Touring Korea

Hi all!

We've had an adventurous couple of weeks here. So busy in fact, that we are only now able to finally start blogging about it. Still have lots of photos to go through, so will focus on the highlights for this blog and add more in future blogs.

Over the past couple of weeks we toured southern Korea for 6 days, enjoyed a few days on the east coast at Sokcho and Seoraksan National Park, and just this past weekend travelled to the Hahoe Folk Village near Andong to experience life in old Korea. We are currently spending our last week here doing last minute shopping and a little sightseeing in Seoul, as well as packing (big job!) and saying our goodbyes.

Our grand 6 day tour was mostly grand, but there were a few glitches. The sights we saw were amazing! The glitches along the way were mostly due to our tour guide. We knew there would be trouble when we got lost leaving Seoul! This was a recurring theme all through the trip. She was constantly stopping to ask people for directions. A little disconcerting to say the least! They have a pretty sophisticated GPS navigation system here that most people use....but not our tour guide. In addition to the regular sightseeing adventures, we experienced our first (and hopefully last!) Korean car accident. That wasn't our guide's fault...it was the bus that hit us.....more about that later (no one got hurt). We were also disappointed with a couple of our accommodations on the tour - sleeping on the floor Korean style is fun, but dirty floors and bathrooms are not. All that said, our guide did take us to some neat places and explained a lot about Korean food and culture. Enough complaining, let's show you some photos of our adventure.

As mentioned in our last post our tour took us from Seoul, southeast to Mungyeong and down to the ancient capital of Gyeonju, then to Tongyeong on the south coast, over to the Dinosaur Museum and tracks west of Goseong, then across to Suncheonman Bay, northwest to Jirisan National Park and finally to the bamboo forest at Damyang. Check out the map in our last post (click on it to make it bigger).

Here we are underway. We traveled by van.

Lili snapped this shot of me checking out a roadmap (in Korean, so I was just a lost as our driver!). We found some swings at our first highway stop so our trip was off to a good start!

Our first stop was Mungyeong, an important mountain pass on an old road between Seoul and southern Korea. We walked up the trail to see the first of 3 gates that guard the pass and a village created for filming historical TV shows and movies. The scenery here is very nice.

Here is map of the pass that shows numerous hiking trails in the surrounding mountains. Hiking is very popular in Korea. We also visited a couple of small museums here. One had this glass floor over a large satellite image and map of the region.

While hiking around here we found apple trees with almost ripe fruit and a grove of chestnut trees. Fun, but prickly!

The museums had lots of information on Joseon life, including stories of people travelling to Seoul to write government exams, the only way to get a government job. The successful applicants returned home in large celebratory entourages (see model below).

Here is a model of a Joseon school, which was only for boys. The tradtional Korean stovepipe hats were made of horsetail hairs.

We then drove about 3 hours to the Yangdong Folk Village, near Pohang on the southeast coast of Korea. The sun was setting fast when we arrived. We had a quick walk around and loked in at one house. Unfortunately we had taken too long at Mungyeong to really see much of anything at Yangdong.

We pushed on to Gyeongju just 30 minutes or so down the road. After a good "sambap" dinner (basically eating rice and side dishes in leaves of letuce and other plants) in town (see photo below, beside our breakfast photo), we finally arrived at our guesthouse in a small village at the foot of Namsan mountain (same name as the much larger hill in Seoul). We slept on thin matteresses on the floor, Korean style. It was actually very comfortable, although we were very tired so could have slept anywhere.

The guesthouse yard was a beautiful garden. Jin and I walked around the surrounding village and investigated a rice field close up. After breakfast (yogurt, tofu, fruit, fried ham/spam, buns and instant coffee), we enjoyed a tea ceremony in the garden and then struck out to explore Gyeongju.

Our first stop was the Silla Arts and Science Museum. Gyeongju was the capital of the Silla Kingdom from 57 BC to 935 AD. Much of what is known about Gyeongju during this time was gleaned from documents and maps prepared at the time by visiting Chinese scholars. Below right is a map of the city, estimated to have had 1,000,000 inhabitants, drawn from these historical sources.

One of the unique Silla ruins is the Cheomseongdae Tower, thought to be an astronomical observatory. In the below left photo a model of this tower shows its inner structure. Jin is standing beside a model of one of the famous Silla tombs with gold and jade relics.

One of the other main sights in this area is Seokguram Grotto and Bulguksa Buddhist Temple. Buddhism took hold in Korea during the Silla Dynasty, so their histories are inexirably linked. This model shows how the dome over Buddha's statue was constructed. We will show you the real thing a little later.

Near this museum is the Folk Arts Village, a collection of shops selling ceramics, minerals (including Korea's national mineral amythest...just like Ontario!) and other Korean souvenirs.

We then drove up the hill to one of the most famous temples in Korea, Bulguksa. It is beautiful and much photographed. Here are just a couple of ours. In the second one Jin and Lili are fascinated by the chanting of a monk in one of the temples.

On the other side of the mountain, near its top, is Seokguram. There is a temple and above it the grass-covered dome over the grotto. Unfortunately photography is not allowed within the grotto. The view east to the sea was nice though.

Our accident happened on the way down from Seoguram (bad kharma?!). Our van was negotiating a hairpin turn (we were on the inside) as a bus swung around the outside of the curve on his way up the hill. The bus cut the corner too sharp and our driver's side nose slid along the side of the bus. No one was hurt, it all happened in "slow-mo". But we spent the next hour parked on the hairpin turn while our guide and the bus driver talked with their respecative insurance companies to sort out who was paying for what. I went up the road a little to warn oncoming drivers to slow down. Once the negotiating was done, we wired up our bumper and drove off to our next stop. Our guide dropped us off at the Gyeongju National Museum while she dropped the van off for repairs and arranged a rental for the rest of our trip.

There were lots of stone relics (pagodas, lanterns, statues, ruins of buildings, etc.) on the museum grounds. We toured them as well as the exhibits in the main building. We didn't have time to check out the rest of the buildings.

The next day we toured the royal tombs in Tumuli Park, including one that had been excavated. I snapped this illegal picture inside the excavated tomb. The tomb itself is a wooden structure, now under glass in the bottom left of the photo. It was encased in a hill of cobbles and boulders (making later excavation by tomb robbers almost impossible), which are then covered in a clay seal and finally earthen cover.

Nearby is Cheomseongdae Tower, the apparent astronomical observatory. It is in a park which contains even more royal tombs. We got to see the tower in daylight and again later at night under a full moon

About 10 minutes walk away is Anapji, the restored and beautifully lit royal pond and pavilions.

In our short time in Gyeongju we hit some of the highlights. One could spend days or weeks there wandering around the tombs, temples, and ruins of this ancient city. We had to press on....we had a 4 hour drive to Tongyeong on the south coast. We enjoyed some beautiful scenery along the way.

Here is a scene that seemed typical of Korea to us: flat valleys with rice fields and greenhouses; small towns or villages nestled between the fields and adjacent hills; and the surrounding rugged, forested highlands. And here is a scene typical of the inside of our van...

We arrived in Tongyeong late in the afternoon. This city is called the "Naples of Korea" (or maybe Asia). Now I have ever been to Naples, so I can't comment with certainty. It's not a pretty as I would imagine Naples to be, but it seemed to be an interesting seaport located in a scenic part of the country. One of our main objectives here was to see the replica of Admiral Yi's 16th century armoured ship called the "turtleship". We got to dress up in Navy uniforms and clamour around the boat pretending to fire cannons and work the oars. There is more about Admiral Yi to come below.

My other objective here was to sample some seafood. When you are by the sea you got to eat seafood! We went to a restaurant near our hotel and our guide negotiated a good price for a large grilled fish, a plate of sashimi (raw fish), a bowl of fish soup (made from the sashimi scraps (head, fins, etc.) and the usual array of side dishes. I was the only one enjoying the sashimi. And Jin gave us a scare when a fish bone stuck in her throat. She eventually coughed it up (seemed like minutes, but was probably just seconds) and we all breathed a sigh of relief. The restaurant gave us 10,000 won (about $9) off the final bill and a handful of candies to sooth Jin's throat.

The next day we briefly visited a laquerware shop where they sold products locally made by inlaying mother of pearl into wood and paper and coating it in laquer, to create beautiful pieces ranging from small jewellry boxes to large wardrobe cabinets (costing as much as $20,000!). If we had more time we might have been able to see how they make this stuff.

Here are shots of Tongyeong harbour at night and our hotel (the Karib). The large crane beside our hotel belongs to the shipyard next door. It was a little noisy with the shipbuilding continuing 24 hours around the clock.

After the laquerware store we went on a boat cruise among the nearby islands. We stopped in at Hansado Island where Admiral Yi had his headquarters for a time while battling the Japanese navy in the late 16th century. There is a shrine to the Admiral there with beautiful grounds. He is a greatly revered national hero.

The second objective of the cruise was the rocky island of Maemuldo Island. A picturesque place with huge cliffs.

After the boat cruise we jumped in the van and headed off a couple hours west along the coast to the Gosoeng Dinosaur Museum. Here is some scenery along the way. You may be able to make out a large dinosaur statue in the distance of the second photo.

And finally we were there! Lili had good fun showing Jin around this place. She and I had come here in May on an RAS field trip. Jin was sick then so couldn't go on the trip and Deb stayed home with her. We got here at lowtide, so went immediately to the shoreline to look at the dinosaur footprints. We then walked back up the hill to check out the museum. I've changed the order of the photos around: from museum to shoreline.

We even watched a 3D movie/cartoon about dinosaurs.

The dino-playground was a highlight with the girls. The shore outcrops were the best though. It was also fun to look for living creatures in the tidal pools.

We had a lot of fun here. We even closed the museum. Then we were back on the road to our next location, Suncheon a couple of hours away. We were booked in at a guesthouse in the countryside in the hills south of Suncheon. The place was rustic. Maybe an OK hunt camp, but not really what we were expecting. It was late, and after a not so good meal (actually the worst meal we ate in Korea) at a nearby diner we tucked in to our basic accommodations (a room full of mosquitos with sleeping mats on the floor, a bright flourescent light on the ceiling and a TV that got 2 channels).

The next morning we drove down to Suncheon to visit the Suncheonman Bay Ecological Center located in a large seaside wetland. There is a good interpretative center there with an astronomical observatory. This and other wetlands along the coasts of Korea are important for migratory birds coming from Siberia and other locations. We saw lots of birds (mostly egrets and cranes). It must be amazing here in the fall.

The center had a glass floor over a model of a mudflat. Nicer than walking in the mud! And here are a couple of creatures from the flats: little Miss Crab and Miss Mudskipper.

The wetlands are accessed by a boardwalk. It was cool walking throught the constantly rustling grasses and reeds. In some place the mudflat was exposed and we could see it teaming with all sorts of activity. Expecially crabs and mudskipper fish. We'd never seen these fish before. They seem to live in holes in the mud and flipped or skipped around on the mud surface at low tide.

Here a couple of crabs are duking it out. And on the right a mud skipper is doing what he does best.

Deb used her binos to check out the birds. This is as good as my camera would do. I need a bigger lens.

At the far end of the boardwalk we took a trail to the top of a hill where we had great views of the wetland and the sea. Cool circular features in the wetlands....

After our exhilarating walk at Suncheonman Bay we enjoyed a nice Korean buffet lunch at a restaurant in Suncheon. The highlight was a grilled eel. Yes the slimmy, slithery black things. When grilled the white meat is tender and tasty. We've had them a few times now and they are great. Jin loves them! There is a photo of her sizing one up later in the blog.

After Suncheonman Bay we drove a couple of hours northwestwad to Jirisan National Park. This was Korea's first national park and is centered on the Jirisan Mountian Range. Our first stop was Hwaeomsa Temple. It was built in 544 AD and rebuilt after it was destroyed during the war with Japan in the 16th century. This was one of the nicest temples we've visited in Korea. It is located on the slopes of Jirisan Mountain in the heavily forested National Park. Our guide gave the girls a lesson on how to bow properly when praying to Buddha.

After having our souls cleansed at the temple we drove a little further on to Jirisan Mountain Hot Spring Village to have our bodies cleansed at a big hot spring hotel. We were really looking forward to this. It was going to be a highlight of the trip. Unfortunately we found that the hotel pools were segregated by sex. This despite the name of the place, the "Jirisan Family Hotel". So instead of a solitary hot tub, I enjoyed a fun pre-birthday dinner of ramen noodles with my family in our hotel room. My pre-birthday presents included a bag of potato chips and a chocolate bar (don't tell my doctor!).

I snapped the above photos from our hotel room early the next morning. Jirisan is famous for its hiking trails. Next time we'll plan to explore them and have more fun on the mountain.

The highlight of the last day of our tour was a visit to the bamboo forest in Damyang, about an hour's drive from our hotel. The bamboo trees are amazingly tall here! And we found a playground too! We also visited the bamboo museum (fascinating to learn how bamboo was and is turned into a variety of products), shopped for bamboo things and enjoyed lunch in which the rice was cooked in bamboo cups. We got to keep the cups!

Then it was time for our long drive back to Seoul (about 4 hours). We drove through another national park (below left is a view from the road as it snaked up a mountain side). And then it was mostly expressway driving for the remaining 3 hours. To help pass the time we let the girls listen to our MP3 players (with the volume low). It was funny to see and hear them experience this for the first time. Singing different songs at the same time!

So that's our grand tour of Korea. I still have to tell you about our short trips to Sockcho and Andong, plus some of the fun we are having here in our last week in Seoul. Hope to get at least some of that posted before we leave here, but much of it may have to wait till after we get back home (just a few days way now!!!!). Keep tuning in for updates as we wrap up our excellent adventure.

All the best,

Derek, Deb, Jin and Lili