First, some practicalities. If you have the choice (we didn't), avoid August. Places tend to be busy (not entirely a negative from the point of view of people-watching, as the vast majority of tourists are locals). But more significant drawbacks are the accommodation prices (higher) and the temperatures (it's been insanely HOT -- really, we're tropics-proof, and we found it HOT).

Another negative is that Korea is generally not a cheap destination. Transport is very good value, but food and accommodation will hit your Malaysia-accustomed pocket quite badly.

On the positive side, South Korea is an easy place to travel in. Public transport is absolutely fantastic (and offers great insights into the culture and demographics of the country).



Connectivity is topnotch (so many places have free and quick wifi). Information is plentiful.

It helps to learn a little Hangeul, but this is not too difficult, and as Koreanclass101.com's catchphrase goes: "You'll be surprised how far a little Korean can go." I was surprised.

For what it's worth, we divided our 13-day trip into three nights in Seoul, Jeonju, Gwangju, and Seogwipo (Jeju) respectively. Apart from wanting to stay longer everywhere (a common fault with me), I was pretty happy that we'd had a good and varied initial taste of Korea.

So, the Top Ten (excluding food, which is here):

1. Tea. Fruit tea, to be precise (although the green tea was lovely, and so was the lotus leaf tea). I lead with this because it was the first real surprise. Ginger, quince, green plum, red date, Korean raspberry, or -- perhaps my favourite -- omija (the five flavours fruit, which makes a tea reminiscent of port). Served in bowls, pitchers, or plain old glasses. In lovingly decorated cafes or in railway station self-serves. With little biscuits or without. With little bits of preserved fruit at the bottom or without. With or without the ritual three pinenuts. Hot or iced, depending on which is better for each individual tea (omija is best cold, date is best hot...). Whatever the permutation, it's been a wonderful voyage of discovery.



2. Pink and green. Whether it's a palace, a gatehouse, a school, or a temple, pink and green is always appropriate.











3. Hanok traditional houses. We encountered these in the Bukchon area of Seoul, and again, massively, in Jeonju, where we even stayed in one. Patches of hanok punctuate the countryside or the modern areas of town. They're very pretty, with their courtyard arrangement and their curved, tiled roofs. And this picturesque quality means these areas really draw the crowds during the summer... In Jeonju, for example, it is fashionable for young people (mostly but not exclusively women) to hire traditional costume, and pose for photos in pretty places. Hanok houses are also apparently very easy on the environment. Ours had red clay walls, papered around the lower part, and a soybean-oiled paper floor, which can be heated in the winter. Despite the massive summer heat, the room stayed surprisingly cool during the day, and although we used the aircon when we were at home, we didn't have to set it too ferociously. The red clay is also reputed to have many health-giving properties. You sleep on the floor in these places, of course, and in our hanok there was no furniture except a fridge and a little corner table. Very much enjoyed the experience, but at the end of the day, we are not floor-dwellers...





4. Hangeul. As noted, for practical purposes it really is worth learning the letters... But there's also a fascinating history to Hangeul, which has for most of its existence played second fiddle to Hanja, or Chinese-style characters. Phonetic Hangeul is wonderfully practical, but the prestige of Hanja lingered. So, way back when, poems and administrative procedures continued to be written in Chinese-style characters, while instructions to the populace on how to fight the Japanese and deal with battle wounds (for example) were written in Hangeul... The calligraphy gallery we visited in Jeonju overwhelmingly displayed Chinese-character pieces. Although it might not have the cachet of classic Chinese calligraphy, however, there's plenty you can artistically do with Hangeul.



5. Mountains, forests, temples. Korea is ridiculously mountainous, and the tumbly spines are largely covered with forest. There's already an exotic flavour about the combination of mountains, pine, maple, and bamboo (and on the lower ground, paddy-fields). Add in a temple or a fort, and you get quintessential Northeast Asia.









6. History. You can't get away from the past in Korea... From Bronze Age dolmens in Gochang to the bloody beginnings of democracy in Gwangju, it's all there, reaching out to you. Given its stupendous popularity as the setting for Korean historical dramas, it was particularly interesting to track remnants of the Chosun dynasty in Jeonju (its birthplace), Seoul, and Gochang.







7. Baseball! I watched my first game at Gwangju, where the local pro team, the KIA Tigers, were playing KT Wiz. You buy a big box of fried chicken, you buy some tickets, and you go in and get entertained. There's the game itself, of course. But there are also plenty of funny little segments, like the guys' limbo competition in the little pool, and "kiss time", where the camera focuses on two random people and they are supposed to kiss (some do, some don't). And then there's the crowd. Pumped up by a chief orchestrator, a couple of tiger figures (who must have been melting inside those tiger heads), and a team of shorts-clad cheerleaders, they roared, beat their thunder-sticks, and belted out an entire repertoire of choruses. Each player, including the American, has his own jingle: "We love you, Brett Pill, na na na NA na na na." Best of all, the home team won. Nigel bought a Tigers cap to celebrate.



8. Volcanic stuff on Jeju. Songsan-ilchulbong is a vegetation-filled crater. My experience of climbing it was clouded by falling over a loose rock on the way up, splitting my lip, and breaking a tooth. And you probably need to see it from the air to thoroughly appreciate it. Nevertheless, you shouldn't miss this plantpot-like volcano. Manjanggul, another hour or so further on the bus, is an enormous lava tube, and there really can't be many places in the world where you can walk an entire kilometre along one of these... The whole of the eastern side of Jeju is crisscrossed by walls made of black volcanic stone.





9. The helpfulness of Koreans. They are not all over you, but they are always there for you. If you have a problem, and ask for help, they will not rest until they have found you a solution. Whether it was trying to find the electronics mall in Gwangju or trying to get my broken tooth sorted out, there were always people on hand who turned up trumps.

10. Insects. They don't often get a place in Prudence's Top Tens, but I have to mention the wonderful butterflies and the ubiquitous dragonflies. In fact, the latter are part of Korean landscapes as far as I'm concerned, and their flitter-flutter lent a lightness to many a temple or mountain scene. Also worthy of note are the cicadas, whose repertoire seemed more extensive than anywhere else we've visited. Often we would stand still in a forest, tune our ears to the twitter of birds -- and find it was actually cicadas. Our favourites were the ones that sounded like they were revving up -- ning, ning, ning, ning, ning -- and then tailing off in a discomfited diminuendo: ni-i-i-i-ng. Happy days...