Day #9: Seoul

Our day would begin with cloudy skies again.

We would be leaving Cheongju for Seoul. We were staying at the Cheongju Grand Plaza Hotel

This was the view out of our window.

Art and I would really miss these elaborate breakfasts when we left Korea.

My Fitbit revealed that I'd gotten 3 hours and 40 minutes of sleep that night.

Out in the lobby we bumped into our tour friend, Mary who showed us the newspaper she'd bought for her daughter.

Sigh...

We were all still trying to recover from the shock.




Our first stop of the day would be the Korean Folk Village in Yongin which is on the way to Seoul.

Although the morning started out rather cloudy, we were happily able to see some blue skies.

We saw billboards showing us where certain historical dramas had been filmed at the village.










There were these two phallic stones at the entrance. Villagers would post notes wishing for a baby boy on the stone.

First sons had the onerous task of making sure their parents were honored after their deaths with ceremonies, etc.

Monuments like this were often erected by the eldest son to honor his parents' memory.

Different kinds of roofing really caught Art's interest.

We enjoyed watching these performers demonstrate traditional music and dancing.












These horseback riders were pretty darn amazing!

They could shoot targets with a bow and arrow while riding on a horse.  They could also ride backwards, jump onto a galloping horse, etc.

One of the buildings we visited was the local jail.

A law against cruel and unusual punishment did not apply here.

(Postscript: These are not real prisoners. They are manikins to represent what used to happen in the past.)

Gosh! I do miss the kalbi. We don't eat much meat at home so this was not our usual diet. Do you realize how EXPENSIVE kalbi meat is in the U.S.?











After lunch we were driven to Namdaemun Market where we had a great time shopping for bargains.

At least I think they were bargains.

Everybody on the bus were frantically trying to find omiyage (gifts) for friends and relatives at home.

After the shopping expedition we were able to visit the Seoul Tower.

Wikipedia: The Seoul Tower, officially YTN Seoul Tower, is also known as the Namsan Tower. It is a communication and observation tower located on Namsan Mountain in central Seoul. At 236 meters (774 feet) it marks the highest point in Seoul.

Built in 1971, the tower is Korea's first general radio wave tower, providing TV and radio broadcasting in Seoul.

We also noticed that the Korean people had discovered Love Locks. It was quite eye catching.

Our daughter, Tiffany had told us that Korea is known for their excellent skin care products so we visited the Duty Free Shop.

It was completely packed with young Chinese women. We tried looking, but they were very expensive and we had no idea what would be good.

Tiffany had also given us a list of inexpensive items that we might try getting if they were much cheaper. It was a surprise to find them on Amazon for a few pennies less (delivered free to Prime members). We gave up.

In the evening we went to a comedy called Cookin' Nanta which didn't require us to understand the Korean language. We enjoyed it very much and yes, Art got a souvenir t-shirt.

Dinner that evening was a soothing chicken soup. They gave you a tiny plate of salt in which to dip your pieces of chicken. That was different from anything we'd had before.

And so ended another day. There were only two more days left to our trip.

Tomorrow: DMZ

Day #8: Jeonju

Lara told us that most people stay on Jeju Island for at least three days. We were compressing it to a day and a half.

We woke up at 4:45, had our suitcases out the door by 5:40, grabbed a breakfast at 6:00 and were on the bus by 6:40.

We left Jeju at 8:35 and landed at Gwanju Airport.

We headed to Jeonju which is famous for creating bi bim bop which we had for lunch.

Jeonju is populated by the Han people. This is the Korean Han people, not the Chinese. Hence hanbok is the traditional Korean dress. Hanji is Korean paper. Han women are known to be excellent cooks.

 
We stopped at a Jeonju Hanok Village. Unfortunately, it was raining again.

We saw lots and lots of young people dressed in beautiful traditional Korean clothing. One couple kindly posed for us.

We all walked around the village and admired the sights and shops.

Many hanboks were on display in the rain with umbrellas perched over them.

This morning glory was a splash of color on a very gray day.

We had fun taking turns making paper with mulberry fiber at the Jeonju Hanji Museum.

We saw these sculptures, lamps, and numerous other things made of mulberry paper.

The broiled pollock was good, but there were quite a bit of bones in it. We also had more kalbi (short ribs) which we scarfed up with no problem whatsoever.

It was another fun day. Our tour group was getting tired, but we liked each other so much that we hated to see the trip coming to a close. There were only a few more days left.

Day #7: U.S. Election Shock on Jeju Island

Day #7 was actually November 9th in Korea but November 8th in the U.S. which was Election Day! We were nervous but didn't want to talk politics with anyone on the bus because you can just never, ever tell how the others might have voted.

So we started our morning again with another cheerful breakfast. Art even tried a rambutan which tasted very much like a lychee.

More fun facts from Lara:

• Tourists are not allowed to take rocks off the island. They are the sorrows of islanders that have been turned to stone. If you take them with you, you are inviting sorrow onto yourself.
• This area was the last battlefield against the Mongolians.
• Cedar trees are used as wind breaks for citrus farms.
• When children are born a Tuition Tangerine Tree is planted for the child to pay for their schooling.
• Women divers run tangerine farms and sell chocolates also so their daughters don't have to go into the sea to earn money.
• 68 years is the average life span of a woman diver who often suffer hearing and vision loss from the deep water pressure.
• You should never whistle on Jeju Island because that's the sound of a woman diver's last dying breath.
• Halla Mountain is the highest mountain on Jeju. Its last eruption was 25,000 years ago.

We stopped to buy chocolates here so I could share them with my Zumba and tai chi buddies.

We went to the Aqua Planet Aquarium and met a woman diver.

We were told that the Jeju women divers (Haenyeo) exemplify the strong Korean "ajima" spirit.

There are declining numbers of women divers so the government is trying to encourage more women to continue by subsidizing health care and accident insurance as well as providing a pension.

We met this fiesty guide at the Jeju Island Folk Village.

She complained a lot about Jeju Island men being good for nothing. Even our guide, Lara was surprised by her vehemence.

We did support their project by buying a jar of her horse face cream.


The village guide showed us how their roofs and their water filtration method used pampas grass which grows wild on the island.

And this is when it happened.

Someone else had been checking their cellphone for election results and told us what had happened.

We were in shock.

We were all in shock. The entire bus!

We told Lara, but she said she already knew because her Seoul colleagues were worried also. They'd been keeping her updated throughout the day.

She said whatever Trump does to North Korea will ultimately affect the South as well.

The bonsai was admired, but it didn't fill us with peace.

We were ready to call it a day, but there was one more place to go to. We really didn't feel like going to a Trick Art Museum, whatever that was!

At first we thought it was an ice sculpture museum.

It wasn't.

There were several other rooms with murals on the walls and the floor that you could take a photo in front of.

Sorry to say, Art's camera did not do well in the low light. My iPhone and Canon did much better.

Suddenly everyone started laughing and having a wonderful time.

It took our minds off the depression of the election and our worry for our own country.

Yes, we took a ton of photos!

At this point, we could laugh a bit more.

Dinner was a sort of (seafood soup) bouillabaisse. The tentacles unnerved me a bit (maybe because it was boiling in water), but it was good. There was abalone in it and Art and I admired the shells. When everyone saw us collecting our two from the pot for our granddaughter, they donated theirs.

It was a difficult day, but it ended with smiles of friendship and a bit of beauty to bring home.

Day #6: Busan, Jeju Island

We left the Hilton Hotel after a wonderful breakfast and headed south to Buson.

During our bus ride to Buson Lara had more stories to regale us with.

• Western Korean men are known to be good natured and able to make women laugh. Unfortunately, they might make other women laugh too after they're married.
• Eastern Korean men tend to be more serious and taciturn. When they return from work they say three words, "Kids? Food? Bed?"
• Unlike Europeans, Koreans don't call it royal blood. They say royal bone.
• Busan is the 6th largest harbor city in the world.

The UN Memorial Cemetery in Busan has 2,300 UN soldiers from 16 countries buried there from the Korean War .

We walked through a street where lots of seafood were being sold. It was amazing to see abalone being sold for very little. I've seen cans sold for $50 + in the U.S.

The Jagalchi Fish Market reminded us a lot of Japan's Tsukiji Fish Market.

You could find every kind of seafood imaginable and some I'd never seen before.

This was a great place for us to buy as much dried seafood as we wanted. They packaged our purchases to be sent to our bus and would be given to us on our last day in Korea. Super convenient!!!

Lunch was at the Jagalchi Buffet Restaurant with food for grilling at our table and cooked or prepared selections that were ready to eat.

It was a very different sort of lunch experience.

After lunch we headed out to the airport where we would fly to Jeju Island.

Seeing palm trees when we arrived in Jeju deceived me into thinking it would be warmer there.

It wasn't.

Because Jeju Island has also been the setting for numerous Korean dramas, it is a popular vacation spot and hosts 14 million visitors a year.

At one time, it was a very inhospitable place where people were sent to be exiled.

Jeju was called the Island of 3 Abundant Things: Rocks, Winds and Women (because the men often died in war or the ocean). A long time ago, men often had five wives to do all the work of living there.

In this photo, you can see how many tourists were going to see a famous area that was set in a legend about a dragon.

Jeju women divers can hold their breath for such a long time that they are depicted as mermaids as in this sculpture.

There are numerous legends about Dragon Head Rock. Lara's tale told of a snake who meditated for 999 years hoping to become a dragon. With only a year left before he would be granted that wish by the mountain god of Mt. Halla, the impatient snake stole the god's magic staff and became a dragon. Upon discovery, the mountain god shot the dragon causing him to fall into the ocean and turning into a rock facing upwards at the sky where he wished to be.

Yes, yes... It's true. We had another incredible feast and then marveled at the light show on the ground floor.

You can see lighted windmills in the background that figured in another Korean drama.

Lara marveled at how this desolate, bleak, depressing island has become such a happy place for visitors and especially for honeymooners.

If I could just get 6 or 7 hours of sleep I would have been truly content.

Holiday Musings!

We had a lovely Thanksgiving with the usual stress, excitement, frenzy, happiness and enjoyment. Our Thanksgiving was a mixture of different traditions and culture. We had turkey, stuffing, gravy, pumpkin pie and cranberry sauce. We also had cucumber namasu (pickled in vinegar, sweetened wine, etc.), kinpira gobo (burdock root), grilled veggies, grilled asparagus, deviled eggs, a delicious onion dish that my sister-in-law, Nancy made and a lot of other things. She's Irish-American so of course, she made the potatoes too. I had my brother, Dennis make the gravy because let's face it. I'm no good with gravy.

At the dinner table, mom did a Buddhist chant/blessing which we all enjoyed listening to. It always surprises us that she can remember such a long chant. She says she grew up with it since her father was zen priest.

We always take a group shot to record the occasion.

Clean up was a breeze because everyone pitched in. My wonderful nephew, Barry always makes an effort to be first to get everything done so we're not left with a mess when they leave.

Everyone went home with left-overs to enjoy for the next day or two.

With Thanksgiving done, we're now looking forward to seeing my nephew, Shawn who will be visiting for a couple of weeks.

The following week, we'll have .... drum roll... my 18 month old grandson and his parents will be here for a holiday visit. We're so excited!

There are also a couple of parties we have to host and a couple of parties we're going to and I haven't begun shopping yet.

The Holiday Season has begun.... Hold on to your hats!


Tomorrow: Back to my South Korea travel log.

POSTSCRIPT:  I've been asked for a photo of the food. Unfortunately, I didn't take a lot of photos of the food because I was so frazzled and the ones I took were not good. However, here's a glimpse. That's my plate. Art laughed when he saw my plate because he knew I wouldn't be able to eat it all.

Day #5: Gyeongju

There was a gorgeous breakfast at the Alpensia Intercontinental hotel. We were getting really spoiled.

We then headed south toward Gyeongju which was once the capital of the ancient Silla Kingdom. It is a designated UNESCO major cultural site.

We stopped at this Expo Village rest stop and saw these janseung (village totem guardians).

A Korean historical drama was played on the bus and sure enough Art and I got caught up in it and didn't want the ride to end.

Our lunch restaurant was called Pulipchae.

There was hot rice in those stone pots. We went up to the buffet to get all kinds of sides to put on top of our rice which was scrumptious!

And by the way, there was ice cream and shave ice too!

We found this building fascinating with the pagoda seemingly carved into it. On the other side of the street you could see an actual pagoda.

Tumuli Park contained an extensive collection of royal Silla tombs. The Silla kingdom runs from 57 BC to 935 AD).

We entered the Cheonmachong (Heavenly Horse Tomb) from the 5th or 6th century.

Wikipedia:

"The tomb was for an unknown king of the Silla Kingdom. The tomb, in typical Silla style, is a wood-lined chamber running east to west and is covered in a mound of boulders and earth."

There were 11,500 artifacts buried in this tomb.

This Heavenly Horse is the only painting from that Silla period.

These were some of the artifacts they found in the tombs. Lara said the Queen's crown was gold whereas the King's crown was bronze. This would imply that she was the actual ruler.

Our next stop was to be the Gyeongju National Museum where we would have seen "magnificent gold crowns, pottery and Buddhist artifacts". Unfortunately, the museum was unexpectedly closed so we got to spend quite a bit of time taking tons of photos of this Silla Divine Bell of King Seongdeok (Korea's National Treasure No. 29) on the museum grounds.

This was dinner.

I just looked at my notes and I see that I didn't write about dinner at all.

I have a feeling I was so pooped that I just fell asleep without recording where or what I ate.

Whatever the case, I know it was delicious.

Our tour group was just beginning to get a normal amount of sleep and that was very good.