Sacheon

This might be, unexpectedly, the most 'off the beaten track' place we've visited so far. Sacheon is a town on Korea's south coast, NOT a tourist destination, and most South Koreans haven't even heard of it. Juhee, Dan's ex-colleague who we were coming to visit, warned us that "there's nothing here". But the promise of an actual house and home-cooked dinner was so enticing, we wrangled our schedule to spend a weekend here.

The truth is, Sacheon is actually really lovely, maybe even more so because it's not on the tourist trail. Juhee and Jon made us feel very welcome, and cooked an amazing Korean dinner (we didn't have to use Google translate on a menu to check if it had meat—a luxury!). Jon explained how Juhee manages to cook such tasty food: by giving it a little pep talk while she's preparing it. "You're going to be a good meal, yes you are." She, and we, used a similar tone on Latte, a neighbour's enthusiastic corgi-cross. (But we didn't eat him).

On Saturday we hiked up Geumsan mountain in the local Hallyeohaesang National Park, chilled out on the beach to the relaxing sounds of outdoor karaoke for Korean pensioners, and ate extremely juicy shrimp burgers. Then for dinner, we had a Korean BBQ with eel meat instead of beef.

Juhee and Jon were away for a wedding on Sunday, giving us perhaps the best treat of the whole weekend: a day alone in a quiet house to just relax and listen to the rain. Lying on a sofa. Watching TV. Getting snacks from the fridge. Eating pot noodle for dinner. It's surprising how much we've missed this stuff... although we'll go back to taking it for granted within about two weeks of getting back to the UK of course!

Not too many photos here as we've mostly just been relaxing with friends. Next stop, the 'Korean Hawaii'...Read more