Day #19 - 4/9/16Today I spent 13 hours travelling. you will be no doubt devastated that this post will therefore be reduced to bullet points.
- Getting between Seoul's domestic and international airports is ridiculously intuitive and cheap. Korean public transport and infrastructure is a wonderful thing and I shall miss it very much. - I may or may not have accidentally eaten dog-meat in Seoul airport. Remaining in complete denial about this. - Of course a live orchestra was playing in the departure terminal #becausekorea - I saw Mount Fuji from the plane which was pretty damn epic - Tokyo Narita Airport is working 70s everything-must-be-brown chic to the absolute max. - Tokyo Narita airport is actually nowhere near Tokyo, it's actually in the middle of rice fields 60km away from the city. - Because of this it takes an average 3 hours to get from Tokyo Narita Airport into central Tokyo, even using the Narita Express train. - The Tokyo subway system is a thing of nightmares and follows absolutely no logic whatsoever. - I may have ended up staying with a couchsurfer who is a Jehovas Witness.
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day #17 2/09/16What exactly is a lava tunnel you ask? Well, I too did not know about this phenomenon until visiting Jeju Island. Jeju is home to Manjanggul Cave, a 8928m long lava tube; one of the longest in the world. Manjanggul was about 2 hours on the bus from my hostel and I hoped that it wouldn't be yet another UNESCO disapointment (see the previous post if you don't know what I'm on about). I set off with Julia, the German girl I met at the BBQ the previous night, 2 Argentinan sisters Clara and Cecilia who have been travelling for 2 years and have no intention of stopping and Hsiaochin (none of us ever really figured out how to pronounce this...) a Chinese girl who had come to take advantage of Jeju's duty free shopping. The first part of the adventure to the lava tunnel is the bus ride; our bus driver on this occasion managed to exceed all previous experiences of Korean bus drivers and we had no less than 5 near collisions on our journey. So yes sorry, you are all desperate to discover what a lava tube is. Well...as Wikipedia puts it: it is a "natural conduit formed by flowing lava which moves beneath the hardened surface of a lava flow". Basically it is a very long cave/tunnel which has wiggly patterns on the walls and floor due to the solidified lava flow (I would have been such an asset to the geological field I know). One of the highlights of the lava tunnel is that as soon as you enter it the temperature drops about 15 degrees. I found myself wearing a fleece in South Korea in the middle of August and it was wonderful. Only about 1km of the cave is actually open to tourists; the size and shape of the tunnel/tube/cave/whatever it is, constantly changes - from small passageways no higher than 2 meters tall to enormous open caverns 30m wide and twice as high. Unfortunately it is near impossible to take decent photos without a very good camera and tripod, having neither of these I have added some photos from google images to give you an idea of what it was like. When I could convince my companions to remain in the cold no longer we left the cave and headed back to Seogwipo, again narrowly surviving our ordeal on the bus. After constant meals of rice, meat and fermented vegetables (or more often, no vegetables at all) we all opted for pizza. The selling point of the particular pizza restaurant we chose was the unlimited salad bar; the staff seemed completely bemused that all of us were more interested in depleting their fresh lettuce stocks rather than order the daily special ''Shrimp Snow Time''. Sadly I have no idea what Shrimp Snow Time pizza consisted of but the photo did little to tempt us into ordering it. (All photos from Google Images)
day #16 - 1/09/16jEju olle trailsAs I mentioned in a previous host Koreans are slightly obsessed with hiking. In 2007 an enterprising ex-journalist - Suh Myung-suk, inspired by a recent trip to the Camino de Santiago, decided to honour this national obsession by creating 21 walking trails all over the island. The word Olle is local dialect for 'garden path'. These trails take you into rural Jeju and far away from the mega hotels and malls. The trails span a range of difficulties and lengths and a few even have wheelchair access. They are easy to find and follow due to bright blue and orange arrows and ribbons which indicate the trail direction (blue=towards the end of the trail, orange=towards the start). At big intersections the trails are indicated by the Olle mascot; a stylised wooden horse. Jeju is very proud of its horses which have been bred on the island since 1276 when Kublai Khan (grandson of Genghis) brought 160 horses to the island. The islands geography and climate; particularly it's notably mild winters (compared to the mainland where winters see temperatures of -18C) have been favoured by horse breeders ever since. In addition to breeding for racing stock, horse meat consumption is common on the island, as is "horse oil" which is marketed almost exclusively at the Chinese. Not sure how rubbing liquified horse fat into your face will "Prevent freckles, whiten skin or magically remove wrinkles" but I commend the marketing company who managed to reinvent animal fat as the latest cosmetic must-have. udo islandSeeking some walking and nature I joined Julia on a trip to Udo- a tiny 'cow shaped' [Koreans clearly have an abstract concept on what constitutes a cow] island off the south east coast of Jeju. Udo had been recommended to us both by several people and the hostel manager also enthusiastically encouraged us to go; so we embarked on our 1.5hour bus journey to the ferry port with high expectations. Well Udo, I must say I don't really understand the attraction. Having circumnavigated the island via the 1-1 Olle Trail I can confidently say that Udo is not worth the return ferry ticket. Admittedly the day was overcast which may have tainted our impressions of the place somewhat, but honestly it was just a small, unremarkable island. The few beaches it had, although nice, were crowded and had slightly too much litter to ignore. The main attraction on the island appeared to be the rental of scooters and small vehicles which were like a cross between a golf buggy and a Tuk-tuk, which were ridden around by crazed Chinese tourists who favoured using their available appendages to hold selfie sticks and cameras rather than the handlebars. I was pretty happy when our sweaty walk came to an end and we headed back to Jeju on the ferry. haeneyoOne of the major selling points of Jeju to me as a travel destination was the possibility of seeing haenyeo, or female free divers. These women dive (just holding their breath) all year round into the seas surrounding the island in search of shellfish and other seafood. Because of the presence of haenyeo, Jeju is unique in Korea- here women are the breadwinners of the family and a matriarchal society has developed as a result. It is thought that women have traditionally taken on the role of divers because they are able to spend longer in the cold waters due to increased sub-cutaneous fat compared with men. Sadly haenyeo are dying out; younger people prefer the easier, less physically demanding jobs that tourism has brought to Jeju and now 98% of working haenyeo are over 50. - seriously awesome right? I was beyond excited to stumble across a group of haenyeo sorting through their day's catch on the hill just above one of their preferred diving spots and proceeded to take photos like a crazed One Direction fan-girl until Julia dragged me away. seoNgsan ilchubong PeakOur next stop was Seongsan Ilchubong Peak - which is one of the UNESCO 7 Wonders of the Natural World. This geographical phenomenon, known as 'tuff cone' to those budding geologists out there, was formed by an underwater volcanic eruption; and as you can see it looks rather nice from the air: We paid the entrance fee and proceeded to scale the 180m high peak via a series of increasingly steep steps. Let's just say even before we reached halfway I had discovered the ability to sweat from places I didn't know existed. Our mutual reaction upon reaching the top was that of extreme bemusement and disappointment. Out in front of us stretched what was essentially a green field; I have no idea how Jeju Tourist Board managed to convince UNESCO to award Seongsan Ilchubong with such prestige, but I imagine it required a significant amount of narcotics with a handful of blackmail and a pinch of bribery. In the words of an Argentinan girl we met later that evening in the hostel; "I have seen back gardens more breathtaking". bonus pHoto:day #15 - 31/08/16My hostel in Jeju is in Seogwipo which is the second largest city on the island, sadly due to this there was little of the island vibe I had been hoping for. Seogwipo however, does have the advantage of excellent bus connections which are vital for getting around the island if you are without a car. Nearby my hostel were two "food streets" - ever eager to ignore my expanding waistline in the name of culinary exploration I headed off to see what I could find and sadly found that every one of the food outlets was closed - even though it was lunchtime. Returning to the hostel with a very sad looking 40p instant noodle-cup I sat in the hostel courtyard and tried to figure out my plan of attack for the day. cheonjiyeon fallsI toyed with the idea of spending the afternoon doing one of the islands famous walking trails, two were easily accessible from my hostel, but decided against it due it being the middle of the day and around 35C. Instead I walked down to Cheonjiyeon Falls; the most famous waterfall on Jeju which was about 20 minutes walk from my hostel. The waterfall was very nice but actually I preferred walking along the gorge towards it and being back in some decent nature so easily accessible from soulless, concrete-ridden Seogwipo. korean bbqThe hostel organises a Korean BBQ every night for its guests, the key selling point of which is its use of Jeju Black Pig - the famous, supposedly superior pig bred on the island. Having walked past the previous night's BBQ crowd which consisted exclusively of about 30 soju-fuelled Koreans I was slightly concerned that conversation would be somewhat lacking. Thankfully the hostel directed me to a table where I was sat next to the only other non-Korean in attendance, Julia who is from Hamburg. We were quickly joined by a group of intrigued Koreans who grilled us about our backgrounds and responded to every single answer with a synchronised "ooooorrrwwwwhhh". The "orrwhs" were particularly enthusiastic upon discovering that I had been to medical school and even more so when they discovered that Julia was a fashion (and food) stylist. For those unaware what exactly a food stylist is they are the people who lay out the food and table wear prior to a photoshoot for said food so that it looks pretty in the magazine. After posing as the token white people for endless selfies and exchanging the inevitable Facebook and Instagram profiles with a group of people I would undoubtedly never encounter again, whose names I cannot read let alone pronounce, we started eating. For the next 2 hours we were fed a seemingly endless supply of pork which we cooked on a BBQ in the centre of the table. We also had the pleasure of sharing 2 mushrooms between the entire table- seriously Korea I know you love kimchi but why must you deprive me of normal, non pickled vegetables and then tease me with such pitiful quantities of them?! [sidenote: the Korean for mushrooms is "mushroomie" - amazing] fun factThe highest mountain in South Korea is on Jeju - the dormant volcano Mount Hallasan which is the centre of the island stands at 1950m above sea level.
day #14 - 30/08/16Today I travelled from Seoul to Jeju Island, a tiny island off the south coast of Korea which is famed as the Korean honeymoon hotspot and a favourite filming location of K-Dramas (Korean soap operas which are ridiculously popular throughout Asia). The island is now also a huge shopping destination for Chinese tourists who take advantage of the tax-free megastores without needing a visa (unlike on the mainland where Chinese people are required to have an expensive tourist visa). fun facTThe stone man who features in the photo above of the luggage belt at Jeju Airport is actually a "Dol Hareubang". These large stone statues are famous to Jeju and are representative of gods offering protection and fertility and were therefore placed outside of gates for protection against demons. Nowadays, monopolising on the islands' booming honeymoon trade, small versions of the statue are now sold to help with fertility problems.
day #13 - 29/08/16seoraksan national parkBeing my last day in Sokcho I had no option but to venture out into the storm and go hiking in the Seoraksan National Park. Here are some photos courtesy of Google Images which should explain why I was so keen to explore this national park: - looks hideous right? My experience of the Seoraksan was somewhat greyer, colder and wetter than any of those photos above. Despite this it was still one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen so I can't imagine how breathtaking it would be to see it with a blue sky. The park is only 20 minutes by bus from Sokcho and driving up from the coast into the rugged mountains really was rather nice. The park itself is very easy to explore with well marked trails leading to impressive rock formations, mountain tops and Buddhist temples. There is even a cable car leading to the top of one of the mountains which I imagine would give an Instagram worthy viewpoint across landscape - when it isn't entirely cloaked in fog and rain. I decided to follow one of the trails leading to the famous temple in the area and along the way came across an enormous (14m) metal Buddha (Sinheungsa Temple). Although the weather was awful the mist and fog definitely added a mystical vibe to the place which I suppose could be interpreted as 'spiritual' if you are that way inclined. After about 15 minutes of strolling along the trail, smiling smugly at all the drenched, miserable looking couples who had turned up without raincoats and wearing flip-flops, I reached the a temple (no amount of googling can remind me of the name). The architecture was very similar to the temples I'd seen before- with bright paint covering the wooden structure. This temple did however have a noticeable amount of dragons hanging like gargoyles from beneath the curved roofs glaring angry at the downpour surrounding them. Forcing myself to carry on I followed the trail for about an hour and a half through the woods heading towards Ulsanbawi Rock- which is actually a series of several rock formation on one of the mountain peaks and the poster child of the Korean tourist board. Hiking is so popular in Korea it is almost seen as a national sport; when I was in Seoul I even saw people on the city's subway fully kitted up for a days hiking. Luckily the weather appeared to have put most sane people off a days walking so there were stretches of the trail where I was alone for almost 40 minutes. After reaching my first landmark I continued to climb for another 30 minutes when the path opened up to an enormous series of stones which had Korean characters carved into them. I headed up a stone staircase, which had also been carved out of the rock, to discover an entrance to a Buddhist temple (Gyejoam Temple), carved into the mountainside. It was surreal to find such a huge temple miles from anywhere in the middle of the mountains. Up some more steps there was a shrine where I sat, sheltered from the rain, trying (and failing miserably) to understand what this whole Buddhist zen thing was about. Stopping myself from indulging any more in my Gapyah moment I headed down to another huge rock platform (also carved with Korean characters) upon which is a large (about 2-3 meters high) boulder called Heundeulbawi. Apparently it is possible, with the force of several people to get the boulder to rock back and forth. Sadly my incredible strength and fitness was no match for Heundeulbawi. The trail does actually continue upward for about 2 more hours right to the top of the mountain to the famous aforementioned Ulsanbawi Rock. In the interest of avoiding hypothermia I decided against this and headed back down the stairs to a coffee shop I had spotted at the start of the trail. By the time I had arrived they had even started a fire in an indoor firepit which was soon surrounded by all my wet clothes. Here I had my first decent coffee in Korea, sadly it cost me almost £8.00 to indulge in this but at this point I was so wet, cold and tired I didn't really care. I also dubiously ordered a 'scone' and it was a good thing I didn't expect much because the flat, tasteless, absolutely-nothing-like-a-scone thing that appeared would have given Mary Berry a heart attack. The two hour bus journey from Sokcho to Seoul was thankfully less eventful than my previous encounter with Korean transportation and I arrived into Seoul just in time to catch the last subway to Seoul Station. sleeping in a saunaYes you read that correctly. I spent the night in a Korean sauna (known as jimjilbangs). Erase every prior conception you have of a sauna because jimjilbangs bear little resemblance to anything available in the west and no, contrary to my father's outrage and concern, they are not brothels (as if he genuinely thought I would choose to stay in a brothel!?). A jimjilbang is usually housed in a large building of around 4-6 stories and can be spotted by a large neon sign bearing the following symbol: ♨️. Most are open 24 hours and are a very useful place for budget accommodation. The entrance fee is anywhere between £5-£10 for a 12 hour period, the price usually depends on the location and the number of facilities available. I stayed at Siloam Sauna which is only 5 minutes walk from Seoul Station and offers free luggage storage so was ideal given I would be flying from Seoul airport the next day. After paying the entrance fee you are then given a locker key, a bath-towel, two tiny towels (tea towel size) and a sauna outfit (colour coded by gender) which consist of a large t-shirt and a pair of baggy 3/4 length trousers that are somewhere between pyjamas, a prison uniform and hospital scrubs. Nice. You then head to your assigned changing rooms where you take off your shoes and place them in a special shoe locker. You then exchange your shoe locker key for a larger locker wristband-key where you can store your valuables and clothes before stripping down completely naked. Using one of your tiny towels in a feeble attempt to maintain your modesty you then head over to the first part of the jimjilbang experience; the baths. Due to the nakedness of it all you'll be happy to hear the baths are gender segregated. The baths themselves are not for cleaning however; first you must head over to one side of the bath room where rows of shower heads and tiny stools are lined up. The idea is you squat down on the ridiculously small plastic stool and scrub yourself clean (soap and shampoo are provided) and then dry yourself off before entering the baths. [An additional service you can pay for at this point is to have little old Korean ladies scrub your skin raw. Having watched the following video of American talk-show host Conan O'Brian's experiences in a jimjilbang I decided against this: Seriously watch the video it is hilarious.] Yet more delicate towel handling is required at this point as you try to simultaneously cover yourself with the towel whilst lowering yourself into the water and not getting the towel wet. Seasoned veterans somehow manage to do this so elegantly that they enter the bath towel-a-covering and a split second later have said towel delicately wrapped around their head in an impressive feat of towel origami that looks similar to Princess Leia. Older women (and useless western tourists) just messily fold the towel ontop their head as you cannot under any circumstances let your towel (or hair) touch the water! At Siloam there are about 5 different hot baths all filled with different minerals and claiming to have various healing effects. Sadly due to my being there at 1:30am almost all of these baths were empty and being cleaned (by old ladies known as 'Ajammas' who scrub away at the baths whilst in their underwear!) so I sat in one of two hot baths still open. Once I felt suitably close to collapse I got straight into the freezing cold pool which was painful yet weirdly relaxing. Siloam's website contains some amazing (and totally medically accurate) descriptions of their services which I have put below for your enjoyment; Once you've had enough of the baths (and adjacent saunas) at a jimjilbang you head back to the showers and wash yourself again before getting changed into your sauna pyjamas (floor 2 and above are unisex). This is where the fun begins. At Siloam there are 6 floors comprising of: 1. The baths 2. The changing rooms 3. The 'Resting Room' - this is basically one huge room filled with random sleeping Korean people, sprawled out all over the floor. Truly bizarre. Alongside one of the walls a series of hobbit sized doors lead into special smaller sleeping rooms which each claim various healing properties. 4. 'Entertainment Facilities' - complete with a fully equipped gym, a computer room, a Korean restaurant, a coffee shop, a 'family singing room' (ie. Karaoke) and a children's playroom. This floor is laid out similarly to the floor below in that the centre of the floor is a just a large open space complete with TV blaring - it was 2am at this point - and full of sleeping people (sleeping on the hard floor with just a blanket and a hard leather block -I refuse to acknowledge them as pillows- for comfort). The 'entertainment' rooms, like the floor below are accessible via doorways along the edges of the big main room. 5. 'Formentation Room' - so I have no idea what the sauna's English translator was thinking when they described this floor as 'formentation' (Definition :"the action of instigating or stirring up undesirable sentiment or actions"). But essentially this floor was filled with little rooms, again accessible through hobbit/Milly-sized doors. The temperatures and humidities varied between the rooms. In some of them, such as the 85C room (I suggest 'oven' may be a more suitable word here) in which I managed a whole 4 minutes before almost passing out, you sit cross legged on the stone floor. Others however are like little caves, the ground filled with hot soft stones or salt- in these people were lying down and actually burying themselves beneath the hot stones, a few people had even managed to sleep in these - Korean people seem to have the remarkable and enviable ability of being able to fall asleep anywhere. 6. 'Sleeping room' - this floor is fairly unique to Siloam, at most jimjilbangs the sleeping area is simply the central open space on the hard floor (as seen in the levels below). Siloam actually has dedicated sleeping capsules complete with mattresses, sheets and curtains and even a snorers only room to allow useless lightsleepers like myself to attempt to achieve a vague amount of sleep. So there you have it. A thrilling ride through the levels of the super-sauna experience that is a Korean jimjilbang. I managed a surprisingly good sleep in my little capsule and even grabbed breakfast (consisting of an enormous platter just for me) at the Korean restaurant before saying farewell to my prison garb and heading to the airport. finally please enjoy these wonderful inspirational messages that were all over the place, including- of course - the loos...
day #12 - 28/08/16back to the dmzSo the reason I came to Sokcho was due to its proximity to Seoraksan National Park which is considered one of the most beautiful places in South Korea and is full of hiking trails leading to remote temples- sounds dreamy right? Well imagine my joy to wake up, mentally prepared for a day of hiking, to discover a full-on tropical downpour outside. Sadly it turned out that the rain was due to continue for the entire day. Hiking was off the agenda. Sad times indeed. Desperately trying to find something to do that wouldn't require a snorkel I remembered reading about Sokcho's proximity to North Korea. In fact, lying above the 38th parallel, Sokcho was actually part of North Korea from 1945 until the end of the Korean War. Lonely Planet mentioned a DMZ museum which was accessible from Sokcho so I decided to give it a go. Accessing the museum isn't the easiest without a car; first you must take a bus from Sokcho for 1.5hrs north along the eastern coastal road and get off at the final stop. Then you walk for 15 minutes along a road following the barbed wire fence (designed to stop North Koreans entering via the beaches) until you reach the ticket entrance to the DMZ museum. The museum itself however is a further 10km away from the ticket area and the only way you can make this final leg of the journey is via car. Without a car you have to hitchhike. Going up to the ticket office faced with nothing but Korean signs I attempted to explain the situation to the staff who put me to one side until they found someone with a car willing to let me tag along. After 5 mins a poor, utterly bemused middle-aged Korean couple were essentially guilted into driving me along to the museum. With their English vocabulary limited to "Hello" and my Korean "Thank You" I experienced possibly one of the most awkward 10 minutes of my life sitting in the back of their car whilst they laughed amongst themselves at their predicament. First of all we drove to an observatory which famously provides a very good view into the North. I know this because they had a helpful panoramic photograph placed above the Windows showing various villages and guard stations. The view that day however consisted of rain and grey cloud- you couldn't see more than 10 meters let alone 20miles. Everybody stupid enough to trek out to an observatory during a torrential storm was treated to a 10 minute talk, in Korean. We quickly moved onto the museum - the lady let me share her umbrella so she can't have resented me tooooooo much and the man asked me various questions about where I am from and what I was doing in Korea all via Google translate. The museum was a deceptively large building from the outside- inside there is only really one floor of exhibition stuff. My Korean chauffeurs refused to let me pay for my own ticket so I got into the museum for free. The weirdest thing was that despite the effort the couple had gone to to get to the museum (it really is in the middle of nowhere) they raced through the exhibition floors, barely looking at anything and then sat back down in the entrance hall telling me (via Google translate obvs) that they would wait there until I was ready to go back. I did a lap of the upper floor as quickly as I could trying to skim over the information available before stopping in the museum shop to buy some chocolate for my drivers as a pathetic form of thank you (they kept refusing money for my museum ticket). They then kindly drove me all the way back to Sokcho again for free and I never even discovered their names. Thank you awkward Korean couple from Seoul! There is a special place in hell for whoever invented a sausage made from blended squidBack in the hostel I met a German guy, Chris, who was very keen to try Sokcho's famous delicacy - squid sausage. Deciding that, although it would inevitably be disgusting I should probably still experience it just this once, I headed with Chris down the road to the seafood market.
The Sokcho seafood market is in the basement beneath the regular food market (which btw does actually also sell nice, edible things such as Korean spicy fried chicken, tempura and gelato). The seafood basement floor is one massive room full of huge aquarium tanks each filled with hundreds of weird and wonderful sea creatures. All looked completely alien compared to anything available on the Waitrose fish counter and very much like something out of one of those David Attenborough documentaries filmed from a submarine cruising through a deep oceanic trench . These included crabs the size of a small family car, fish so small they were basically plankton and the strangest little red ?vegetables which bobbed up and down in their tanks looking like a cross between a root vegetable and a human heart. Weird. In between each cluster of tanks was a tiny seating area (Korean style ie. Cushions on the floor) where people were eating the recent occupants of the tanks surrounding them. Thankfully the squid sausage we had come to try is very much deceased by the time it is made into sausage form. The 'sausage' is actually the head of a bright red squid which is then stuffed with a mystery blended seafood mush (seriously why?!). This bulbous squid head is tied off at one end (God-forbid the fishy-mush escapes) sliced into wedges about 2 centimetres thick, coated with raw egg, fried and then packaged up to be sold to people mad enough to think making any kind of sausage out of seafood is a good idea. The absolute worst thing about this is that the sausage is therefore eaten cold. Cold seafood mush surrounded by a ring of cold squid is truly a thing of nightmares. No matter how much soy sauce you doused on the thing the vile taste was inescapable - I had 2 slices (which was 2 slices too many) before giving up and attempting to wash away he taste with a can of 'Cass' - Korean beer (which was more water than beer). Next time I'll stick with the sesame spicy chicken thank you very much. day #11 - 27/08/16Today I did very little. I walked from the hostel towards Sokcho's main beach gearing myself up for a swim, only to discover that people in Korea don't wear swimming costumes in the sea but actual clothes. Not wanting to offend a packed beach-full of Koreans I headed back to a nice coffee shop and had a lazy day sipping coffee and exploiting the free wifi.
day #10 - 26/08/16silla tombsIt would be difficult to visit Gyeongju and miss out on the huge Tumuli Park running though the city centre filled with the huge grass covered mounds that make up a small part of the Daereungwon Tomb Complex. The earth-mounds house (mostly) the remains of the rulers of the Silla dynasty (57BCE- 935CE) - however many of the tomb 'occupants' have yet to be linked to any known ruler. The number of tombs discovered is enormous and in addition to the park I visited they can be found all over the countryside surrounding the city. Even today excavations continue and certain areas of the park were cordoned off when I was there due to this. One of the tombs in the park - Cheonmachong aka 'Heavenly Horse Tomb' (due to a decorated saddle-flap found at the site) has been fully excavated allowing you to go inside and see how the tombs were constructed. Essentially at the centre of the tomb lies an enormous wooden coffin; which other than the fact it contains a dead body bears little resemblance to any coffin I've seen. The 'coffin' was actually a huge wooden box, about 3 meters high and 5 meters long; inside this was found the remains of an as yet unidentified Silla ruler. 11,500 artefacts were discovered within this wooden box surrounding the body including a gold crown, gold girdle and a lot of jade - so it's pretty obvious that whoever the guy was he was a pretty big deal. The shape of the mound was created using the complex engineering method of piling a lot of stones and rocks ontop of the box until it formed a rather large mound and then covering this with earth. the journey to sokchoAfter an hour or so of playing Indiana Jones I left the tombs behind, said goodbye to Craig and headed to the bus station for a wonderful 7 hour bus journey to Sokcho. Yes the journey was 7 hours long, no it wasn't remotely wonderful. Prize to the rudest and unnecessarily angriest bus driver in the world goes to the delightful driver behind this 7 hour ordeal who when, as we approached a major town after 6:55 hours on the road and I asked "Sokcho?" responded with a minute long rant in Korean complete with violent hand gestures. Getting the gist that 1)Nope this isn't Sokcho and 2) Korean bus drivers should have Valium put their water -I sunk back into my seat. 5 minutes later the driver pulled up on a random street - in the same town I might add- turned to me, yelled "Sokcho" and made some gestures that I believe meant something along the lines of "get the fuck off my bus you stupid fat white girl". Welcome to Sokcho! Luckily I found my hostel less than 5 mins after being ejected from the bus. The owner of The House Hostel 'Yoo' could not have been more different; once I had checked in he sat me down with a map and somehow provided more information on the local sites and transport system than Lonely Planet dos in less than 5 minutes. After this Yoo took me through a special folder full of hand-drawn maps to recommended restaurants for almost every type of Korean food - a man after my own heart! fun factDue to a weird loophole in government restrictions on GPS data Sokcho is one of the only places in South Korea where Pokemon Go will work. Therefore the city has seen a noticeable boom in domestic tourism in recent months and a shortage of bus tickets.
day 9 - 25/08/16bulguksaBulguksa is one of the main tourism draws of Gyeongju- despite actually being a 25 bus minute drive from the town centre. The UNESCO Heritage site is the head temple of the Jogye Order of Korean Buddhism and is usually at the top of any 'Things you must do in Korea' list - so it had a lot to live up to. Now the bus doesn't actually drop you off outside the entrance to the temple; you then have to walk about 5/10 minutes up an almost vertical pathway - particularly enjoyable during a Korean heat wave. Here is a summary of my thoughts during my visit to Bulguksa: 1. Whaaaaat- you want me to pay a whole £1.40 for one of the most famous and celebrated temples in Korea? 2. Where are all the people? 3. Pretty lanterns 4. Seriously why is everybody- I basically have a temple to myself 5. I am in love with these lanterns 6. Is it worth becoming vegan, and learning Korean to become a Buddhist monk just so I can live here? 7. Probably not. 8. It is so quiet that I can pose for photos in a ridiculous manner and feel no shame- because #instagramgoals #omglanterns 9. I have no idea what the messages hanging off the lanterns mean but i love them 10. I'm not sure what the significance of stacking little stones onto every conceivable surface is but it looks nice 11. I wonder what would happen if I went on a rampage and pushed all the stone piles over... 12. Hmm... Korean prison is probably less fun than Litchfield Penitentiary #unlessAlexVausegottransferred 13. Alan Titchmarsh ain't got nothing on Korean landscaping seokguram grotto20 mins away from Bulguksa via a winding mountain road is Seokguram Grotto, yet another UNESCO site. Constructed out of granite the grotto and Buddha inside are another of Korea's most famous cultural sites. The views from up here were pretty spectacular but my favourite part was the 15 minute walk from the entry way to the shrine itself - a path through the forest- which again was for the most part completely devoid of other visitors [this is possibly because nobody else is mad enough to venture out in the ridiculous heat]. The grotto itself was pretty cool- again mostly for the views across the mountainous landscape. Sadly I wasn't allowed to take photos of the inside of the grotto but 'massive granite Buddha' describes its contents adequately. Lonely Planet raves about the grotto as being a 'magical place where chipmunks dance in the leaves' - I can confirm that chipmunks do indeed inhabit the forest and rocks surrounding the shrine but sadly I saw nothing resembling dancing. fun factTelling someone your age in South Korea can be a little confusing; they consider a baby to be 1 year old at birth.
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Who?Med-school graduate, aspiring graphic designer embarking on a quarter-life-crisis expedition to Asia. Archives |