Hello again!
Having relied on social media for keeping in touch ever since we were trekking in Nepal two yerars ago, I am finding that the Meta algorithm's preference for promoted content and posts from outside my circle means I spend less and less time on Facebook and Instagram. In turn, I have wholly failed to keep my New Year's promise to be a better correspondent, and begun to doubt whether simply posting more would actually reach anyone I care about anyway.
Enter the old fashioned email update. My goal is to write weekly, 'Mail on Monday'. The title is aspirational rather than promissory; my updates will probably continue to be random; but they will be approached with a sense of structure (and a deadline, which always helps).
If the plan works, you'll be able to find this in your inbox, in your social feed, or on the web as suits you.
We are still living in and out of campervans, travelling full time. Since late 2025 that has been in New Zealand, in a little yellow van that we loved so much we put it into storage when we ran out of time in NZ, with plans to return in late 2027. But for now we are on our way back to Europe, to catch the end of this scorching hot summer everyone keeps talking about.
Korea
Gentle, welcoming, delicious, modern, clean, rainy. Deeply scarred - still - by Japanese occupation and the conflict with North Korea.
The last few weeks have been spent on an overnight stoppover in South Korea, travelling back to the UK after a long southern hemisphere stint. The stoppover evolved from breaking up the flight into a few days in Seoul, into a week, into a month. Nearing the end of that visit we have only begun to scratch the surface.
We have indulged in so much amazing food (much more of it Japanese influenced that I had expected), cycled and hiked through beautiful countrisde and some of the best maintained nature trails you'll fine anywhere. We've visited royal tombs and tranquil historic parks, and marvelled at cities that throb with seemingly unlimited energy, with six or ten stories of densely packed retail and resturaunts soaring above neon streets. Life seems so firmly established, with juggernaught momentum, it hardly seems possible that the multiple museums in both Seoul and Busan marking the horrors of Japanese occupation, and the terrible (and wrenchingly futile) Noth/South conflict that followed mark events still only at the edge of living memory.
We are currently on Jeju Island, the country's favourite beach escape and a somewhat sentimentally traditional holiday destination. Seafood and BBQ abounds, jostled into beachfront strips to overlook the heavily patrolled swimming areas. (Korea's focus on public safety is unlike anything I've seen in the world: swimming designations are fenced, isolated to shallow, sheltered coves with no swell, and patrolled by lifeguards posted both on shore and on jet-skis at the floating perimeter line. Those - of all ages - who do venture into the water wear inflatable rings or arm bands to splash around between knee and waist-deep).
Today we travelled to the eastern tip of Jeju, Seongsan. Most of our fellow tourists will get up before dawn to climb the rocky outcrop at the extreme east of the island and catch the first rays of morning. One thing I have noticed, our hosts are tenacious participators: whatever the activity of the moment, it is approached with total committment. Heavy cloud and misty rain tomorrow morning will be more than enough to keep us in bed, but I have no doubt most of the other tourists in town will be up and out in impressive numbers!
A small announcement
No, not that one!! Most of you know we have been a little slack turning our 2014 engagement into something legal. Unromantically, it has been the discovery of certain (outrageous) HMRC policies on inheritance tax that has finally motivated us. So, for those who take an interest in such things, we shall be following John and Yoko to Gibraltar later this month to do the paperwork.
Much love,
Martyn