Product Description

South Korea is a land rich in cultural heritage and esoteric beauty that somehow remained far removed from the Asian tourist trail. Since 1998, when the Olympic Games put Seoul on the international map, the county's profile has grown, but despite this, the "Hermit Kingdom" still remains an unexplored gem.

Globe Trekker Ian Wright starts his journey in the South Korean capital, Seoul. He takes in the delights of the Gyeong-dong market and tries his hand at Tae Kwon-Do with the national team. After a night out in Seoul, Ian heads north to the North - South Korean Border to experience military power at its most dramatic at the DMZ. Ian's journey then takes him south to Jinbu, where he seeks solace and serenity with the Buddha at the Woljeongsa Temple. Next he visits the village of Hahoe and Pusan, Korea's second largest city where he attends the Jagalchi fish market. From Busan he travels to Cheju Island, famous for the Haenyo, women free-divers who hunt for fresh fish and sea life daily.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #21805 in DVD
• Released on: 2008-05-16
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Color, DVD, NTSC, Surround Sound
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 60 minutes

About the Actor
43-year-old Englishman Ian Wright has packed a great deal of travel and adventure into his life. Before presenting Globe Trekker, Ian spent three months in Guyana with Operation Ian WrightRaleigh, a Prince's Trust initiative, traveling in a self-made bamboo raft down uncharted rivers. He spent three months in Egypt, seven months traveling around India and Nepal, and six months traveling around Europe including Poland and Romania.
An accomplished artist and theatre performer, Ian has had an exhibition of his paintings at Chats Palace. He also devises plays in schools, runs drama and art workshops at the Children's House in Islington on the weekends, and works with children with behavioural difficulties in special schools. After leaving art school, his 'odd jobs' included working as a cycle courier and making and selling crafts, jewellry and homemade jams at Spitalfields Market in East London. He currently lives near here with his wife and family. To relax, Ian enjoys playing football, eating out, and going for walks in the English countryside.
Suffolk-born Ian has traveled all around the globe presenting Globe Trekker. "Comforts don't interest me," he says. "The sort of trips I go on are all about living cheap and getting dirty which is how I like it."
On three occasions, Ian has won the prestigious U.S. Cable Ace Awards for Best Magazine Host for his Morocco, Central Asia, and Ethiopia shows.
Travel philosophy
"If you spend too much time thinking about it, then you miss it! Things come. Keep looking, meet different people, and exchange ideas. There is no rule."

Customer Reviews

English humor added free to the trekking
This one hour DVD is not a real touristic guide. It is rather the trip of a typical English man in South Korea and his philandering with the country is interesting because he shows a lot, or at least some, and I guess some may say a few or even few, but then, they will be unfair, things about the country, from the DMZ to Cheju Island. This trip is interesting too because this country is holding and detaining, let's hope we can liberate that detainee soon, the key to one of the sorriest problems and heritages of the Cold War. They only detain one entrance, one rope to it, true. At least five other countries detain one rope to it too, North Korea, China, Russia, Japan, and the USA. Let's hope the next president of the US will be able and willing to solve that sorry carbuncle boiling at the surface and in the face of the earth. The very British humor of the "guide", Ian Wright, is often forgetting that his name has a "w" and has "work" as its root and meaning, and he too often righteously in his mind un-righteously in our opinion, forget to work his curiosity and mind and complain about things that are the very charm of this country, the fact that their signs are written in the local language and not English, for one. Has our Ian thought that South Koreans would be entitled to require all signs to be written in their language in England if they yielded to his demand to have all signs written in English in South Korea. But I have seen worse: some American tourists requiring English signs in the middle of the jungle of Sri Lanka, I guess because English is the only language wild elephants understand. "Beware American tourists approaching! DANGER!!". But the video gives a lot of interesting information and pictures about some aspects of South Korean life, South Korean nature and cities, mountains and harbors, and among other things some short sequences on the tradition the Buddhists keep alive of some martial arts that can be defensive for sure but are first of al a living art, an art of life, a way to turn our deep psyche and meditation alive in out physical body and social life. Martial art as a way to share and communicate. Go there and enjoy that country and concentrate on the old heritage and what the South Korean are making of it, particularly Buddhism, martial arts and Ginseng, the miracle plant that has to be the center of a ritual if you want to enjoy its beneficial and auspicious qualities.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines