Thu 20 Oct 2022, Day 38/61, 2/2. I visited the National Assembly and was shown inside the Chamber. The Assembly has 300 seats, with 253 constituency seats and 47 proportional representation seats. It introduced electronic voting in 2005.

Thu 20 Oct 2022, Day 38/61, 1/2. The presidential election earlier this year produced a conservative (People Power Party) President for 5 years. But the National Assembly elected in 2020 – for 4 years – has a liberal (Democratic Party) majority.

Thu 20 Oct 2022, Day 38/61, 2/2. In 1948 the Blue House became the official residence of the 1st elected President, Syngman Rhee, 이승만. But in May this year the new President, Yoon Suk-yeol, 윤석열, chose somewhere else & opened the Blue House to the public.

Thu 20 Oct 2022, Day 38/61, 1/2. The Blue House (청와대, Cheong Wa Dae) was the official residence of the South Korean President. Built by the Japanese in 1939 as the Governor General’s residence, later used by the Commander of the US Military Government.

Wed 19 Oct 2022, Day 37/61. I’m glad to have seen Jeju as it’s so different from anything else I’ve experienced in South Korea. But it was a mixed experience: some parts of the island reminded me why we avoid many English seaside resorts when we’re on holiday.

Tue 18 Oct 2022, Day 36/61. On Tuesday we travelled across the island to the south-east tip of Jeju and walked around Jeju Folk Village, an impressive & convincing reconstruction of village life around 1890.

Mon 17 Oct 2022, Day 35/61. We visited Samseonghyeol, 삼성혈 , the legendary cradle of Jeju’s original Tamna Kingdom, where the kingdom’s first rulers, three demi-gods, emerged from these very holes in the ground around 2400 BC.

Sun 16 Oct 2022, Day 34/61, 2/2. Jeju’s volcano, Hallasan, 한라산, is the highest mountain in South Korea. In 1948 an uprising led to the death of up to 10% of the population under the government of Syngman Rhee. It’s South Korea’s only self-governing province.

Sun 16 Oct 2022, Day 34/61, 1/2. On Sunday we flew to the Korean sub-tropical island of Jeju, 제주, a favourite holiday destination for South Koreans. The flight route between Seoul & Jeju is the busiest in the world, with 1.4 million seats this month.

Map of South Korea & Jeju by Maproom based on work by Kokiri. licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en