy thing to see if you don’t live in Seoul because the tours that are allowed to take you there do not run on Sundays and Mondays, as well as holidays.

So hopping a train is not too easy, especially for me as I’m in Busan on the very opposite end of the country.

There are two different tour packages in general: the 3rd Infiltration Tunnel portion, and the Joint Security Area (JSA) portion.