A day-by-day description of our holiday

Got up mighty early to catch the bus to the airport and flew from Busan to Seoul, and then to Bangkok, Thailand, arriving about 2pm.
We took a four-hour journey east on a public bus and then a boat over to Koh Samet, arriving so tired and late into the evening that we went straight to bed.

Relaxed on the beach and played in the warm sea.

After spending half the day on the beach, we backtracked to Bangkok and stayed near Kao Sahn Rd.
By arriving late and leaving early next morning, we missed most of the street market where we'd intended to do some big shopping!

Flew to London. (What a long flight!)
We went straight over to Catrin and James' house in Greenwich, where we stayed the next four nights.

Walking around London, we saw St. Paul's Cathedral, waled the 311 steps up The Monument, walked around the Tower of London, over Tower Bridge and along the south bank past the Tate Modern and London Eye (Millenium Wheel), among other things, to Westminster Bridge.
From there, we took the Underground to meet Charlotte for drinks at a pub near Baker St.

A morning walk to Hyde Park from Cannon St. station took us through Trafalgar Square, up The Mall, past Buckingham Palace and alongside Green Park.
At Hyde Park we watched the Queen open the Diana Princess of Wales Memorial Fountain and then got some photos as she and the Duke of Edinburgh and Princes Charles, William and Harry met the crowds.
We walked back to Buckingham Palace and then took a look around Winston Churchill's underground War Cabinet rooms beneath the Treasury.
Took some photos of Downing St. and then Westminster Palace, where we went inside to see the Houses of Parliament (House of Commons and House of Lords).
Next, we took the Underground to get to Regent St., where we watched Formula 1 racing cars speeding around the streets, before meeting Nigel and John for a few drinks at a nearby pub.

Having got in quite late and not so sober last night, we took it easy today.
We headed to the British Museum, where we spent the whole afternoon.
In the evening we met up with Catrin and James and were joined by Siân for a drink and then a great pub supper.

We stayed in Greenwich, walking around the huge park and then inside the Greenwich Observatory, where the GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) line runs through and you can stand on both eastern and western hemispheres together.
We then had fish and chips in a small cafe before walking up to the ghostly deserted Millenium Dome.
We missed the heavy rain while we were underground going to the airport, but it had been heavy enough to cause delays and we were a couple of hours late taking off for Manchester, where my mum and sister were waiting.

We stayed with my sister, Elinor, and today went to the Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod.
Here we met musicians and dancers from every corner of the world (USA, Canada, Iceland, Ireland, England, Lithuania, Slovakia, Ukraine, Romania, Taiwan, Japan, Philippines and more), all dressed in their traditional clothes.
We watched some performances and did a few other things in the various stalls around the field.
In Llangollen, we had lunch and a few beers later in the day before visiting my Auntie Doris and her family.
Later in the evening we met with Alys and Sioned at a country pub down the road from where I live.

The weather's been dry but cloudy and today we stayed home and walked around the farmyard and fields before going back to Llangollen to see the Choir of the World competition in the evening.
We were entertained by dancers from the Ukraine, Turkey and Romania between competition performances of the Songs from the Shows contest and then, the climax of the week-long festival, Choir of the World.
Winners from the other choir contests compete for the title and, having been allowed for the first time, a barber shop choir (from England) won the contest after winning over the home crowd with an amusing and popular song about Wales and the Welsh.

We stayed home in the morning and had Sunday roast lunch before driving down the Vale of Clwyd to the North Wales coast.
Our first stop was at Rhuddlan Castle, before continuing to Rhyl to make the best of the cloudy weather and head to the Sun Centre for some artificial tropical swimming. The Sun Centre was closed so we drove further up the coast, eventually turning inland after Abergele and heading over mountains to the Conwy Valley.
As we'd gone further and further down narrow country lanes we'd become quite a distance from home and stuck to the main roads driving home towards Corwen and to visit my grandmother near Bryneglwys.
After a couple of cups of tea there, it was time to go home to bed.

Back toward the coast today, first stopping at Bodelwyddan Castle - not the open-air ruin that is most of Wales' remaining Castles. The building has been lived and served as a school until recently decades and is now an interesting place to look around with it's collection of National Gallery portraits and gardens.
Conwy Castle is one of my favorite Welsh castles and was where we explored this afternoon before driving down the Conwy Valley to Betws y Coed.
We walked around the picturesque Snowdonia town before driving home for a late dinner.

The computer at home at been blown by a power surge so today I started building a new computer for my parents, travelling to Wrexham and back over the next few days for the various components. We looked around a few shops today and not much else.
Since the weather was warmer and driere, HJ decided she wanted to camp out in the fields again and so we put up the tent in one of the farm's fields and went into nearby Rhuthun for a beer. We saw Alun, a cousin of mine, at the pub.

We checked out in the morning and went to pass the time laying on the grass in the warm sun under the towering Eiffel Tower before the long journey home began.
Knowing we had a plane to catch, I told HJ not to be long in fetching us a sandwich or something for lunch while I stayed with our luggage. She casually crossed the Seine, got on a bus to the Louvre, made her way to a restaurant we'd twice eaten at the past few days, and ordered our lunch - a nice surprise for me. Only she'd been gone almost two hours and I'd been considering (for the second time in a few days) telling her parents I'd lost their daughter.
After eating the sandwich in a pleasing way so as not to trigger an argument, we hurriedly headed for the airport, taking busses as our Metro tickets had expired. Only the bus map wasn't entirely clear on just one crucial point and, having travelled a few busses, passed a lot of time, and covered almost no ground, we opted to pay the Metro to save us. It almost did. We got to the flight check in desk just 8 minutes after it closed.
So, having got on the next flight, we stayed at Nigel and Tom's house in London.

At about the time we were scheduled to land at Korea's Gimhae Airport, we were barely arriving Thailand.
We had booked our flights such that we'd have half a day to shop in Bangkok, but now things were different. It was early in the morning and felt like it was bedtime. I was in no shape to haul our luggage downtown, wind down, shop and then have to get back into the stressful "travel mode" the next day.
There was a flight leaving for Seoul in about three hours and we were on it. We were also on our way to Hong Kong.
Just a quick stop before continuing to Korea's capital by the evening, from where we had to take a bus back to Changwon, arriving at my apartment shortly after 3am, Friday.