Busan

Day 22  Oct 2

After an awful breakfast in the overcrowded hotel dining room, we walked the deserted streets (it was Sunday and a holiday weekend) to Yondusan Park up a bunch of stairs to a nice overview of the harbor; there is a tall tower there as well.  We walked down a circular wooded path to the shopping area and the walked through the busy local market where we found a soccer shirt for Miles and a few ramie food covers for the daughters-in-law.   We walked though the BIFF area (Busan Internation Film Festival) which is slightly more upscale than the local market and down to the fish market.  It was an immense market with many varieties of live fish being sold.

After that we drove to the Yonggungsa temple along the coast built in 1376 during the Koryo dynasty.  Crowded as can be…many tourists and hard to park and walk!  We ate lunch at a tourist restaurant nearby with a long wait but with the intervention of Chris they brought our food which was fine.  Afterwards, we walked a long ways with lots of stairs and shrines to the sea gods and Buddha.   It was a large complex which was very nice along the sea, but the crowds were somewhat overwhelming.

 We went to Camellia Island (Haewundea Dongbaek Island ) next through heavy traffic.  It was more interesting than we thought.  There is a circular path around the island which is heavily planted with camellias and other trees.  Half way around is a round building which was the center of the 2008 APEC (Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation) meetings.  It was an interesting building with some information about that innovative meeting.

 We then went to dinner and had a delicious meal of mul hwe;  hwe is Korean sushi and it is served in a rice bowl with Asian pear and noodles.  It was full of flavor; the key is the red bean paste; a fermented red chili and bean paste that was made by the owner.

Gyeongju

Day 21.  Oct. 1

After a mediocre breakfast in our tourist hotel, in a heavy fog we drove up a windy mountain way to the Seokguram Grotto with an ancient stone Buddha from the 8th century. We walked in the fog for a kilometer or two to the grotto. After a spiel by a somewhat strange local tour guide, we climbed up to a temple (a UNESCO site) with a beautiful stone carved Buddha that was behind glass.  Only members of the congregation could go behind the glass.  We were not allowed to take pictures.   Our guide Chris was incensed about the glass and the lack of accessibility.  He did not feel this was the way to manage a UNESCO site.  Chris turned the ear of a monk who listened to his arguments.

From this lovely place, we went to another amazing UNESCO world heritage Shilla site.  It was a stunning old Buddhist temple called Bulgoksa with two stone pagodas built in the 8th century; multiple small temples, a fish drum, a gong, a big drum, and here as in all the other temple complexes, a shrine to the pagan (shamanistic) gods of the mountains and sea.  The large temple, started in 751 AD and completed in 774 AD, had been damaged by a 5.3 earthquake a few days before, but not extensively.  The approach to the temple was beautiful with bridges, trees, a pond/river, and nice paths. The stone carvings on the pagodas and on the base of the temple made one aware of the skill of these ancient craftsmen who carved huge stones to fit together (reminiscent of the Inca carvers in Peru).

We had a delicious lunch in local restaurant.  The proprietess said she had never served a western foreigner before!

In the afternoon, we went to the park with the tombs of the Shilla royalty.  It was a big park with big grassy hills; tumuli with winding paths around and pretty trees (couldn’t figure out what they were) blossoming with fuschia flowers in the fall! Some of the younger people were all dressed up in traditional Korean garb which gave a nice atmosphere to the park. The final tumulus, Cheonmachong, was the tomb of the king with a chance to see the inside with a cross with a flying horse, golden and bronze artifacts, and a replica of the grave of the king in the place where it was found.  

Afterwards we walked to an old observatory which supposedly is the oldest in east Asia (built between 632-647) built during the reign of Queen Seondeok.   Not as impressive as it was described and maybe not the oldest one! Here Chris is translating a video presentation.

 We drove to Busan and checked into the Crown Harbor hotel, which was quite nice but inundated with hoards of people.  We elected to eat in the hotel (it was a holiday and the desk said there were no local restaurants open).  Truly awful food. And zillions of Chinese tourists.

Traditional Village in Andong

Day 20.  Sept. 30

Compared to our hotel room, the breakfast room, on the 15th floor, was pretty good, but crowded with many tourists: mostly Chinese and SE Asian. We left Sokcho and started our long journey to Andong and its Hahoe village, stopping a few minutes for gas at a roadside shop that featured many varieties of dried fish.

 It started to rain and which slowed us down during this long 4-5 hour drive. We went for lunch to a local restaurant and had another version of the good food we have been having in restaurants who serve one or two dishes in the local style with no westerners eating there.

After lunch we went on a hike to the summit of a cliff called Buyongdae overlooking the Hahoe village.  This ancient village was contained by a meandering river which almost made it into an island.  The hike up was nice, and then it gave a good overview of this village, with its bright yellow-green rice fields ready for harvest.

The village has been continuously inhabited by a single clan and has been the home of many prominent politicians and scholars. We could see two types of houses; those with thatched and those with tiled roofs.  The lower classes lived in those with thatched roofs and the bigger homes with tiles were those of the elite upper classes.  But throughout they were side-by-side, with narrow alleyways bordered on either side by low walls and scattered persimmon trees and other old gnarled trees that made the entire scene very picturesque.  People still live here so we could enter into only a few courtyards, but nevertheless it was beautiful and startling to see how well preserved this 500 year old village is.  We had a guided tour by a very articulate professional guide who gave us the essential information about this village and its amazing situation facing the river and surrounded by mountains.  Good feng shui apparently!  

We had a nice walk along the river and then got back into the van and departed for Gyeongju in the rain.  It was a difficult drive in the rain and with road construction but finally arrived quite late at the hotel which was in the tourist section by the lake. The hotel room was clean and functional.  We decided to eat in the hotel as it was raining and we were tired; it was OK but not great.

To Scenic Northeastern South Korea

Day 19.  Sept. 29
Our  breakfast was another eating adventure.  We had bibimbap (rice, egg, meat, vegetables such as green onion, cress, carrots, etc with sesame oil and soy sauce).  It was delicious.   We were picked up at 9 AM by our guide Chris Lee.  We loaded our luggage up and started driving to the northeast coast of Korea, an city called Sokcho. Korea is mountainous and verdant.  People can only live in the valleys between densely forested mountain chain that cover the entire country.  The highway system was modern, heavily trafficked and easy to drive due to the number of tunnels through the mountains.  Chris asked us to count the tunnels; 23 to the cross highway near to Sokcho! No ups and down, either elevated highways or tunnels to engineer the roads flat.   We stopped for coffee at a roadside cafe and shop which also featured huge phallic and erotic carvings. (Definitely NSFW.)

We arrived at our first destination which was Mt. Seorak National Park.   After we found a place to park amid the tour buses, we went to have lunch in a locally owned restaurant in the park, had a large pancake with squid and green onions made by a lady out in the open.  It was delicious.

Afterwards, we took a cable car up to see the Gwongeumseong peak.  When we got off the cable car it was a climb up stairways to the top which was all rock with a beautiful view.  It was very crowded with Chinese and local tourists;  that was to be our fate for the next few days.  

When we descended, we went to visit first a very large bronze Buddha which was very impressive and then went underneath the Buddha to a very nice temple.  From there we had a very nice walk for about an hour in the forests in the park with indigenous red pines and a lot of other flora.  It was very atmospheric.

We drove from there to the seashore and walked a bit on a pier and then to our hotel.  It was rather mediocre but clean.  Finding a restaurant nearby was difficult; we went first to a place that had Wagyu beef, but the minimum order was about a pound of meat which was expensive and more than we wanted to eat; Chris unsuccessfully tried to convince the owner to give us half an order but he refused.  So he found us another restaurant which was very local and had beef soup with the usual zillion side dishes included kimchi, radish, pepper paste, etc.  It was very nice and very cheap, but sitting on the floor was difficult for us old fogies; we didn’t do it again.

Evening in Seoul, Korea

Day 18.  Sept 28

We were to be picked up at our Valdivostok hotel by our blond driver at 8, and when 8:15 came and she hadn’t showed up yet, we called the agency…but of course she showed up just then!  The traffic was horrific.. it took us about an hour to get to the airport.  The flight to Seoul was easy and on a bigger plane than our previous Russian flight.  Arriving at Incheon airport in Seoul was an experience.  It is HUGE.  We walked to immigration for it seemed like miles; and then more to find the train to Seoul.  We took the express train to Seoul station which was luxurious, taking 43 minutes.  We then decided to take a taxi to our hotel as it seemed rather complicated to take the subway.  Our taxi driver spoke no English and could not figure out the name or location of the hotel.  He finally called the hotel and I showed him where it was on my phone on google maps, and then he figured it out.  It really wasn’t very far.

Our hotel was amazing!   It is a small boutique hotel right near the Bank of Korea.  The people were nice, the hotel was lovely..modern and well equipped (so well equipped that it took a detailed manual to understand how to work the Japanese style toilet!).   It was an amazing hotel and we got our room upgraded to a suite.  It was really a treat.  Good shower, comfortable beds, and great wi fi!   We went out and walked around about dinner time and the neighborhood appeared to have thousands of restaurants of all Korean varieties; not tourist restaurants but grill restaurants or seafood all with bright neon lights in narrow alleys; very atmospheric.   Vic had a field day with pictures of workshops, cafes, and street scenes.   We finally decided on a grill restaurant with pork grilled with and without spice on a charcoal grill in front of us.  The waitress helped us understand how to cut up the meat (with scissors), grill it, wrap it in a lettuce or shiso-like perilla leaf with green onions, chili sauce, and other condiments.  Two kinds of soup; one hot and one cold, and beer and we had a great time!  Quite an eating adventure, followed by a walk in the area and in the downtown area we were in.