🇰🇷 Exploring Korea Beyond the Big Cities

The journey

• The travelers arrive in South Korea by ferry from Japan and set out to explore small coastal towns and mountain communities, hoping to see everyday life beyond Seoul and other famous destinations.
• They begin in Gampo, a small fishing town that feels very different from the Korea usually seen in media.
• Communication is often difficult, so they rely on simple Korean phrases, gestures, and translation.

Life in the fishing towns

• The travelers meet local residents and fishing workers, including people from Myanmar and Indonesia.
• They note that foreign workers help sustain local industries as South Korea’s population declines and younger people move to larger cities.
• A local student says they want to leave for a big city because their hometown feels too small.
• Despite initial expectations from a previous visit, the travelers find people in these towns warm, friendly, and welcoming.

Road trip and history

• They continue north in a small rental car, taking slower, winding roads to see the countryside. The drive takes much longer than expected.
• They stop at a memorial site featuring a replica of a South Korean warship used during the Korean War as a diversion during the Inchon landings. The ship ran aground during a typhoon; the soldiers who landed nearby fought for days, and more than 130 died. The travelers describe it as a tragic episode in the war.

An unexpected stay and a crab-filled town 🦀

• They accidentally book a love motel, which turns out to be a humorous surprise.
• The town they visit—whose name they never establish—is full of crab restaurants and seafood stalls. The residents are cheerful and helpful, even when language makes conversations challenging.
• Because it is October, outside the local crab season, much of the crab is imported from northern areas near Kamchatka and Vladivostok. The local season is described as running roughly from November to June.
• They share a large seafood meal, including crab and other dishes, and end the evening impressed by the town, its food, and its people.

Other details

• The video includes a sponsorship for HolaFly’s Asia eSIM, highlighting its unlimited data, usefulness for maps, translation, food searches, and hotel bookings, plus a monthly 1 GB global backup-data perk while the eSIM remains installed.
• Overall: The trip presents a welcoming, lively side of rural coastal Korea, shaped by fishing, seafood, international workers, and a slower pace of life.