Around the World in Review, Leg 10: South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, and Philippines

From Beijing, we made a quick stop in the Chinese coastal city of Qingdao before continuing on to Seoul, South Korea. Although we would have loved to spend more time in Seoul, we were eager to hop on the train and travel to Daegu where our son, Ben, was currently studying.

The visit with Ben was full of good food and lots of laughter. We met his host family and spent a couple of days in Daegu, hanging out and singing bad karaoke before flying on to Osaka, Japan.

Japan was currently Angela’s number one place to visit, and she was most interested in seeing Kyoto. So we blocked off nearly a week for the ancient city and strolled throughout the quaint back alleys and along the beautiful riverfront. We even managed to include a painting lesson that resulted in my favorite postcard to Wanda. From Kyoto, we took the efficient high-speed train to Hiroshima and then on to Fukuoka, completing a whirlwind tour of the country and necessitating a return trip in the near future.

From Japan, Angela and I flew into Taipei, Taiwan, where we stayed at an unusually-named hostel and ate some amazing street food.

Then it was on to Cebu City in the Philippines and another, longer reunion with Ben who had completed his studies in South Korea by this time. He flew directly to Cebu to meet us for a week of scuba diving, canyoneering, and street-food sampling before needing to fly back to the States.

Previous: Leg 09: Sri Lanka, Hong Kong, Macau, and China

Next: Leg 11: Singapore, Cambodia, and Sumatra