Korean Road Trip: Day 4 Sokcho and Seorak National Park

After waking up and making some breakfast: eggs, toast and a yoghurt, tomato and wild honey drink, we took a short walk to the nearby fishing harbour. It really is a working harbour, with lots of small fish restaurants around. It reminded me of my first business trip when we ate freshly killed (hit with a baseball bat) sashimi and drank copious amounts of soju at one of these fish restaurants.

We continued down the coast and stopped at a small beach to feed Brandon. We carried on and went to two small traditional Korean pavilions, Cheonhakjeong Pavilion and Cheongganjeong Pavilion. They are very nice and always have perfect spots overlooking the sea. We got lost a little in Sokcho but were not very impressed, so after stopping for lunch at Pizza Hut, we continued into Seorak National Park, and drove around until we found a pension which we liked. We had a little difficulty with language, but managed after finding out that all the small rooms / cottages were booked and we could have a large one with three bedrooms. We decided to take it, even though it was the most expensive one so far at KRW110 000. The other pensions have been KRW50 000 and KRW60 000. We could have found cheaper, but they have all looked nice and been worth it in the end. At the moment we are sitting on our small patio enjoying some red wine and eating our left over pizza. The mist is rolling in and it is getting quite chilly. The frogs are croaking and the geese are gaggling and the sun has set over the rice paddies

Tomorrow we will go into Seorak national Park and hopefully do a short hike to another waterfall, but who knows . Rice Paddy fields

Korean Road Trip, Day 3: Hwajinpo

Scenery on the drive

Today we headed further east, winding our way through a lot of mountains with beautiful views. We were headed to Hwajinpo, which is in the top North East corner of Korea, right against the border with North Korea. You can see that you are close to North Korea as the military presence is all around and on various sections of all the roads in the area, they have large concrete blocks standing on the sides of the road, which if there was to be an invasion, these blocks are easily toppled across the road by placing some explosive charges in certain sections, invading troops then cannot use the road network already in place.

There was a continuous drizzle throughout the day, but it was still a pleasant drive. We thought about going to a place called “Pond of twelve angels’ bath” (Sibiseonnyeotang), but when we got there we realised that it was more than a 2 hour hike up to the valley, so over 4 hours total, if your are fit and without a baby, so we had to scrap that idea. We also thought an area called “Yongdaesan Natural Receation Forest” sounded nice, and we found pictures of small log cabins in the forest, but unfortunately we couldn’t find it. My GPS had it in, but when it came to moving off the main road, the GPS told me to turn left, which meant directly up a mountain without a road. I think we actually had to stop there and then hike up into the mountains …who knows. So these two ideas did not materialise and we headed into Hwajinpo. We decided that we would visit the aquarium since it was raining. The aquarium was small and not that impressive but it was Brandon’s first visit to an aquarium and he especially enjoyed looking at the brightly coloured coral reef fish. His little eyes were as big as saucers and he became a bit mesmerised with the fish elegantly gliding through the water. He got slightly scared when we walked through the shark and stingray tunnel. It was too dark and overwhelming for him. After the aquarium we found a pension which was recommended in the Lonely Planet, January Pension. The pension was very nice, overlooking the sea, with large windows in every room. The owner was very kind and we met a regular guest at the pension who called himself Fat Peter. He loves Hwajinpo so much that he is going to move there and open a large fish restaurant, he’s very keen for us to visit him at his restaurant and offered to provide us with the food on the house if we come back and his restaurant is open..
We rested at the pension for some of the afternoon and then headed out for Samgyupsal (Korean pork barbeque) for dinner. The owner of the pension called the restaurant and told them we were on the way and placed our order for us. We sat on the floor in one of several small rooms to eat and Brandon, who was asleep in his pram, was parked outside the room where we could keep an eye on him. The food was good, but as usual the restaurants do not do much to make themselves look nice, the wall paper was dirty and the fan was covered with plastic. Back home I do not think anyone would dare enter a restaurant that looked like this, but here it is normal and at least the food is good.
After dinner we sat outside the pension overlooking the East Sea (else where known as the Sea of Japan, but in Korea that is not an accepted name). We could see a string of bright lights across the horizon and these are the fishing vessels that are catching squid, apparently the bright lights attract the squid. The light pollution is phenomenal.
So far everywhere we have been, people have been really friendly and helpful although the language barrier has sometimes been a problem, but between some of my broken Korean and their broken English, we manage to get by.

Korea trip: Day 2, Inje

We went for a short walk in the morning in Chuncheon, but it started to rain so we headed back to the car and headed out of town to Inje. The motel didn’t serve breakfast, so we were starving and were looking for a coffee shop or a Paris Baguette. We found a small bakery and had some muffins and other strange rolls, which seemed to be egg, ham and cheese cooked in a roll, sounds nice (at least to me) but it didn’t taste like egg, ham and cheese.

The drive to Inje took about two hours, with us stopping to feed Brandon at a roadside stop. The road heading to Inje mostly followed a river with really nice scenery. Inje is known as a town with adventure activities, so there is bungee jumping and white water rafting, paragliding, … sounds like fun.
We arrived at Inje and missed the turning into the town and carried on down the road where I took another offramp. I decided to follow a small road which followed another stream into the mountains. This area was really beautiful and as we wound our way further into the hills, we came across a nice looking pension overlooking the stream. We decided we would stay there for the evening but carried on to see more of the mountains and general scenery and then head back into town for some lunch and to try and find some maps of the area.

We settled for a place called “Burger & coffee” and Brandon got lots of attention from people, he was even given a sucker (not open and Carla ended up stealing it from Brandon, now I know where the saying came from “it’s like taking candy from a baby…)
We headed back to the pension and found the owner who said we could stay the night. The room was traditional Korean ondol (heated floor), so there are no beds, you sleep on the floor on a mat with a blanket. It was very nice and there was also a kitchenette , TVn and rice cooker.
We were wondering what we would do for dinner, so I asked the lady if they had anything to which she replied no, but we could either head into the town or just up the road to some traditional Korean restaurants. We were tired so didn’t feel like going out, so I decided to quickly go back into town and buy something easy to cook. I found some pasta and a pasta sauce, so settled for that.
When I arrived back, I headed down to the river for a swim, which got the lady who owns the pension really nervous (most Koreans cannot swim, so she thought I would drown). Carla and I were sitting outside when we noticed another car pull in, and the people seemed to be some family members of the owner. The pulled out a braai (barbeque) and started to set it up. Then another car arrived followed by another. We were starting to get suspicious (since we know a thing or two about Korean hospitality) and thought this may be for us. Turns out it was, the owner invited the whole family and some friends over for a braai (barbeque) and we had chicken, eel (fresh from the river, actually pulled out of a bucket there, killed and then cooked) It was a really great experience, we were offered lots of food, drink (beer and soju) and had a really nice evening despite only two of the people being able to speak some English to us. I had cooked the spaghetti and taken it down because we didn’t want to arrive empty handed and this was called Bladely’s spaghetti (Blad –a -lee being the way they pronounce my name) and they thought it was very funny that we wanted spaghetti.. We had quite a laugh afterwards as to the panic the owner must have gone through after I asked her about dinner earlier, she must have thought the crazy foreigner wanted a meal and quickly called everyone she knew to come over.

If anyone is going in that direction, I can recommend that pension. It is one of the only ways I can repay their hospitality (they wouldn’t accept payment for the dinner and drinks) So I hope more people will visit, the name and details are:

Name: (to be updated)
Ph(to be updated)
GPS coordinates (to be updated)

Korean Road Trip: Day 1, Gangchon & Chuncheon

Some Pictures at a rest stop

Today was quite hectic, first we had to arrange to take Storm to the kennel, it is always sad to drop her off. She never wants to leave, but this time she had a very nice large kennel. Hopefully all the other dogs will keep her company.

The next task was packing the car, this is getting more complicated now with Brandon. The pram (stroller) takes up a lot of space. When we were about to leave, we realised it wasn’t long until we had to feed Brandon, so we waited a little and then fed him and finally we were able to get going. Of course we were leaving Seoul, so we then got stuck in traffic. Our first planned stop was only about 80km away, but took a few hours. We went to Gangchon and had a short look around and then went on to Chuncheon. They are only about 10km apart. We found our “Love Motel”, the Motel Ritz, checked in, fed Brandon and then headed back to Gangchon to take a walk to a nearby waterfall called Gucok Waterfall. It was a nice 20min walk, carrying Brandon in his carrier / harness. We stayed there for a short while, and had a picture taken by a guy who sits there and has his small business, not bad for KRW5000.

After that we headed back into Gangchon and found some restaurants on the main road. We eventually decided on Dakgalbi (Chicken cooked with cabbage and some sweet potato). By now it was Brandon’s sleep time, but he was putting up a bit of resistance. We should have walked him in the pram until he fell asleep before we went for dinner, we know for next time…

Gungchon was quite nice, if we had more time and didn’t have a baby, we could have gone quad biking. Chuncheon was just a large town, not very exicting.

Korea Road Trip

I have wanted to do a trip around Korea for some time now, and last year I said we would do it this year around July. Carla then fell pregnant and we weren’t sure it would be possible, but we eventually decided to do it anyway. So we have a general idea to travel Korea over two weeks, no hotel bookings, not knowing exactly where we are going ( other then some general direction), and a 16 week old baby, if we like an area we will stay longer, if not we will move on.

Some of the ideas of areas / towns we hope to visit are:
- Gangchon
- Chuncheon
- Inje
- Hwajinpo
- Sokcho
- Seoraksan Mountain
- Jeongdongjin
- Samcheok
- Sinnam
- Gyeongju (with the Gyeongju national park)
- Busan
- Yeonwha Island
- Jinju Fortress
- Yeousu
- Boseung
- Gangjin
- Mokpo
- Gwangju
- Damyang
- Seonunsan Provincial Park

Quite a list, so we will have to see how we fit the whole lot in. I have a Garmin GPS system and have put a few Waypoints in, then will head in that general direction and hopefully find accommodation, which we expect to be in Korean “Love Motels” and local Pensions.

At the moment

Right now Brandon is supposed to be sleeping but he is talking to himself so loudly that he woke his sick father up (Brad had to come home early since he was feeling so sick). He ate so much at dinner (Brandon not Brad) so I'm sure his little tummy is too full to sleep. I don't have many pictures to post because I didn't get around to taking many last week but here are a few of the better ones.

Smile!

Seriously mom, I'm getting tired!

Sorting out

We spent some of the weekend sorting out the house. We rearranged the furniture in the lounge and dining room. It is a bit awkward because Brandon's room used to be the TV room but now all the TV room furniture has moved to the lounge. Brad is sick of re-arranging furniture (since we've been moving things around ever since January) but I think we've finally got it looking okay. I took the opportunity to shampoo the carpets since they needed a good clean. So on Sunday, once the carpets were dry, Brad, Brandon and Storm decided it was a good spot to hang out for a bit.

I like sitting up

hanging out with dad and Storm

Mom and Brandon

Is there any resemblance?

( I just realised that it looks like I'm sitting on a red velvet couch - it's just a throw on our normal couch, we definitely don't own a red velvet couch)