South Korea Autumn trip - part 2

I should have mentioned this earlier but I personally do nor believe in the current state of South and North Korea and Democratic People's Republic of Korea as different entities. To me , its all Korea. Just because there is a very gruesome militarized political border doesn't mean they are different or distinguishable. India and Pakistan are very different from China even though both nations share borders with China. The differences between them are like day & night.

Here is the remainder itinerary for our upcoming fortnight trip to South Korea but first a summary of Part 1.
We will arrive in Seoul and spend 5 nights in the upscale part of metropolitan Seoul (south for the River and in Gangnam area). We will then rent a vehicle for about 6 days to travel from Seoul to Sokcho (North East South Korea) which is only perhaps an hour's drive from the border of Democratic People's Republic of Korea or better known to the rest of the world as North Korea. From there we will take the 6 hour car ride via coastal highway to historic -museum w/o walls- Gyeongju city for 2 or 3 nights. This is a short summary of the initial trip itinerary.

Part 2:

Hopefully we will be able to fit Hahoe village into our schedule. Hahoe is a traditional and authentic Korean village. It is about an hour drive north of Gyeongju but certainly worth a visit. Ahh how I gravitate towards the less beaten path. Based on our schedule (mine actually - Rashed is not fond of adhering to schedules as opposed to me worshiping a timetable) we should be heading north via expressway to Seoul but..... I hear there's a really nice lush Bamboo Forest in the Damyang region. Damyang is very near to Gwangju. Damyang is not on our way to Seoul. Seoul is north of Gyeongju whereas Damyang is west or a west south west. I am a bamboo forest fanatic. A year ago my wife and visited super cool China for 2 weeks in October and managed to take a mini trip to mini bamboo forest. I was not satisfied and in fact yearned for more!
In any case, our final leg of the journey is Seoul where we will spend the remaining 5 days. We will stay north of the river that slices through Seoul the second time in Seoul as it is the commercial, historic and hustle&bustle area of Seoul.
But because we would have already spent 5 days in Seoul we will take the opportunity to take day trips out of Seoul. A definite day trip will be Suwon which has some delicious Korean cuisine ( bbq beef ) and Kimchi. Kimchi is basically fermented/pickled cabbage served in many forms and variations as a side dish. I guess it would be like french bread and butter to the French and hummus to the Lebanese and prawn crackers to the Singaporeans.
I am not going to mention what we will be doing in Seoul as there are tons of guides and articles on the net, plus am prolly going to update this blog with our daily activities and post pictures. I say prolly because I'm not too sure how my Blackberry Bold (model 9000) is going to work in SK. I know from dysfunctional Etisalat that they (Etisalat) have a partnership with major SKorean telecoms giant SK Telecoms so technically my BB Bold should work and technically I should be able to upload blog entries and images on the go via email but that will be confirmed when I get there or if some kind soul (not Seoul haha) confirms it.

This entry pretty much sums up the South Korea Autumn trip.