Brandon

Gangchon: Gucok Waterfall

This was the picture taken by the guy at the waterfall. I just scanned it in.

Korean Road Trip Day 12: Jirisan National park back to Seoul

I woke up this morning and took Brandon for a walk. We walked down the road and to the river. I now found a few Pensions in the area, much easier at a very slow pace, and they were not well signposted.

The owner made us breakfast, egg, tomato mashed potato and some cooked spam. We also had some kim (seaweed) and bap (rice). It was sad to be leaving and the family had been so accommodating and friendly. In the morning Brandon was having a great time playing with the family, he has really been enjoying the attention since we have been travelling.

We left to some hugs all round and were given some directions to get back on the road to Seoul. It was around 300km to go, so we set out and put some miles under the wheels.

We arrived home at around one o’clock. It was really sad to be heading into Seoul from two weeks away. As we were driving towards Seoul, you could see the air becoming hazy with smog and the traffic backing up. Back to reality.

Well we didn’t get to make the full trip, mainly focused on the East Coast. We will have to do the West and South Coast and some of the interior sometime, the only question is when. The trip has been fantastic, and I would recommend anyone who is Korea to take the time and drive around the country, it will give you a very different view and perception. All along the way the people have been wonderful, always friendly, always providing us something extra. I would definitely recommend to try and stay at pensions or minbaks, at these there is always and experience you will have, at the motels and hotels, it is generally all the same.

The cost of places during the trip were :
Gangchon / Chuncheon KRW55 000
Inje KRW50 000
Hwajinpo KRW60 000
Sokcho / Seorak KRW110 000
Jeongdongjin KRW60 000
Samcheok KRW50 000
Hosan KRW60 000
Gyeongju Day 1 KRW40 000
Gyeongju Day 2 KRW90 000 (included snacks and breakfast) KRW60 000 just room
Busan KRW70 000
Jirisan KRW75 000 (included dinner, breakfast, tea)

It has struck us as strange how dead most of the places were, at restaurants we were generally the only people, same with the hotels. I do not know how the places survive. The coast line is fantastic, just a pitty that almost every part is fenced off with barbed wire, I guess that the necessity when bordering an “axis of evil” country.

Korean Road Trip Day 11: Busan to Jirisan National park

Our trip has had to be adjusted; we have two days left and are as far as feasibly possible (on the mainland of Korea) from Seoul. If we did everything we planned, it looks like we will need maybe another two weeks, oh well maybe next time …

So we had to make a few decisions, and we decided to start heading for home and try and do it in two days, which meant no more relaxed driving along coastal roads, but hitting the freeways and getting some kilometres under the tyres.

But before we did this, we walked around the Haeundae beach area and to the Yacht Mariner. There were some excellent views of Busan and the coast line, but we did not have too much time to relax and take it all in.

We then headed straight for Jirisan National Park, driving for nearly three hours in temperatures which hit 36c at times (according to my car temp gauge). The car was getting hot and Brandon was getting uncomfortable, so we were looking for a place to stay. We wanted to stay at a pension so that we could make ourselves a braai. This time we struggled to find a place, we saw signs saying XYZ Pension 3km, we would drive the 3km and then couldn’t find anything (same issue as the signage in Gyoengju). We carried on a bit and then turned around as we had seen a different pension sign earlier (back around 4km), we droved there, found the sign saying ZYX Pension 500m, we drove there and … nothing, we couldn’t find it. Eventually we turned down a small road and found a few pensions, one under construction, so not available, another which looked really nice, but it looked like it was a whole house. No one was around so I tried calling a number but we had some difficulty but finally understood that it was not available (at least to us), it was now really hot and we wanted to stop, Brandon was crying (he has a bit of a cough) and Carla had also caught a cold. We saw a house that looked nice, had a fantastic view, and had some signs around, but I could not read them as they were written in Korean italics and for me it made it a bit difficult. Anyway, I went and asked if they had a place to stay, a lady said yes and gave us a choice between two rooms, one down-stairs and another upstairs. We chose the upstairs (which maybe was the wrong decisions as the windows were tiny and it was quite hot up there). I do not think they usually have people staying there, and we were an exception, it turns out we had a “Homestay” that was unplanned, there was a family living there, a father, son and Grandmother. We spent the evening with them and had samgyupsal outside. A few hikers from the surrounding mountains joined us.
The house also seems to function as a small tea / coffee stop, so later in the evening the owner pulled out a low table and I, together with some of his neighbours sat around and had a small tea ceremony. The tea was excellent and we had it in small cups. There was a specific process to filtering and brewing the tea. It was a really nice experience. I sat outside for a while, enjoying the sounds of nature and looking at the stars.
The owner was telling me that this (Jirisan) is the “Mother” mountain of Korea, as it is big, but the hills are rolling and it is peaceful with many animals and rivers. Seorak Mountain is known as the “Father” Mountain, it is large and imposing, with big cliffs and rocky peaks. Very different types of mountains.

Korean Road Trip Day 10: Gyeongju to Busan

Our “American breakfast” was interesting, first we were served a plate a soup (not sure what kind, but could have been asparagus and potato with small bits of meat) and a salad. All very nice but a little strange for breakfast. Our knife was also a fish knife, which is the second time this has happened, and we think that Koreans think that a fish knife is actually a breakfast knife, who knows. The rest was not bad, just an egg, toast, banana and some small tomatoes. Considering the amount we paid, and because I was still hungry, I asked for two more eggs.

We were planning on heading further south to Busan (looks like we are running out of time), so we headed that way but I was hoping to stop and see a few things on the way. We first tried to find some kings tombs, we looked for the Royal Tomb of King Sinmu, but couldn’t find it, but think we found the Royal Tomb of King Hyogong. I am not sure why, but the signage is terrible. When you are miles away, the signs pointing you in the direction of the sites are perfect, but when you get close or turnoff the main road, then all the signs disappear and you are left driving around searching. Maybe the sites are supposed to be really obvious, and no one can miss them, but we kept missing them, or driving around for half and hour trying to find the site.

We did find two other tombs though, but only walked to the one, Tomb of King Heongang. This was next to another beautiful palace, Tongiljeon Hall which had paintings and stories of some of the history and invasions of Korea and the battles that were fought.

By this time it was already past mid-day and we hadn’t left Gwangju yet, so we headed out through Ulsan and along the coastal road all the way into Busan. We went to Haeundae Beach area which is the main beach and the most popular beach in Korea ( you can see some pictures of what it looks like in peak season)

We found a motel, Sugar Motel which was quite funky, all the rooms were done up in different themes and styles. I am not sure what theme ours was, but something like Korean (K-Pop) pop culture. I disappeared for a swim at the beach while Carla and Brandon relaxed in the room. The beach was nice, long and wide and there were actually a few waves, these are the first waves we have seen on the entire trip.

I looked out for a place to get that elusive burger and chips, and we settled on Breeze Burns, a burger and grill restaurant, exactly what the doctor ordered! After our burgers we were trying to decide where to go for a decent cup of coffee because all the coffee we found on the trip, so far, had been automatically served with sugar or sweetner and suddenly the waiter brought us two cappuccino’s, the waiter must have read our minds. We don’t know why we got the free coffee because there were lots of expats in the Burger Place so it couldn’t have been due to our foreign appearance. Koreans are very generous and we have been so impressed with the level of service on our trip.

Sugar Motel: Our 6th Floor Passage

Korean Road Trip Day 9: Gyeongju

We started out this morning hoping to buy some bread rolls that we had seen last night from the Hilton, but unfortunately there was nothing there this morning, so we settled for some fruit and yoghurt from the GS25 convenience store. Brandon has been showing so much interest in our food lately, so we let him taste our apple, he just sucked a little on it, and absolutely loved it. I guess when we get back we will start him on some more solid food.

We ate breakfast at the Watermill square and then found our way to the Bulguksa Temple. This temple has been designated as a World Culture Heritage site by UNESCO. It is the best temple that we have seen in Korea, with beautiful gardens and structures in a fantastic setting. The construction of the temple started in 751 and completed in 774 and served as a centre of Shilla Buddhism and prayer for the protection of the country from foreign invaders. I am not sure that this helped very much, because I think Korea is one of the countries with the highest incidence of invasions. At the temple, there was a Buddhist ceremony taking place, we were not sure what it was about but think that it was actually a funeral and the monks were performing the ceremony for the family, quite interesting…
We moved on to the Seokguram Grotto, which is also a UNESCO world heritage site. This is a large Budda statue carved out of granite, inside a granite man-made cave. This Grotto is considered as the best example of Buddhist artistry. The statue is beautifully made. This Grotto is about 2km walking distance through the mountains from the Bulguksa temple, but this was a bit much with Brandon, so we drove nearly 10km to get there. At least the drive was pleasant, winding roads going up into the mountains, and a small buck even crossed the road in front of the car (I didn’t realise there was any wild life left, I thought everything had been eaten). These two places had taken much longer than expected and it was really warm, so we drove back into town. On the way there was another small site with three stone pagodas, turns out it was Janghangrisaji site. The left pagoda was undergoing some reconstruction work, the middle one was fine and the right pagoda had been completely destroyed over time by the invasions. I quickly went to see this one and Carla stayed in the car to feed Brandon. We continued into town and tried a new hotel, the Swiss Rosen Hotel. A nice hotel, which was KRW60 000 for a room, or KRW90 000 for the room plus an “American breakfast”, snacks (cold drinks, chips, coffee, cookies, water) and free use of bicycles for cycling around the area. Considering our problem with getting food, we paid the extra to have a proper breakfast.

After letting Brandon sleep for a bit, we headed out for a walk and for dinner, again not knowing where we were planning to go. We ended up sitting on a Terrace of the Concorde Hotel, which had some live music and was a nice setting. They also had barbeque chicken and ribs. The music was a little loud, so we ate and left and headed back to the hotel for the night.

Our cold drinks, tastes just like you would think pine needles should taste

Korean Road Trip Day 8: Hosan to Gyeongju

At the hotel we managed to have a proper breakfast this morning: eggs, bacon, toast, orange juice and coffee. The coffee is not good though, it is called an “Americano” and for me it is coffee flavoured water.
We had a long way to travel today, in total about 200km and we still wanted to try and see things on the way. I saw a small, old building while we were driving around the night before, and it was only a couple hundred metres from the hotel so I wanted to go there first. We walked along the beach, which was a pebble beach that did not make walking easy. When we arrived at the hill with the building, the structure was locked and not very impressive from the outside, so we walked back to the car and headed on down the coast.
Just a few kilometres away was a lookout, marking the change in provinces, we wanted to stop and have a look, but there were three busses of Korean Tourists at the stop having a snack break. We decided to stop anyway, but we thought it was best to go to the lookout one at a time without taking Brandon. This is because when Korean ladies see Brandon, they always want to touch him and pick him up. They do this without asking, and will just go and take him away from you. It is because in Korean culture it is accepted and a child is seen to belong to the community, everyone means well, and there are no bad intentions but sometimes it is a bit annoying. I waited while Carla went to the lookout, while waiting some people from the tour group came over and offered us Kimchi mandu (fermented cabbage in a dumpling) and some bottled water. I was a bit sceptical about the mandu, but an hour later decided to eat it as I was getting really hungry, turns out it was really good and probably the best mandu I have had while being in Korea. We didn’t succeed in keeping Brandon away from the Korean ladies because when I went to see the lookout, Carla opened the car door to stand next to Brandon while he stayed in his car seat – Korean ladies descended on her and one even wanted to pick him up but luckily he was strapped in and she couldn’t work out how to unbuckle him. Another took out her cell phone and was comparing her grandchild to Brandon, the cell phone had a close up of her grandchild and she was putting it next to Brandon and the ladies were having a chat about the different looks of the babies.

We continued along the coast, and I took as many of the small coastal roads as possible. These roads really hug the coast line and sometimes the water only stops by hitting the road supporting wall. These roads are really beautiful and keep on going through small coastal towns and fishing villages. I cannot mention all the towns we went through, but a few of the larger ones are: Uljin, Seongnyugul, Gusan, Pyeonghae, Hupo, Yeongdeok, we passed by Pohang but did not go in. We also went through the hometown of the current Korean president, Lee, Myung-Bak. Finally I needed to leave the coast and make the last little stretch fairly quickly to get us into Gyeongju.

We actually needed a lot more time around here, probably another two nights before we reached Gyeongju would have been about right.
Gyeongju is also known as “the museum without walls”, having numerous tombs, temples, pagodas, castles and burial mounds. This area was the capital in the Shilla Dynasty, around 57BC and remained as the capital for the next thousand years.

After driving around a bit and getting a little lost in the mountains, we settled on a small hotel called Valentine Hotel, nothing special but fairly cheap at only KRW40 000 for the night. We went for a walk around Lake Bomun, close to the hotel. We walked around a bit and Brandon was sleeping until he needed his dinner at 6pm. He woke up, fed and then did not want to sleep again. His routine is supposed to be the other way round, wake up, have some activity, eat then sleep, not tonight… We walked around the lake and saw Bomun Tower, which is a type of pagoda. There was a market area but most places were closed.
Again we struggled to find a restaurant that appealed to us, and also realised we didn’t have Brandon’s dummies (pacifiers) which could have meant a crying baby in the restaurant. We walked back to hotel and then out again to try to find a restaurant. We settled for a Korean place and had Galbi-tang (meat based soup) and Son-dubu (spicy tofu and bean paste soup). It was nice, but about an hour later we were both hungry again. We really need a good burger and chips!!