Round the World Trip

[Viq]

Flying between Tokyo and Seoul is pretty cheap, and only takes a couple hours. If you are willing to devote a couple days to Korea, there are lots of great places you could go aside from the aforementioned places in Seoul. Gyoungju is the old capital of the country during the Shilla Dynasty, and takes about an hour and a half from Seoul via bullet train. Lots of cool historical stuff like Chumseungdae, the old kings burial ground (forgot the name), and Bulguksa, an massive old Buddhist temple with lots of great architecture and landscape. There's also Solak-san in the northeastern part of the country. It's a large mountain out in the country, and is a fantastic place to do some hiking any time of year. Of course, there's lots more too, but these are what I would consider the "must see" places if you only have a day or two.

[noblemountain]

There is an ongoing joke with my buddies about my iron stomach. I absolutely LOVE street food wherever I travel. I try and eat everything I can get my hands on from vendors and small local eateries. I bathed in the Ganges while in India with a friend of mine...he got giardia and I was perfectly fine. I have been traveling to Mongolia and China since I was 13 so I think I've built up a good immune system through my travels.

edit: Kiev is also a really interesting place with some neat history and architecture. It has a ton of museums and old soviet monuments that are really cool.