School's Out - time for some fun!

I know kids in Canada are heading back to school this week or next, but for Jin and Lili Friday was their last day of Korean school. There was a farewell cake at school, with cards and best wishes from their new "chingu's" (friends). Then, when we came to pick them up it was time for the sad final goodbyes to their teachers. They each left with a bag full of things they'd made or done at school, as well as binders full of photos of class activities that the teachers put together for them. Their teachers have been awesome! Korean school has been a great experience for them.

Deb and I also recently completed our official studies here. This past Thursday we attended our last Korean language class. Our teachers and the school staff gave us a warm farewell. They are very nice people at the Metro Academy. Although classes were sometimes diffcult and homework may have seemed onerous, it has paid off. We know a lot more Korean than when we arrived here. 고마워요!

So now that school is over it's time to explore Korea. We have only 3 weeks left before our trip ends and we have so much more to see. As we mentioned in a previous post, we have lined up a 6 day guided tour of some key sites in the southern part of the country. Our tour company is called Tour Road. I plotted the locations of our main tour sites (red stars, white labels) on a Google Earth image of South Korea and included it in this post so you can get an idea of where we'll be travelling to.


The Tour Road van picks us up on Tuesday morning. Our first stop will be at Mungyeong, which I think is a mountain pass that includes a fortress wall and gate that were part of the southernmost defences for Seoul. Then we are head to the Gyeongju area for a day and a half. This city was the capital of the Silla Dynasty (57BC to 935AD) and the area in and around Gyeonju is littered with historical artifacts, tombs, ruins and such. So much so in fact that the area is a UNESCO World Heritage site. We'll be staying at a hanok or traditional house. I think that means sleeping on floor mats. Who knows what else...

We then head to Tongyeong on the southern coast. This city has been called the "Naples of Asia". It is supposed to be very beautiful and is the gateway to a national park on the island of Geoje-do. We'll take a boat cruise around the island to see the scenic rock formations. Tongyeong was a base for the famous Admiral Yi Sun-sin who designed the "turtleship" which he used to great effect in defending Korea from the invading Japanese in the 16th century. There is apparently a replica of a turtleship in the harbour. We are also hoping to sample more fresh seafood while in Tongyeong.

We then go to Goseong to visit the Dinosaur Museum and see some real dinosaur footprints. Lili and I travelled here in the spring. Jin was sick then and couldn't come, so Lili and I will be tour guides for Jin and Deb. After that we travel to Suncheonman Bay to see the ecosytem of a large estuary. This wetland is an important stopover for large numbers of migratory birds, including some rare species. We'll have to remember the binos. Our next stop is Jirisan National Park, Korea's first national park. We'll see some spectacular mountain scenery there as well as visit an ancient Buddhist temple and stay at a hot spring. Our last day will be spent visiting a bamboo forest in Damyang and then learning all about the quinessentially Korean hot sauce, gochujang, at nearby Sunchang. Then it will be "home" to Seoul.

The trip has a bit of everything: some history, geology, dinosaurs, scenery and spice! I don't think we'll try to post during the trip, so we'll have some catching up to do when we get back. See you then!

All the best,

Derek, Deb, Jin and Lili

p.s. before we sign off, I thought I'd add a few recent photos.

Jin and Lili with a school chum, Sung Joon, who lives in our building. The girls with their teachers.

The bicycle rental place at Oksu. Riding the bikepath under the expressway at Oksu.

Our two proficient cyclists (yes those are pigeon feathers stuck in their hair).

Walking home along the Hangang Park bike/walk trail.

Guys fishing for the big one under the expressway, Hangang Park.

The Costco at Sangbong, in northeast Seoul. We just discovered this one on our subway line (at the Mangu Station). Doesn't that statue make you feel warm and fuzzy, and make you want to buy lots of stuff?

Trip to the Beach - Anmyeon Island

We finally made it to the beach!!! This past Sunday and Monday we enjoyed the warm waters of the Yellow Sea and the wide sandy beach at Kkotji on Anmyeon-do (Anmyeon Island), about 2 hours drive southwest of Seoul. We travelled there and back by express (or mostly express) bus from Seoul, enjoyed a great shellfish BBQ dinner at a beachside restaurant and stayed overnight at a nice local pension (like a bed and breakfast without the breakfast). It was great!

We've been working on this trip for some time now and it finally came together late last week. Most people we asked, including experts at the Korean Tourism Organization (KTO), told us it was too difficult for foreigners to travel to Anmyeon-do on their own. They said we would need a car and maybe a driver, and would need to speak Korean much better than we can. These surely would have made it easier for us, but with a little help and a lot of perserverance we made it happen. It went surprisingly well once we got our accommodations booked. The folks at KTO suggested searching the internet for the type, location and price range of pension/inn or motel we preferred. They would then call them to check on availability and book us a room. The hard part was that all but a few of the pension websites are in Korean. So we had to type location names (like Kkotji) and the word "pension" in Korean characters (which took a while to figure out) into Korean search engines and then figure out which ones we might like from photos and location maps on their websites. It was a bit tricky, but we did it. In the end, the KTO staff were very helpful.

We caught the first express bus of the day to Anmyeon which left the Central City Bus Terminal in Seoul at 7:20 am. This terminal is located south of the Han River behind the much larger Seoul Express Bus Terminal (pictured below). Had I been more organized we could have easily taken the subway to the station. We ended up spending less than $5 for a cab which got us to the station with plenty of time to spare. The bus tickets to Anmyeon cost us less than $10 each for adults and $5 each for the kids.

Seoul Express Bus Terminal. Our terminal, the Central City, is behind and to the right of this one. Here are Deb and the girls waiting for our bus in the terminal.

Buddy riding in the "Buddy-seat" on the bus. J&L with their stuffies on the bus.

It took us a little over 2 hours to get to the small town of Anmyeon. As we were preparing to get off the bus there, someone asked if we were going to Kkotji Beach. Turns out the bus was continuing on there, so the bus driver let us stay on for the few km drive to a parking lot across from the beach. We were on the beach by about 10 am. Wonderful!

Kkotji Beach. View to the south (left) with the Ocean Castle Resort in distance. View to northwest of "Grandmother" and "Grandfather" rocky islands at hightide.

We rented a parasol for the first day for $15 (15,000 won). More than we would have liked to spend, but after all our good luck with the bus we didn't mind splurging. After we got set up it was time for brunch on the beach and then into our bathing suits to explore the tidal pools and beach and finally go for a swim. Ahhhh, at last.....

Brunching under our expensive rented umbrella.

Playing in the waves at last!!!

Beach scene and looking for shells amongst the rocks.

Checking out the tidal pools in the rocks.

Anmyeon-do is the sixth largest island in Korea. It is separated from the Taean peninsula by a narrow waterway. The peninsula and island form a bulge out into the Yellow Sea (which separates Korea and china) midway down the western coast of Korea. They are located in the province of Chungcheongnam. The shoreline here is part of the Taean Seashore National Park. These were the main reasons we selected this area for our get-away: out of the way location and natural environment. We weren't dissappointed.

The west coast of Korea is characterized by low gradient sandy beaches, great for family swimming, shellfish finding and eating, and shell collecting. The tides here are second only to the Bay of Fundy, so with the shallow sloping beach, the high and low tide levels are about 100 m apart!

There are numerous beachs along the west side of Anmyeon-do and the Taean peninsula. The one we went to is Kkotji Beach, one of the monre popular beaches. In the middle of summer this place is probably packed with people, but this being the last week of August, most people's holidays were over so the beach was not too crowded at all, and on Monday it was almost empty. Very nice!

Here is the place we stayed, the Clear Sky Pension and a shot of the restaurants just down the beach road from our place.

At the beachside restaurant. That's a BBQ in our picnic table! Mmmmmmm. Clams, mussels, scallops, a conch-like thing, a bag of shrimp and a really big shellfish with cheese and onions on top.

Lili enjoying dinner while the sunsets. The beachside restaurant after sunset.

Day 2, heading out to look for critters on the beach. Washing our "catch" of seashells.

Gulls and an egret looking for breakfast.

Here are some of the critters we found on the beach: blue and orange starfish; weird clear sack-like things that are attached to the substrate, jellyfish stranded by the receeding tide (we saw a couple of these floating by while we were swimming - thank goodness they aren't the stinging variety), a cuttlefishbone, and lots of hermit crabs (this guy is living in a high-spired snail shell). Look closely and you can see the crab's footprints.

There were places where the beach surface appeared rough and when we looked closer we could see it was covered with small balls of sand. Upon closer inspection we saw small holes that little crabs scurried into when we got near. These balls looked to be little clumps that the crabs brought to surface as they dug their little tunnels.

Just north of the rocky islands the shore sedments become a lot muddier. People dig here for shellfish and other things to eat. There are even vendors with tables and stools set up, selling raw shellfish (from left to right green conch-like shells, red sea squirts and sea cucumbers, I think). Hmmmmm, decided to give it pass. Maybe should have tried it, but we preferred the more boring instant ramion noodles we bought at the beachside convenience store.

Lunch under our makeshift (and cheap!) shelter. The beach was almost deserted on Monday.

Time for one last dip in the sea.

Almost forgot to show you our Kkotji Beach sunset shot.

We had a super weekend! Hope we can get to see a beach on the east coast before we come home. Next week we go on our big tour of the southern part of the country. Will post some info about that before we go.

Hope you are all well. Love,

Derek, Deb, Jin and Lili