Sokcho and Seoraksan
With some help from the KTO (calling a hotel to make a booking for us) we travelled by bus to Sokcho on the east coast. The bus ride took about 4 hours by express bus through increasingly mountainous terrain before we reached the narrow coastal plain. In places the highway seemed to fly between the mountain tops (photo below left). It was pretty spectaular. The mountains along the east coast are among the most impressive in Korea and are host to a number of national parks and even a few ski resorts. So this highway is a popular route for Seoulites escaping the city to go hike in the mountain parks, go to the coast in the summer, see the scenic colours in the fall or go skiing in the winter. Luckily we were travelling it in low season so there wasn't much traffic.
Once our bus got to the coast we were a little alarmed to see long stretches of beach fenced off with razorwire capped chainlink fences (see photo below right). Since we were traveling in the off-season, we wondered if maybe the beach we were going to would be closed and fenced off too. As it turned out the fencing, apparently to repel potential North Korean invaders or spies, is located mostly in sparsely populated areas.
Our destination, Sokcho, is a small city on the east coast that is popular among Koreans for its fresh seafood and as a gateway to Seoraksan National Park. This mountainous park has numerous hiking and climbing routes, beautiful scenery and a cable car. So our plans for this trip included lots of beach time in Sokcho, sampling some seafood, and a day trip into the park to ride the cable car. We arrived in the early afternoon, checked into our hotel (just a block from the bus station) and walked a block to the main beach.
Here are a couple of general photos of Sokcho. On the left is the breakwater at the main harbour with the ferry terminal. The second photo shows the narrow beach in the north part of the city which was being covered with giant concrete jack-like things, presumably to protect it from winter storms. Luckily they hadn't covered the main Sokcho beach so we could still go swimming.
This is the view out of our hotel window and a shot of our place, the Hotel Good Morning.
And here we are finally on the beach. The beach here is made up of coarse sand and drops off quite sharply from ankle deep water to chest or neck deep water. We had to really watch the kids. Also there weren't any interesting creatures living in the beach like we saw at Kkotji Beach on Anmyeondo, on the west side of the country. It was still fun to build sandcastles and splash about in the waves (dodging the odd jellyfish). And Deb found lots of "beach glass" here: polished frosty pieces of glass, mostly green, like the colour of Soju bottles. Not surprising I guess.
We had packed some sandwiches which we augmented with convenience store snack food; bad things like potato chips and interesting new things like dried squid. Enjoyed a lovely lunch (with a beer) on the beach.
An interesting thing we noticed here (as well as at other beaches and the splash fountains in Seoul) is that Koreans don't seem to like wearing bathing suits (except in pools of course). Note the family in the background of the below left photo is splashing around the ocean fully clothed. The photo on the right shows one of Sokcho's the main seafood products, squid or "o-jing-eo" drying in a store front.
As I mentioned seafood, especialy sashimi, is a specialty here, with Korean tourists flocking to the expensive seaside restaurants. We weren't too adventurous this time, just tried a couple squid dishes at a nice little restaurant near our hotel. My favourite was stuffed squid or "o-jing-eo soon-dae": imagine large calamari-like rings filled with ground pork and some other fixings, then grilled to perfection. I also tried a squid stir-fry dish (sorry I forgot the name) which was quite spicy. That's it, the red dish, beside the table-top grill covered in pieces of pork (or "samgyeopsal"). We didn't eat any crab, although a tank full of them did make an interesting photo.
On our second day in Sokcho we took a city bus to Seoraksan National Park, less than a 30 minute ride to the west. This park is located in a mountain range the runs along the eastern coast of Korea, so the scenery here is spectacular. The Asian black bear is almost exinct in Korea, but one might imagine that they could exist in rugged natural areas like this park. Here we are in front of a staute of one of these rare bears. And here is a shot of 2 not-so-rare bears we saw there too.
If we had more time we could have explored some of the numerous hiking trails, but since we only had limited time we chose to take the easy way and ride a cable car to the top of one of the mountains in the park. Jin and Lili liked the cable car, Deb wasn't so keen on it though.
Once off the cable car, it was just a short hike up a stone step path, through the trees to a rocky ridge near the top of this mountain. Some folks clambered up the granite rocks to the very top. That was too scary for our gang. No guard rails in the upper part! We still had amazing views of other mountains in Seoraksan, as well as Sokcho and the east coast.
Near the base of cable car there is a Buddhist temple with a very large Buhhda statue. Most national parks in Korea seem to have Buddhist temples. And here (right) is a shot of the cable car over some souvenir shops in the park.
Being located on the east coast, one of must-do things in Sokcho is watch the fabulous sunrise. Our hotel room overlooked the ocean so we had a great view. I rolled out of bed just after 5am both days we were there to snap some shots of this daily, but still very impressive event. Here are a few. The one at below right is a view to the west of Sokcho with the mountains of Seoraksan in the background.
Andong
For our last excursion in Korea we traveled by bus to Andong, about 3 hours southeast of Seoul for an overnight stay in a traditional village. The Hahoe Village is located along a meandering river just a short bus ride outside of town. It is a "living museum" with people living and working in many of the old Joseon Dynasty houses, some of which have been designated national treasures. And there are traditional hanok guesthouses in the village, so we could stay right there and experience some traditional Korean living, at least for overnight anyway.
The main reason we chose this place to come to was for the dancing - mask dancing that is. Andong is famous for its style of mask dancing. There is an annual dance festival, a mask museum and weekly performances that showcase this unique Korean tradition. We arrived at the Hahoe Village just in time for the Sunday afternoon show.
These dances tell stories, which usually involve poking fun at the upperclasses. We didn't understand all the details, but it looked like great fun. Luckily for us, a Korean woman sitting beside us could speak some English, so she explained some of what was going on. There was even an audience participation segment where Jin and I were plucked from the audience to join in the dancing! Unfortunately we don't have a photos of our mask dance debut. Here are some shots of the various professional dancers. First here is a bride riding in on one someone's shoulders. Then there is the butcher carrying a "trophy" he got from the bull he has just slaughtered.
And here an old lady tells the sad story of her hard life (her husband died a short time after their wedding and she spent the rest of her life caring for her in-laws) as she weaves some cloth. On the right are a couple of dancers having a laugh.
Jin and Lili's favourite character was the bride. After the show we headed over to the village to look for a place to stay. The tourism information folks assured us that, it being low season, we would have no problem finding a hanok-stay guesthouse in the village. They were right, although our accommodations were kind of pricey. But what the heck, how often do we get to sleep on the floor of an old traditional Korean house. Here (below right) is a shot of our guesthoouse.
Our room was actually 2 rooms: a bedroom (big empty room with mattress mats rolled up at one end and a TV at the other) and a little breakfast nook with a low table and small fridge.
The guest house was a square, single storey building with a central courtyard. Guest rooms were located along the side and front sections of the sqaure, while the host's quarters, kitchen and a dining room were located along the back section. There was common bathroom for all to use as well as a hose in the courtyard that people washed up at. We ate a very nice homecooked dinner in the dining room (below left). We were all pretty tired so easily fell asleep on the thin floor mattresses. In the morning we opened the rice paper shutters to enjoy the calm pastoral view outside our room (below right, with weaving machine in the foreground; and next row down on left). After a light breakfast (including instant coffee we brought with us) we explored the village and its suroundings.
Rice is the main crop here. Below right a rice field is covered with mesh, I guess to keep birds from eating the grain.
Here is a small utility tractor thing similar to ones we've seen all over the country. Many if not all of the houses had their own vegetable gardens.
Many of the houses were heated using the traditional undol sytem: fire heating a sytem of underfloor flues or pipes. The chimneys don't look like they'd meet today's building code - especially for a thatched roof! (note the fire extinguisher across the lane from the chimney)
The village was home to more than just farmers, as we saw some very nice looking houses with apparantly well-off occupants (SUV in the driveway).
We found a playpark with some traditional Korean items, like these very tall swings. As I mentioned the village is situated beside a river. There is a scenic cliff on the other side that one can visit by taking a poled ferryboat ride.
Carved duck totems are common in Korea (like those at dusk, below left) . I think they have something to do with taking bad spirits away when they migrate north for the summer. In the traditional village we also saw more modern "totems" (below right), which I think may be responsible for bringing some "bad spirits" into houses.
Although the mask museum was closed for renovations (big disappointment!) there were a number of souvenir shops for us to browse while we waited for the bus back into town. I liked the one on the left that had special Andong Soju for sale. Jin and Lili left happy. They found Korean bride mask dancer puppets!
Our last couple of weeks in Korea were spent shopping, doing some last minute sightseeing with the kids around Seoul and packing. Here are a few photos from the first 2 activities (you don't want to see packing pictures....they're not pretty). Insadong has the best shopping for Korean crafts and souvenirs. There is usually also some interesting going on along this bustling shopping street. Here some guys with tame squirrels (flying squirrels I think) were entertaining the crowd. One squirel was attracted to Jin's necklace!
Fortune telling is very popular in Korea. Our teacher estimated that up to 70% of Koreans get their fortunes read at least once a year. Here (below left) a streetside fortune teller plies his trade in Insadong. On the right Jin stands beside a stall selling one of our favourite Korean street foods: hoddeok, a kind of pancake with sweet filling (typically brown sugar or honey). These are cooked in a waffle-iron style stove and then placed in a cooling rack.
Namdaemun Market getting busy in the evening.
Seafood street restaurants setting up in the early evening in Namdaemun Market.
We ate steamed dumplings (or mandu) at this little shop in Namdaemun. Despite Lili's expressions, she loves these doughy balls filled with ground pork.
The girls had fun shopping for rings and things. Lili liked the "Hello Kittys" in hanboks, below right.
On September 16 Lili finally lost her first baby tooth. Yeah!!! And, as Jin discovered earlier during our trip, the tooth fairy will find your tooth even in Korea. And she pays out in big Korean currency too!
Our last weeks in Korea were also spent saying goodbye to our new friends. Our langauge teacher or "seong sang nim" came over to visit us with his fiance. They brought us a lovely Koreanmeal and some high quality makkoli (a type of rice wine). It happened to be my birthday, so we had cake too. Here is Kim Seong Sang Nim and Mijeong with our girls and a family portrait of us in our Seoul apartment.
Our last days in Seoul were pretty much spent packing and re-packing. We had amassed a lot of stuff over 6 months. In addition to the clothes and things we brought from home there were lots of souvenirs and gifts we purchased during our stay in Korea and our 2 week tour of China. To avoid the (excessive!) excess baggage charges on our flight home we found it best to mail a couple boxes of our stuff home. It was far cheaper!
We left our Seoul home with mixed feelings. It was certainly good to be coming home, but we will all miss Korea. We'll miss our Korean friends and living in Seoul. It is a great city. Modern yet ancient, bustling yet convenient, beautiful and safe. We had a great time there! The girls were starting to make friends at school, and I think were becoming more proficient in Korean. We loved touring Korea as well, although we have so much more of the country to see. We'll definitely have to come back.
We hope you enjoyed reading about our adventure. We sure enjoyed living it! Please feel free to contact us at deb.derek@yahoo.ca if you have any questions about our experiences our would like some advice if you are planning to travel yourself to Korea.
Annyeong-haseyo! Bye!
Derek, Deb, Jin and Lili
p.s. Oh, here are a couple of photos of Jin and Lili back home in the woods, a big change from Seoul. Here they are outside our house, dressed (in their Korean school sweaters) ready for their first day back to school here (that's our cat Marco in the background). And here they in front of a maple tree on a walk to our nearby cranberry patch.
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