Bob Constanduros writes:

I've never been to Korea before, so let's start there. I landed at Incheon, which is the main airport for Seoul and it was… well, much like any other airport. I had to meet up with the people who had arranged a bus for some German TV people plus other members of the media and that seemed to work OK, and off we set in a very comfortable bus, complete with coffee machine.

We had a 400 km ride down the west side of the country, which is dotted with estuaries and inlets, so lots of mudflats and bridges, some quite spectacular. Traffic was medium, the bus was almost as quick as anything else on the road and traffic got lighter and lighter. As a country, it is a bit like Japan, to be honest, but much less intense. In Japan, you get the feeling that the country is seriously over-populated, and every tiny inch of the land has to be used. It's not quite that serious here in Korea.

It took about four hours in the bus, we stopped twice for 'comfort stops' and snacks which were just about recognisable (fried chicken in a tub, slightly sweet very thin French fries, coke, familiar Japanese drinks). Then we arrived at Mokpo which is the nearest city/town to the circuit - about 30 minutes away. Our Seoul-based bus driver did a lot of sighing and talking to himself as he tried to find various motels for his passengers, but after about 90 minutes, had dropped most of them off except me.

Motels have an odd reputation in some countries of the world; in Brazil, for instance, you rent them by the hour. Similar situation here, it seems. One French journalist complains of lots of condoms but no wi-fi, which is not much good for a journalist. One team, it's rumoured, have already moved out of their rooms in protest at what they find in them when they return after a day at the track but they're now two and a half hours away.

I am staying at what seems to be a women's refuge or something. It's called Women's Plaza, and while us foreigners are there, it's being run by an 11-year old because he speaks better English than anyone else. My room is very comfortable, has no chairs, table or desk, somewhat aggressive air conditioning (major cold potential and stiff necks), roomy, endless TV channels, paper curtains, and a bright light which tells me where the emergency exit is and keeps me awake.

However, we're in the middle of nowhere with no food nor drink, so we took a brief and quite cheap taxi-ride into town on Wednesday night to find the essentials. We had a little wander along what turns out to be the sea front and found a couple of good restaurants, one of which was the Boticelli - sort of Korean Italian which was quite reasonably priced, not overly expensive but one had to be careful in one's choice of wines as Koreans seem to like their wine sweet.

And so to Thursday and discovering the circuit. In a number of countries the organisers lay on a shuttle bus to the circuit; ours arrived on time and took us across a long bridge and then past ship-building yards and industry on the way to the circuit on what appears to be a peninsular. Driving into the circuit itself, we passed several grandstands still having their seats fitted, but as a whole, the circuit is already impressive.

In the hazy sun that we've had since I arrived, I walked the circuit this morning and what is interesting is that there are several different characters to the circuit. The first part is relatively open, starting with the tight left-handed first corner which opens up through turn two onto the long, one kilometre plus straight which is lined with walls. This is going to be quick, but there's not a huge run-off at the end of this straight which culminates in a tight right-hander, said to be the slowest corner on the circuit.

There is then another straight past the support race paddock - quite a facility in its own right - before a twisty little stadium section of turns four, five and six- except some of the grandstands here are awaiting seats. There's a hard left for turn four, followed downhill by hard right and then uphill out of a hard left - essentially a left handed hairpin split by a little right hander.

Then it's still uphill, over a brow at turn seven, keeping to the left and then down to eight, a quick left hander into the left handed turn nine and then hard on the brakes for the slower right at turn ten. There's a short straight to what should be an interesting turn eleven. It's a double apex left but where you drift wide between apices, the camber flattens slightly which should make it tricky. You then go to turn twelve, the first of the twisty combination of corners back to the pits, none of which has grandstands. The final section is boundaried by walls again - the marina should be to the right, and the high rise blocks to the left - so again, it has an interesting character.

That, then, is a lap of the circuit. It's said that 100,000 are coming to the circuit on Sunday - and they all have to cross that bridge to get here which should be interesting. The organisation certainly isn't perfect yet, but it's not bad. Bernie's here to see how it all pans out. The facilities are remarkable really when you think what has had to be done in a relatively short space of time in rural area. The circuit and the race have great potential; we shall see!