Seoul 6 - Hanbok

Instead of going to visit yet another temple, Reesha and I opted to go to the Bukchon Hanok village, a replica of an old traditional Korean village. I had been to the village before on a previous trip to Seoul, so I knew it'd be a prime (and cheap) place to try on Hanbok (Korean traditional dress) and take pictures. 

We were SO out of place in the hanbok, but whatever, so worth it: 

Reesha wore the queen's outfit

The village is set up for tourists, and to teach about Korean culture, so there was a lot going on outside including these guys making mats from straw, a taekwondo performance, and calligraphy practice. In general a really nice and peaceful place. Wish we had longer there but we arrived pretty late in the day and decided to head out early.

Seoul 5 - Sightseeing

One of the days we took a trip to visit Ehwa Women's University, since we heard a lot about the shopping around the area and how beautiful the campus is. It was so nice! I've never seen a campus like it. The main building is set into a hill with the middle hollowed out. You can walk up through the center of the hill and on either side there are giant buildings that are underground. On top of the buildings, which is technically the hillside, are gardens that you can walk through. 

View of the campus from ground level - The main building is cut straight into the hillside. 

We also went to the Museum of Korean War, which displays artifacts from all the wars throughout Korean history. It was an interesting place, and mainly I was excited to learn more about THE Korean War, but unfortunately I wasn't able to explore the museum as much as I wanted to. One reason is that the museum is MASSIVE, but also we got stopped by this guy in the military who was working with a special art display containing pieces designed by soldiers currently in the army. The guy we chatted with had a sculpture on display, which he showed us. We then took a picture with him (which will apparently be in the newspaper !?) and he showed us around the displays on the basement level. He spoke decent English, but it took some time to make our way around the displays and when we finally got through the ancient Korean warfare section, we were feeling pretty exhausted. We rushed the rest of the museum, but I'll totally check it out again next time I'm in Seoul.

There were also some interesting outdoor displays of old Korean military equipment and amazing statues. We didn't get to see much of those either, and I really want to.

Seoul 4 - FOOD

Seoul has some of the best food of all the places I've been. Not only because it's delicious, but because it is omnipresent and inexpensive. I gorged on so much street food including hotak (fried dough filled with melted sugar and nuts), custard egg tarts, baked sweet potatoes, spicy rice cakes, and potato swirls on sticks. OMG. 

We also went out to eat quite a lot and since Seoul is so international we were able to try a variety of food options that aren't really available on Jeju Island. 

Not to mention -- KOREAN BBQ. I ate more Korean BBQ in that one week than I ever have in my life. Thankfully it's pretty much my favorite thing ever so I didn't get sick of it. On our last full day in Seoul we went out to lunch at an all you can eat Korean BBQ place and just got impregnated with massive tons of grilled meat and octopus. We stayed there for a good hour and a half just gorging ourselves until we felt like we'd explode with food. 

Seoul 2 - Drinks

On one of our nights in Seoul we went out to Itaewon, aka foreigner town. It was really cute. They had different flags strung up crossing over the streets and there were a lot more people from different countries walking around. We went out for Mediterranean food and then hit up a bar with REAL BEER. Like nothing I've ever experienced in Korea. I was able to have real pumpkin beer from the tap, but unfortunately I couldn't even really enjoy it because I was sick and so congested :( Whatever, my body has been imbued with pumpkin beer goodness *__*

We also went to Insadong, the arts district, and wandered around. There were a lot of foreigners and street stalls in the area, along with cute shops selling tradition and non-traditional goods. My favorite part was the giant Psy they had outside of a cosmetics shop. Loooove him !

On our third night in Seoul we went to this interesting bar called "Apple Tree." It was in the basement of this building and had some cool mood lighting. You walk in and there's a big, fake tree in the middle of the room, strung up with wooden apples. We had the option of sitting at tables in the middle of the room, but instead opted to sit along the walls in this curtained off space with cushions and a low table. We sat on the floor with pillows and candles and sipped on appletinis.

Seoul 1 - Cultural

While in Seoul we had some cultural experiences. We walked around a neighborhood full of houses with traditional Korean architecture. We also went to a palace and for a walk down the Cheonggyecheon River. 

Hwasun Beach and Sanbangsan Temple (화순금모래해변 & 산방산)

This past Thursday was a prime example of things not always going exactly how you think they're going to go, but still working out for the best. We went to Hwasun beach thinking that we'd kayak, but quickly learned that the weather was too windy and the water too rough to paddle out on the sea. Instead Anna suggested we take a walk along the closest Olle trail, and so we found ourselves trudging along the beach, scrambling over rocks, climbing countless stairs, and pulling ourselves up a steep gradient using a rope.

Once we reached the start of what looked like an actual trail through the woods, we encountered a Korean man and his family. In English the man told us, "You can't go that way. There's a big spider on the path." And we stood there thinking, this must be one massive spider to turn away a big Korean guy and his family. Although I was wary, Anna was undeterred. The two of us scouted a little father into the brush, leaving Oli and Reesha behind. We quickly came across the spider, which was brightly colored and hanging out on a web crossing the footpath, so Anna took a stick and moved the spider out of the way. No big deal. 

I've noticed that many of the Korean people I meet while hiking Ole trails are incredibly well outfitted with all the right brightly colored hiking gear, but when it comes to getting their hands dirty they're fairly inexperienced with the outdoors. 

Anna and I reached a viewing platform at the top of the cliff, but since Reesha and Oli didn't follow us, we had to turn around and go back the way we came, making a detour around the cliff, we reconnected with the olle trail on the other side and continued our hike through a rolling field and then along the coastline.

From our perch on another seaside cliff, we looked out and saw gorgeous hidden beaches lining the coastline.

Some of the cove beaches were closed to the public, but we found one that we could walk onto. Nobody kicked us off at any rate... We sunbathed and swam for a couple hours. The sea was so warm and the rocks on either side of us kept away the worst of the wind and waves. 

We moved on, walking along the beach, continuing towards distant Sanbangsan. The beach was riddled with interesting rock formations and caves. The rocks looked almost like plastic, the were so odd. It was like lava flow trapped in time. 

Apparently at some point we had separated from the olle trail, which was above us, and we were below on the beach. We could see stairs leading up to a viewing platform, but had to get up to them somehow. I know it's terrible, but we ended up scrambling up a giant sand dune in order to reconnect to the trail. After our haphazard ascent, we reached a viewing platform where we could look out on the beach we had just crossed, and we could even see our original starting point, Hwasun Beach (next to the industrial park in the photo below).

 

The olle trail eventually led us to the base of Sanbangsan, which is a huge, very steep oreum that is visible even from my room at NLCS Jeju. Since the sides are so steep, it's impossible to climb to the top of this oreum without ropes and equipment, but there is a Buddhist temple set into the south side with stairs leading someways up the mountain and ending in a grotto.

As soon as we stepped foot onto the temple grounds, we were suddenly assaulted by a group of Korean men, who were keen to show us around. One in particular was especially enthusiastic, waving his arms around pointing at things and speaking to us very loudly in Korean. We were a bit annoyed by this and managed to escape his attention eventually. We climbed up many stairs...

And more stairs...

Forever stairs...

Beautiful photo by Row of the inside of the temple

...Until we reached the very top of the temple, which was basically a big Buddah set into a cave in the side of the mountain. In fact, I learned recently that Sanbangsan means Mountain Room Mountain, named for the grotto room called Sanbanggul.

At the top, we came across the Very Enthusiastic Korean Man once more, and he convinced Oli to go up to the Buddah and pray. It was a hot day, so we took a rest on the benches near the grotto and were approached by yet another Korean man with a ponytail. So excited to see foreigners, he immediately dialed up his wife, a Korean teacher, and handed his cellphone over to me. I chatted with his wife on the phone for several minutes, and she told me about her husband being in Jeju on vacation while she was back at their home on the mainland.

On our way back down the mountain we quickly made our way past Enthusiastic Korean Man, and encountered a new person: Short Korean Man, who was so impressed by Anna's height that he struck up a mainly Korean conversation with her. The two of them took a picture together and we moved on.

At the ticket booth at the base of the mountain we ran into the other half of our group, who had left later in the day after having a lie-in. They had just arrived by taxi and hadn't yet seen the temple, so we made plans to meet up again in an hour, and we went for a quick lunch as the other group climbed the many stairs.

Then, WHO DID WE SEE AT LUNCH???? Why it was Very Enthusiastic Korean Man and his friends. As soon as we walked into the restaurant they called out to us loudly in old man Korean, with a lot of deep loud voices and saliva flying everywhere. They had already had a bit to drink. By this point we accepted that this was our fate -- too many chance encounters to call it anything else -- and sat down at the table next to them.

They poured us drinks and we toasted many times and ate seafood pajeon (Korean chive pancakes). Just as they were about to leave, Ponytail Korean man saw us at the restaurant and came in. He told the other men about our previous encounter up on mountain near the temple, and explained to them about me chatting to his wife on the cellphone. Of course then we had to toast to THAT too. But we were all laughing and having a good time, even though I speak 10 words of Korean and they spoke even less English.

After lunch we met up with the other half of our group, who had finished their hike up to the temple. We walked along the beach, and sat briefly to appreciate the view of Sanbangsan from afar:

After a beer at the cafe, You and I, we called it a day and headed back to NLCS, recounting our unexpected encounters and discoveries along the way. 

[Some photos courtesy of Row, Anna, and Reesha]

Sunrise Peak 일출봉

Our camping trip ended on Friday and we took a relatively empty ferry back over to the mainland in the late morning. The mainland ferry terminal was PACKED with people wanting to get over to Udo. It wasn't even possible to use the bathroom because of the amount of people literally squeezed against each other in the ferry terminal, waiting to buy tickets to overrun Udo. 

Half of our group took the gear and rode the bus back to Jeju-shi and then school, the other half of us taxied into Seongsan 성산, the nearest city, and climb Sunrise Peak, a UNESCO heritage site.

The climb was steep with many stairs, and the sun shown down on us with unparalleled intensity. AKA, it was f***ing hot. We followed the line of people snaking up the ascending path, and once we reached the top we saw....... a big bowl of grass.....

Don't get me wrong, the views were incredible and the hike, despite the heat, was nice. I think that the view from Sunrise peak was worth more than the view into the grass bowl. It was gorgeous: