Karen Halabi escapes the city for the peace and contemplation of a Korean tea house.

The ancient art of preparing tea is a deeply meditative process that forces one to calm down, relax and lose the worries of the day in the process of making and consuming tea.

In Korea, the art of tea preparation and the meditative ritual of the tea ceremony has been revived in the rash of tea houses that are springing up across the country.

I head to the forest outside Icheon to a Confucian retreat to don a hanbok and find out how it’s done………..

Within sixty kilometres of Seoul, a conurbation of twenty million, Stalinist troops, pumped up with fear and loathing, stand ready to shoot on sight to defend an improverished and irrational hermit kingdom. 

South Korea has created theme park attractions at key points along the Demilitarised Zone: shiny monuments and lookout towers, lush green parks and an enormous train station where no tickets are ever sold.  Yet reality sinks in when armed US troops board the bus en route to Panmunjom.... later to point out sites where their compatriots have been savagely murdered whilst performing routine patrol. 

It's become, by default, one of the world's most exclusive eco-system reserves: the 'Dee Em Zee', strewn with land mines, has for half a century been a refuge for the wild creatures of the Korean Peninsula.

Back in Seoul, on this balmy summer evening, rock concerts and food festivals are underway in parklands across the city; an occasional white-gloved policeman appears positively inoffensive.  The contrast is somewhat surreal. 

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Outside of the bustling metropolises of Seoul and Pusan one can find quaint rural villages still practising age-old agricultural traditions and religious rites. Skilled artisans and gifted musicians add colour and verve to the landscape reminding you that Korea can produce far more than just whitegoods and cell phones.

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Gyeongju (Kyongju) was the capital of the Silla dynasty which ruled over a unified Korea for hundreds of years. Across the middle of the modern city, four hours south-east of Seoul, spread the huge grassy mounds which each conceal a royal tomb.

"Show respect when leaving," reads the sign, but out in the sunshine, Tumulus Park becomes just another venue for courting couples and other Sunday strollers.

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Seoul sprawls too far to roam far and wide on foot, even though the pavements are wide and clean. Eight-lane avenues sweep past office towers, street markets straggle inconclusively for block after block. Dainty 'office ladies' clip-clop past, invariably reed-thin on their diet of rice cakes, fermented cabbage (kimchi) and char-grilled squid. Gruff bear-faced 'salarymen' (again, the Japanese term) don't quite pull off the bizoid look; the suits are stiff, not stylish.

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The gaggle of kids in their bright nylon parkas, out on their school excursion to the Korean Folk Village, has me cornered. It is evident that I am to be their English language coach for at least the next two minutes.

"Allo, allo.' They all practice the words, and I repeat them back. Clearly. Slowly. A brave one fronts up. "What is your name?" he enunciates,  with just the merest American accent. (Aha! He's been watching TV, I think). I tell him, and he and his friends giggle off into the distance, their conversational vocabulary in English exhausted.

I am one of just a few Westerners at this cultural display. These children have come to get in touch with their roots, their heritage; yet somehow I feel that the first thing they'll tell their mothers and fathers  when they get home, will be about the strange camera-laden Australian woman they spoke English to.