My first time sharing impressions of a trip online. Close to two weeks in South Korea, working through the noise of Seoul, the mountains around Sokcho, the old Silla capital at Gyeongju, and the coast at Busan.

Seoul

We began in Seoul, on foot. The days drifted between old and new: quiet palace courtyards one minute, glass towers crowding overhead the next.

Seoul constantly changes: food stalls steaming on the pavement, the old industrial area of Seongsu and the gloss of Gangnam, new towers all trying to out-design each other.

Sokcho

From Seoul we took the express bus east to Sokcho, out on the coast. One day went to Seoraksan National Park, where we rode the cable car up the ridge until the temperature dropped and the whole valley opened up underneath us.

Back at the harbour, the fish market was in full swing. Tanks of live crab and squid, and the morning's catch heaped on ice wherever you looked.

Sokcho happens to be close to the North Korean border, and its food carries that history. A lot of the local dishes were brought south by refugees during the war, and they settled here and never left.

Gyeongju

We then travelled further south on the KTX train to Gyeongju. The city was the capital of the Silla kingdom a thousand years ago and, without question, my favourite stop. The whole city just moves at a gentler pace. Grass-covered royal tombs and old temples sit on ordinary street corners as if it's nothing. We ended up eating our best meals of the trip here.

Cute is everywhere you look in Korea.

We also happened to be in Korea for Buddha's birthday, and the temples had gone all out with lotus lanterns. Whole canopies of them strung overhead, each with a paper wish knotted underneath.

Busan

Finally we headed towards Busan for the last few days, back by the sea, and let the pace fall away. Late mornings, long walks along the front. The one thing we made the effort for was Haedong Yonggungsa, a temple perched out on the rocks with the surf breaking right beneath it.

Busan never quite settles into one thing. There are mountain temples on one side and big city beaches like Gwangalli and Haeundae on the other, and the whole place feels less like one city than several stitched together.

Korea kept turning up new sides faster than we could keep up. We saw only a slice of it, and that's reason enough for me to go back.