Rick's in Korea: sightseeing

Showing posts with label sightseeing. Show all posts

Busan

8/23/2010

After almost a year here, I finally made it to Busan. For anyone who may not know, Busan is on the southern coast of Korea and is known as THE beach town.

Since this was the last weekend of "high season", it was really packed.

I had a lot of fun, although after the first day relaxing out in the sun (in other words, getting sunburned) it was best to spend the rest of the weekend doing different tours including spending some time out on boats seeing some of the really beautiful islands off the coast.

These islands are called Oryuk-do, literally "Five Six Island" because one of the islands has a low point that is hidden when the tide comes in. So, depending on the tide, you either see 5 or 6 islands.

Jeju-do Part 4

5/13/2010

Well, for our last day in Jeju we forced ourselves to wake up at 6:30am to go to the top of Sunrise Peak to watch the sunrise. We didn't know it was going to take us 45 minutes or so to get to the top, so we actually missed the sunrise but it was a wonderful view anyway.

After we came back down from Sunrise Peak, we were so exhausted from the past couple of days that we went back to the motel and went back to bed for another hour or so.

When we woke back up and finally checked out of the motel, we started our exploring again. This time, our first stop was the Folk Village. Now, on Jeju-do there is a Folk Village Museum and and actual Folk Village. We went to the village. Here, people still live in the old style houses. With the exception of 2 or 3 of the oldest homes that are now preserved and open for viewing the rest of the area is an village with homes, restaurants, stores, etc.

When we first arrived, we were starved so we went to one of the restaurants there to eat.

Many of the things on the menu were similar to other traditional korean restaurants but there were also things like pheasant and horse. Which led me to saying something I NEVER thought I would ever hear coming out of my mouth: "That horse was delicious."

After eating, we looked around and took a number of photos. The traditional houses had small courtyards around them and often areas sectioned off for gardens and pigpens. It was really picturesque.

Next we went to see the lava tubes. Jeju has some of the longest lava tubes in the world which are supposed to be incredibly beautiful. When we arrived at about 2:30pm, we were told that the last tour starts at 12 because it takes so long-- and you have to make a reservation 2 days in advance. So, we didn't get to see the longest tubes, but they did refer us to a smaller one about 10 minutes away.... so off we went.

These tubes were interesting to see, but they only had one major formation.

When we finished there, we decided to head back up to the airport area to find a place for the night since planned to return the rental car that night then just take a taxi to the airport in the morning. On the drive, we passed yet another beautiful beach and even though it was raining we decided tat we had to at least wade out into the water since we were on a tropical island and hadn't gone in the water even once.

Well, the water looked good but it was ice cold.

The raincoats did a pretty good job of keeping us dry, however as we were finishing taking pictures I slipped on a rock and tumbled into the water-- raincoat, leather jacket, cell phone and all. I did keep the camera out of the water though!! lol

Well, after changing clothes in the car we drove on into Jeju-si (Jeju City) and got our motel for the night. We found a place just a couple of blocks from the car rental company so it was easy to return our car-- and they let us take their free shuttle back to the airport the next morning for our flight out.

We rounded out our trip with one more really good fish dinner, a good night's sleep, then up in time to catch our 8am flight back.

All in all, a wonderful trip. I just wish we'd had more time.

Jeju-do Part 2

4/29/2010

Well, our first full day in Jeju we decided to climb Hallasan (Mt. Halla) which is the largest volcano on Jeju and is a Unesco World Heritage Natural Site.

While eating breakfast, we asked the owners of the restaurant which was the best hiking trail to take. They told us to take the Gwaneumsa trail because it had the best views. What they DIDN'T tell us was that it was also the most difficult trail. We actually learned that from another hiker about an hour and a half into the four hour hike up the mountain.

It started up as a nice gentle walk on a path under a canopy of trees:

Soon, however, the trail became a rough path of lava rock...

There were times when the terrain was so rough that there were wooden stairs or bridges (thankfully!)

And while the pictures make it look really nice... it was 8.4 kilometers of an uphill climb.

Needless to say, after about 3 hours of climbing (out of the 4 hours uphill), we felt like this:

Once we got near the top, however, there were indeed some beautiful views.

At the top of Hallasan is Baegnokdam, a small lake that is considered by the people of Korea as a "holy site"

The 4 hour hike down was a bit better and, since we decided to take a different trail down (this one was 9.6 kilometers), it offered different scenery.

Although, the path was just as rough most of the time:

There was a Unesco shelter on the way down that had some very basic refreshments for sale. Basically, chocolate bars, Pocari Sweat (the Korean equivalent of Gatorade), and ramen noodles. I must say, a bowl of ramen noodles has NEVER tasted so good before.

All in all, I'm glad I made the hike, although I have to admit that I would never do it again. Once is DEFINITELY enough.

Jeju-do Part 1

Well, I was able to arrange a 4 day weekend, so I made a run down to Jeju-do, a volcanic island off the southern coast of Korea known as "the Hawaii of Korea". I'm not sure how much like Hawaii it actually is, but the island is beautiful and it was a really great trip.

The cost of round trip airfare from Cheonju, an airport about 45 minutes bus ride away, was only 104,000 KW (about $95) so I paid the airfare for one of my Korean friends in exchange for him going with me as translator/tour guide. I'm so glad I did that, since he was able to find REALLY cheap motels for me (one was only 20,000 KW/$17) as well as help get around the island. Unlike the rest of Korea, many of the roadsigns are only in Korean instead being bilingual.

We saw and did a LOT in the few days we were there, so I'm going to divide up the trip into several different posts here.

When we arrived on Friday night, we visited Loveland which is billed as Korea's only "sexual theme park" since my friend really wanted to go. Apparently a group of sculptors had collaborated to create a large sculpture garden of "romantic" art pieces. Knowing how conservative Korea is, and from the pictures I'd seen online, I was expecting it to be a combination of works that were either a bit cheeky or pieces similar to Greek sculpture. Well... let's just say that Loveland is one theme park that is definitely not for children.

Here's a few of the tame pieces:

After we left Loveland, we were trying to find the motel for the night and accidentally stumbled onto another of the sites we wanted to see, Yongdu-am/Dragon Head Rock.

Since we couldn't get very good pictures at night, we went back in the morning to get some better ones.

Since our hotel was only about 2 minutes away, it was cool to see. However, I wouldn't recommend someone making a special trip for it (no matter how many times you see it listed in all the tourist info).

DongHwaSa

4/20/2010

This weekend I visited some friends in Daegu, then did a little sightseeing. I didn't have as much time as I would have liked but I did get to see DongHwaSa.

The weather was really nice so it made for a wonderful day just to be outside.

On the bus to Dongwhasa, a really nice elderly gentleman asked if he could sit beside me so he could practice his English. I was happy to have him there, since he also interpreted everything for me as we went along. Once we arrived at the temple, he told me to come with him to get some food since it was free there. They had a very simple kitchen/dining area where they were serving bibimbap (rice with vegetables) and a bean soup. Well-- I say they were serving, but in fact you served yourself and washed your own dishes when you were finished. The food was really tasty.

I found it really funny that on the train home from Daegu, I read an article in the newspaper about how "temple food" is becoming very popular/trendy because it is so healthy and tastes so good. Who would have thought Buddhist monks would be trendsetters?

The temple complex itself was nice but not as elaborate as some of the others I've seen so far. Apparently, the large temple is only about 20 years old. However, the main attraction there is not the temple but the 33 meter (108 ft) tall Buddha.

Unfortunately, they were doing construction on the plaza around the statue so you couldn't get close to it. But, the photo below should give an idea of its size/proportions. Just compare it to the children sitting in front of the fence.

I got quite a few other really nice photos while I was there. Here are just a few of them:

Cherry Blossom Festival

4/15/2010

A friend of mine, who is a grad student at Chungnam National University here in Daejeon, took me on a tour of the campus yesterday since it's the Cherry Blossom Festival. I didn't know it, but CNU is actually the second largest university in Korea with about 35,000 students.