A reet nice photo of a reet nice bridge.


Flipping freezing, checking out some Persimmon trees.


This doesn't adequately capture how cold this place was...






Korea wins at colours.


The oh-so underwhelming Metasequoia Path

A few weeks ago I went on the last of this year’s ‘Cultural Experience’ adventures, to Jeonju and Gwangju. I won’t be writing too much about it because it’s Friday afternoon and I’m in a near catatonic state but I shall offer some key points about my weekend, along with handy bullet-points if I can work out how to do them:

- It is abso-bloody-lutely freezing in Jeonju and Gwangju. Seriously, seriously cold. I spent most of my weekend with my scarf wrapped around my face like a ninja, regretting my choice to purchase fingerless gloves. 

- The area we went to is largely famous for bamboo and paper. An info pack, a short lecture, 2 museums, an unexpectedly dramatic documentary and a hands-on experience later I can tell you with some authority that bamboo and paper is not interesting in the slightest. Sorry Korea, but it’s true. 

- Korean food is delicious, and even more so when it’s free. During the course of the 2 day trip I ate raw beef bibimbap, meat/seafood shabu shabu, a spectacularly large and diverse hotel breakfast and beefy rice steamed in a bamboo pipe thing. Food was, without doubt, the highlight of this weekend. Along with…

- The hotel. Oh dear god, the hotel. After 9 months of living in a one-room apartment with a bathroom so cold that my shampoo freezes, the luxury offered by the Holiday Inn Gwanju almost made me weep with joy. A rain shower, a mother-flipping rain shower that plummeted boiling water over my head! A heating system so efficient that we had to turn it down! Fluffy robes! A big TV showing Drive! Ryan Gosling’s beautiful face! What a night. 

- Some of Korea’s ‘must see’ attractions are a little bit of a let down. Nothing against the place of course, I love Korea and some of the things I’ve seen have been really, really lovely. The ‘Metasequoia Path’, whilst sounding spectacular, was not really one of them. Perhaps it was the season, or perhaps the unfortunate weather, or perhaps it was the fact that a row of big trees isn’t a huge draw when you live in a country full of large trees…but I just wasn’t feeling it. I took a photo though, because the man told me to and I didn’t want to offend him. 

- ‘The King’s Speech’ (which we watched on our super pimpy disco bus on the way home) is really excellent and made me feel quite proud to be English.

Hurrah for Cultural Experience Adventures!