Summer Vacation Day 8 - 10: Mokpo and Boseong

After our time looking round the historic sights (or should it be sites?) of Gyeonju, our plan had been to hit the south coast and go to Yeosu, a city on a peninsular sticking out of the south coast of Korea which features a full size replica of admiral Yi Sun-sin's turtle ship (a famous old Korean warship design). Unfortunately we'd spent more time than we'd planned in Samcheok so we were running a bit behind schedule so decided to skip Yeosu and go straight on to Mokpo.

We arrived in Mokpo pretty late after our mammoth journey from Gyeongju so we were pretty knackered. Luckily the first motel we walked into had ok rooms for 30 000 won a night and was right next to the bus station. Once we checked into our motel first thing to do was get some clothes washed, so we piled everything into the bath and washed them with shampoo and by stamping on them in a Bacchanalian fashion as if we were pressing grapes - must have been a pretty strange sight but it did the job! Then we just collapsed into bed- it had been a long day.

The next day we had a bit of a lie in to make up for the late night. When we got up, we caught a taxi down to the train station to check out the tourist info then walked to the ferry terminal to book our tickets for Jeju. The tourist info was pretty useless, the woman inside the booth had pulled the blinds down and we had to rattle them and shout to get her attention. The ferry cost 29 000 won each and bizarrely departs from the international terminal, despite the fact Jeju is Korean territory. Our first impressiosn of Mokpo wasn't all that favourable, it is a port city and like most port cities more than a little rough around the edges. We got hassled by guys hawking ferry tickets in a variety of languages as soon as we got off the coach including Russian and German! (When we didn't respond they'd just try another language on us). It was about the only time in Korea when we've ever felt even vaguely intimidated. We didn't see an awful lot of the city but what we did wasn't particularly attractive, I guess our friend was right when he described Mokpo as "the armpit of Korea", poor old Mokpo!

After booking our tickets we headed back to the bus terminal and looked for a bus to take us to Boseong. We were headed for the Boseong green tea fields. This was always going to be one of the highlights of our journey as the tea fields are famous for their beauty. We went to what appeared to be our bus and asked the driver if he was going to Boseong, he gestured for us to get on board so of course we did but when we were still sat there after our buses departure time we started to worry a bit (Korean buses tend to leave right on time if not a few minutes early). Our fears were confirmed when the ticket inspector came down the bus and told us we were on the wrong bus. After a 45 minute wait for the next bus we managed to get on the right bus and were on our way to the tea fields. The journey took about 1hour 45mins to Boseong town. We arrived in Boseong to find we'd just missed the bus to the tea plantations and since we were already running late we decided to catch a taxi which cost us about 9000 won.

The start of the path up through the tea fields - it was a steep climb to the top!

Our pictorial tribute to Brian in Jeollanam-do.

The view from the top of the tea plantation out to the East China sea in the distance.

Looking back down at the plantation.

The path looped around and went back down through some woods and past some small waterfalls.

Waterfall on the path through the woods

At the bottom of the hill weary walkers could rest their feet in a cool stream while sitting on a patio chair in the stream.

Our dog Fawkes tries some green tea ice cream, he said that it was nice ice cream but was rather let down by tasting a bit like a cold cup of tea.

After a bus ride back to Mokpo we picked up an alarm clock to get us up in time for the ferry, had some ramyeon for dinner and crashed out. We were up at ten to seven to catch the Jeju ferry and were on the ferry by eight, but it didn't depart until nine so we probably could have left it a little later. It was a good thing we'd brought our passports with us because despite not crossing any international borders it seemed we needed them to catch the Jeju ferry.

The only pictures we took of Mokpo were taken from the ferry as we were leaving. In fairness we didn't spend much time in the city, but it didn't seem like we missed much.

Pulling out from Mokpo ferry terminal.

This was our cabin for the ferry journey, we didn't get seats, just a space on the floor along with about 20 other people.

The ferry had all modern conveniences including a suckling room!

Sophie enjoying the massage chairs on the ferry.

Leaving the mainland behind.

The ferry was nice, we spent most of our time walking round the boat and enjoying the views, there are lots and lots of little islands offshore from Mokpo so we had plenty to look at. The ferry was supposed to have an internet cafe but it seemed to have been replaced by a room of massage chairs which were actually really good apart from the bits which crushed your legs.

We arrived in Jeju-si (the main city on Jeju island) at about 2pm and found out that the ferry port is quite a way from the bus terminal and to get to Seogwipo on the other side of the island where we were planning on staying was going to take three buses and a looong time, so we got yet another terrifying Korean taxi ride - a very Korean way to start the next leg of our journey!

Summer Vacation Day 7-8: Gyeongju

We arrived in Gyeongju after a long coach journey from Samcheok, changing at Pohang. We had planned to get a coach direct to Gyeongju which would have taken us about 6 hrs minimum but luckily the woman in Samcheok's intercity bus terminal told us that going via Pohang would be faster. This shaved at least an hour and a half off our journey. It was a lovely route along the coast and the weather was glorious which made the sea sparkle in a beautiful way but also seriously antagonised our sunburn which was still really hurting at this point. On a more surreal note, we passed through a city filled with giant plastic crabs stuck on the side of it's buildings. Not sure what it was called but I think it might have close links to the sea or something...

After leaving the crab coast behind, we arrived in 'Powerful' Pohang, an appropriate name as it is an industrial power house rather than a picturesque city. We switched to another bus in Pohang and it was a short ride to Gyeongju where we arrived in baking heat. For once, we found a good motel quickly and it was the cheapest yet at only 40,000 won per night. It was called the Oaksan Motel and the woman who ran it was very helpful. We immediately set out for tourist info to get a map and some advice on where we should start as Gyeongju is bursting at the seams with historical sights. Our first stop was the Bulguksa Temple, one of the most visited temples in Korea.

The Bulguksa Temple is a beautiful Buddhist complex, set on the edge of a mountain just east of Gyeongju proper.

One of the three tiered, stone pagodas in the temple complex.

Within the temple complex was this area filled with little towers of stacked stones. We saw these little towers all over the place on our wanderings, presumably it's a Buddhist thing.

Wooden fish carving in one of the temple pavilions.

There was a pretty pond full of koi carp in the temple grounds.

Cool turtle supported drum.

After a wander around the temple we we moved onto the Seokguram Grotto, a cave temple with a stone carved Buddha said to be one of the best stone sculptures in Korea. Seokguram, meaning 'Stone Cave Hermitage', is located high above Bulguksa on the eastern slope of the same mountain. There is a (steep) hiking trail between the two sites but given the heat and the fact that it was getting pretty late a taxi seemed like a better idea. It cost 10,000won but the mountain views from the winding road up to the grotto were stunning and the taxi driver didn't drive too insanely for once.

The stone Buddha at Seokguram Grotto.

Great Bell at the grotto that is apparently used to pray for the unification of the Korean nation.

View of the mountains from the Great Bell Pavilion.

View from of the countryside surrounding Gyeongju from Seokguram Grotto.

We caught the last bus back to Gyeongju town centre just after 6pm and went to the Anapji Ponds. Unfortunately we screwed up and missed our stop on the bus so by the time we made it to the ponds it was getting dark which was a shame as Anapji is a beautiful pleasure garden filled with lotus ponds and it would have been nice to see more of it by daylight. It was still very pretty though and I managed to get a couple of reasonable pictures.

Lotus plants at the Anapji Ponds.

Lotus close up at Anapji Ponds.

We finished the day off with some dinner at a Ssambap restaurant. It was a really traditional place with separate little wooden dining rooms raised up off the ground and low tables with floor mats that you sat on while eating. We had the bulgogi ssambap and got nearly 30 dishes, some tasty, some weird and almost all very salty!

Some of the many dishes at the ssambap restaurant.

We checked out of motel early the next day, dumped our bags in a locker in the intercity bus terminal (1500 won). and hired a tandem bicycle to aid us in our endeavour to see as much of Gyeongju as we could in a day. The tandem was a novel experience. It was extremely wobbly and very hard to steer so that it felt that we were constantly on the verge of falling over. It did however look pretty funny and got us around Gyeongju much more quickly than we could have managed on foot. And we didn't even crash once! We wobbled off to the Tumuli Park for a look round the royal tombs. The tombs are probably the most famous sight in Gyeongju. They are burial mounds (called tumuli) that look like round, grassy hills. We thought they looked a little like the hills from Super Mario Land! Next, we made our way to Wolseong Park, a pretty bit of greenery with fields full of yellow flowers and tunnels of climbing gourd plants. The park was alos home to Cheomseongdae, a 7th century astronomical observatory that was in surprisingly good condition for something so old. It was partially obscured by a film crew while we were there. so it was tough getting a decent photo of it.

Us with our 'trusty' tandem in Wolseong Park

Some of the royal tombs, called tumuli, in Tumuli Park.

The ajumma army advances across the grounds of the Royal Tombs Park!

Gourd plant tunnel in Wolseong Park

Cheomseongdae, the 7th century astronomical tower with a 21st century film crew climbing on it.

By this point it was getting extremely hot so we decided to go to Gyeongju National Museum which we hoped would have air-con. We got a bit post but made it there eventually and rewarded ourselves for all that cycling with a trip to the museum café where we cooled off with slush puppies, patbingsu (an iced traditional Korean dessert) and naenmyeon (ice noodles). The museum was pretty interesting and we got in for free for some unknown reason.

Patbingsu - a Korean dessert made with ice shavings, the ubiquitous red bean paste, fruit and sweets. Tasty!

This is Gyeongju Bread - a speciality of the area apparently, but as with many Korean bakery products it was hiding a dark secret - red bean paste! It was more like a lump of red bean paste with a thin coating of bread on it.

After a look round, we cycled back to the bike rental shop and handed over our trusty steed(!). We picked up our stuff from the locker and set off on the next leg of our journey, catching a bus to Busan, Korea's 2nd city. Our plan was to catch a fast train (KTX) from Busan to Mokpo but as we stood on the Busan subway heading towards the train station Rowan realised that I had made a mistake in my planning: There isn't actually a direct train to Mokpo from Busan! D'oh! Luckily we hadn't gone too far along Busan's massive subway system so we went back to the coach station. We ended up catching a bus from Busan to Gwangju, no not our litte the Gwangju, the other one, the big, historical one in Jeollanam Province in the South west corner of Korea. The bus had it's own in-seat entertainment system that consisted of 4 music channels - one was playing pop music and the other 3 channels were playing exactly the same music but at slightly quieter volumes. Very bizarre. We arrived in Gwangju at 10.20pm and didn't spend much time there but we did enjoy the nice new bus terminal that had toilets that actually had soap in them! Very unusual. We grabbed some KFC (oh, the shame) and got another bus onto Mokpo, a port city in the south western corner of Korea and the gateway to Jeju island.

Summer Vacation Day 4-7: Samcheok and Haesindang Gongwon (Penis Park)

So after departing Jeondongjin our next stop was Samcheok. Samcheok is known as the city of caves and has so many all around there is even one right under the city center that was only discovered in the 1990s. We arrived in Samcheok in the early evening so got straight down to looking for a place to stay. This is normally a fairly simple affair in Korea as there are loads of cheap motels that generally charge 40,000 won or less but everywhere we went to in Samcheok wanted at least 60 000. I think they must have had a price fixing racket going on because it took nearly 2 hours of walking round and god knows how many motels asked before we found somewhere that only wanted 50 000.

After the long walk searching for a motel we were pretty tired and hungry so we dumped our bags, went out and got some bibimbap (mixed rice and vegetables with a fried egg on top) and a beer from a nearby cafe. The next morning we got up early and set out for Hwanseon Donggul, a large limestone cave system near Samcheok.

The bus terminal in Samcheok had a nest of house martins right above the waiting area, this photo wasn't even taken with a telephoto lens, they were right above everyone's heads but totally unconcerned.

We set off early for the Hwanseon Donggul caves. There aren't too many buses to the caves so we caught the 8:10 up there and it took about an hour so there was still lots of mist on the hills when we arrived..

It's supposed to be a 35 min climb to the caves from the bus stop but its a bloody steep climb so like lazy tourists we decided to get the monorail for a bargain 5000 won - well worth it to avoid the climb!

Looking back towards the entrance of the caves.The caves were huge, apparently some of the biggest in Asia and at least 30m wide and 40m high in places.

Me trying not to look terrified whilst standing on a bridge over an apparently bottomless chasm. The cave's features had many fanciful names, this was called the Bridge of Confessions.

A heart shaped little hole in the rock which a romantic minded Korean insisted on taking a photo of us stood next to. Unfortunately the cave was very dark so all you could see was us standing in the dark in that photo.

This boring looking feature is apparently very interesting to geologists as one of the only examples in the world of whatever this kind of feature is called.

On our way back from the caves we were rushing a bit to make it for the 11:20 bus back so we didn't have time to buy one of the huge triangles of cake that were being sold on the side of the track. We didn't manage to get many good photos in the caves because they were very dark and damp (unsurprisingly) but they did look incredible even if they didn't quite live up to their bizarre and grandiose names such as the Valley of Desire and Valley of Galaxy.

We made it back to Samcheok just after midday and then set off for our next destination, Sinnam, a small fishing village and home of the Haesindang Gongwon (Penis Park). Sinnam was actually the location of a world penis sculpture contest until joyless local Christians started protesting. Fortunately lots of the entries remain on display on the cliffs around the village.

Care to take a seat? The most obscene benches I've ever seen.

Well what can I say? It's a giant wooden penis with tentacles coming out the bottom.

The 12 animals of the Chinese zodiac in fibreglass penis form.

Giant penis being hugged by smaller penis.

Sculpture of local fishermen showing their willies to the sea.

This young lady is apparently the reason behind the village's penis obsession.

The girl in the photo above was the girlfriend of a local fisherman until she was tragically drowned on nearby rocks, after she was drowned the fish disappeared from all the local fishing grounds and it was believed that they were cursed by the 'unfulfilled' girl. The villagers were beginning to lose hope of the fish ever returning until one fisherman decided to take a wizz in the sea. The next day the fish began to return. The fishermen took this as a sign that the spirit of the drowned girl wanted to see a bit of willy waving action so they soon began erecting the sculptures around the coast and the fish returned.

Penis by a pond - a still life.

We passed by a pond which was absolutely teeming with frogs of all shapes and sizes.

After walking round the sculpture park we checked out the fishing village folk museum which seemed mainly to be an attempt to explain the village's weird penis obsession.

A rather unconventional dugout canoe design

A bizarre statue which formed part of a display about how normal it is to be obsessed with penis sculpture and how it has happened all over the word throughout history.

The museum's fishing boat simulator - it consisted of a cabin which rocked back and forth, no video or sound, just a box bumping back and forth. It was very exciting.

One of the local Ajummas (Korean old lady) trying to flog bottles of willy whiskey.

When we got back to Samcheok we had some really good Samgyeopsal (bacon BBQ) for dinner and took a few pictures of a particularly impressive fountain.

Samcheok fountain and light show.The fountain had probably hundreds of different jets and a complex LED light show.

The next day we awoke to find the sun had finally returned after a long patch of cloud and drizzle! so we decided to stop in Samcheok for a another day as there are some very nice beaches to the south. We headed down to the bus station and caught the same bus that goes to the penis park about halfway down the coast to Maengbang beach, or so we thought. It turned out that the bus didn't actually go to the beach but came within 500m of it and luckily a very helpful Korean girl was getting off at the same stop and walked us down to the beach. The beach was beautiful and pretty quiet. There was a stall renting rubber rings and selling beer and a few toilets but that was it. We rented a ring for 10 000 won and jumped on in!

Sophie rides the waves in a big yellow rubber ring. She's wearing all her clothes to go swimming in the Korean fashion.

The sand was absolutely teeming with clams, I spent a lot of my time picking them up with my toes and collecting them. Unfortunately, we had no way to cook them so I gave all mine away to Koreans who had brought stoves.

After a few hours on the beach we discovered we hadn't put on enough sun cream early enough and had got horribly sunburnt, so our evening was occupied finding some after sun cream, packing our bags and nursing our wounds. The next morning we got up to find we had no hot water so couldn't get a shower before hitting the road again so we left fairly early. Carrying the bags was pretty painful so we made our way quickly but gently to the bus station and got a bus to Pohang, the first stop on the journey to Gyeongju, the ancient Shilla capital of Korea and home to many historical sights.