KOREA
April 8, Monday--Travel day! We left the hotel for the airport in four groups. Ours left at 8:15 am and we had plenty of time to make our flight. Korean airlines was nice with snacks and lunch. We are a little hesitant about going to Korea with all the warlike noise being made by North Korea at the moment, but we're really hoping nothing happens for at least a week. The plane was a little late, but we were met by Mr. Hung who explained all the arrangements to us. We leave the hotel tomorrow morning at 8:30 to tour in Seoul. We wanted a nearby place to eat and went to Bib's. It was Korean fast food as best we could tell, but it was hot and filling. The hot felt particularly good because the evening was cold and drizzly. I hit my arm on something in the room that looks like a water sprayer for fires and had to go to the desk for a bandaid big enough to cover it. I look as if I've been in a war.
April 9, Tuesday--Our first day of sightseeing in Seoul! We had breakfast at the hotel. Almost all of the food was Korean and Chinese, but they did have scrambled eggs and some of the yogurt that you drink--which we found in China also, but there they used straws and here in Korea they just seem to drink from the bottle. We went to the lobby at 8:30 where we were met by Mr. Pak, who took us to a Buddhist temple where we met the rest of our tour group.
(Click on the image to see other views of the temple.)
They were a little late and gave me time to buy two small elephants in the temple gift shop. The temple was pretty much full with women praying. They mostly had some written words that they were reading/studying as they prayed. There were gifts such as rice in the temple. We were supposed to go to Gyongbok Palace, but it was closed, so we went to Deoksu palace, which was very nice, and we both thought we remembered having been there before. We saw the changing of the guards presentation.
(Click on the image above to watch the changing of the guards.)
We drove by the Blue House where the president works, but weren't able to stop so really didn't get a picture. Then we went to a museum that showed some of the history of Korea. Our guide was very nice and tried hard, but her English was lacking and I didn't understand a lot of what she said. The last stop was an amethyst store where we had the opportunity to buy some amethysts that seemed rather high priced. After that, the guide took us to Itawa and left us as she continued with the tour for those who were going on the afternoon tour. Tom and I tried to take the subway to what we thought was the electronics mall near Yongsan Army Base. We did take the subway, but there was a lot of confusion and it took us two tickets each to go three stops with one transfer. When we reached what we thought was our destination, we saw a shopping mall called e-Mart which we thought was the electronics mall about which we'd been told, but when we went in, we found it was just a big mall with clothes, food, etc. We did find the food court, and ate at Burger King. I mistakenly ordered two hamburgers! After eating we took a taxi back to the hotel and asked about the electronic shop. They told us it was basically where we had been, but wrote it down and put us back in a taxi to return. This time we found the electronics mall--as the driver pointed it out to us. We stopped at the first place we found that sold camera things, and Tom bought a charger that was supposed to charge his battery while I bought another flash card. My extra flash card had lost it's tab that let me write on it. We returned to the room by taxi and tried to use the charger. It didn't seem to work! After resting, we went for supper and ended up eating at KFC, but the chicken was a little dry so we probably won't try that again. We're both feeling better although we are both taking the antibiotics that Steven prescribed before we left. When we returned to the room, I tried to insert the Tom’s battery into the charger again and this time a green light came on. We left it on all night and by morning the card was charged!
April 10, Wednesday--We were slightly confused and thought we had to leave by 5:30 am, but I checked my notes and found it was 7:30. Mr. Chu, the hotel manager told us that if we left by 7:50 we would be fine. We packed our small bags to take with us and left the big bags at the hotel. We were actually early and had plenty of time to find the proper train track.
Our traveling companions, Shirley and her daughter Zee Dixon from Jacksonville, FL, were already there and had left their hotel at 5:30 so we weren't the only ones who weren't sure of the directions. The train was fun! It turned out to be about as fast as the "high speed" train in China with top speed of almost 180 mph and mostly 120 mph. We arrived in Gyeongju as scheduled, but our guide was a little late and had us all slightly concerned. When he did come, we found that he spoke pretty good English and tried hard to keep us amused and interested. We went first to the National Museum which consisted of three buildings--one for tomb discoveries, one for palace discoveries, and one for discoveries from a pond area that was part of the ancient buildings. These museums were impressive and very well laid out. It took us several hours to go through them all, and we were all getting tired and hungry when we finished and were happy that Mr. Trueman Pak took us to eat. We ate at what seemed to be a typical Korean restaurant with a wide variety of side dishes and a hot pot with, I think, bulgogi. We weren't too sure of what we were eating, but there was kimchi, seaweed, noodles, and a variety of other things. Trueman showed us to put the rice on a lettuce leaf, add other goodies, roll it up, and put the whole thing in our mouth. After eating, we went to Sokkuram Grotto in the mountains.
(For more pictures of the Grotto and its environs, click on the image.)
Tom and I remembered being there in 1965 when we were in Korea. It has all become a very popular tourist site now whereas it was not so busy when we were there before. It is still beautiful. There were many groups of school children and they liked to say hello. We saw an old man who Trueman identified as a shaman. There were many lanterns on which names were hung for wishes by those who paid. There were also tiles on which people could pay to write something and the tiles would eventually become part of the building. We then went to the Pulguksa Temple, which contains only one old building, but has been reconstructed into a very impressive whole. Trueman told us that about 100 monks lived by the temple.
We were all getting really tired and were happy when Trueman took us to our hotel, Hotel Concorde. It seemed pretty nice until we reached the rooms, and they need a little bit of a face lift. Tom and I went to the attached Japanese Restaurant and had some fried fish--which turned out to be shrimp and vegetables--and fresh vegetables--a lot of lettuce with carrots, cucumbers, and something else we didn't know. They had a little trouble finding someone who could speak English to help us, but found a new hire, Betty Lee, who had spent three years in the Philippines and spoke pretty good English. She wants to continue here studies in Canada, and we gave her our contact information.
April 11, Thursday--Trueman picked us up at 9:00 so we had time for breakfast which was a plentiful buffet although about the only things not Korean were scrambled eggs, toast, croissants, and some of the ever present rather under cooked bacon. Trueman drove us to Busan. All four of us had stayed at the same hotel this time. It took an. Hour or so to make the drive, but we had a coffee break at a Korean quick stop that was much more elaborate than ours in the States and even included bonsais and toys.
(Click on the image below to watch the video.)
(Click on the image for more pictures of the UN Memorial Cemetery.)
Our first stop was the UN Cemetery which was beautifully landscaped and very impressive. After the cemetery we went to the fish market. The first part we saw had frozen and dried fish. It seemed as if there were miles of vendors and the variety seemed more even than in China. Before we left the first part of the fish market, Trueman arranged lunch for us. We had three kinds of fish including what seemed to be flounder, some kind of ribbon looking fish, and something that may have been snapper. We ate in the restaurant below.
The fish were grilled, and one of the waitresses put on gloves and removed most of the meat from the bones. The fish was served with various condiment side dishes. When we finished eating we toured the rest of the fish market which was for fresh fish. We then drove to an observation tower and rode the elevator to the top.
(For views from the tower and of the museum within the tower, click on the image.)
From there we could see what seemed to be most of Busan including the harbor. In the observation tower there was a museum of musical instruments from around the world. We were allowed to play on some of them. After we left the tower we had a small rebellion. Trueman drove us past the International Market, which was many stalls along the street and maybe inside some buildings, but Shirley and Zerona really didn't want to go and Tom and I weren't too eager so we all told him to just skip stopping there. Instead, we went on to Jeoundo (sp?) which was an island. We didn't want to walk, so we waited about 30 minutes and took a train (truck pulling three "cars") up to the observation point.
There we looked around, got a hot drink, and then took a train back down. There was a story about this being a place where suicides took place when people jumped. Trueman used a yellow pointing hand to help us see him in crowds.
Trueman then took us to our hotel, the Phoenix, and drove off to take Shirley and Zerona to theirs. He made arrangements for a taxi to pick us up at 5:30 am the next day and arranged to pay the taxi fare. This company, SITA, has been very good about paying for our transportation. We started to eat at the hotel, but got directions for a pharmacy at the desk and decided while we were out to eat supper at a hamburger place that was really good and had good Internet. We enjoyed our walk around the hotel and the street excitement. (Click on the image to the right for some of the street scenes. The last picture shows our hamburger place on the right. We were upstairs to eat.)
April 12, Friday--We had to get up at 4:30 to be ready to leave for the airport at 5:30, but it took only 15 minutes to get to the airport so we had plenty of time to wait until the flight at 7:10. We did have trouble with the elevator since we pushed what we thought was the button and had no result. It turned out we weren't pushing the button! This time we reached the airport before Shirley and Zerona (Dixon). The airport had a beautiful display of bonsai!
When we reached Jeju at about 8:10, there was no one to pick us up. After calls by Zerona and help from the tourist information girl we discovered that they were coming to get us at 9:15. It turned out that we were picked up by Yeha Tours regular sized bus. There were around 20 people from all around on the tour. We drove past fields outline with stone fences. (Shades of Ireland, which we visited later.) It seems that stone fences are typical of Jeju also.
(The entrance to Hallim Park. Click on the picture for more images. There were beautiful bonsai, but I've put those images on my Bonsai page.)
Our first stop was Hallim Park. Unfortunately Shirley was not feeling well, and she and Zerona decided to leave the tour and go back to their hotel to go home tomorrow. Hallim Park is a botanial garden with eight themes park. It was created by one man. There was a bonsai and rock garden that was outstanding, several long and connected lava tunnels--one of which was also a limestone tunnel with stalagtites--, a bird garden, a water garden, a mock folk village, and others that I've forgotten. It was really outstanding. Our next stop was at Suweolbong Trekking course, a walkway along the beach that a trekking club uses for walking. There are many of these trekking courses around Korea and they seem to be frequently used. It was designated by UNESCO as a Global Geopark. (Click on the image below to see more of the trekking course.)
We then stopped at the Spirited Garden Bonsai place where we had a Green lunch at the Wellbeing Buffet. The food was supposedly vegetables from Jeju. Before we came, the Spirited Garden was one of the main things I wanted to see here and was beautiful. I've never seen as many excellent bonsai as I've seen today. The next stop was the ALTHR Airfield where the Japanese Army had its base. You can still see their bunkers in the hills.
Next we went to Mt. Sanbang, where there were several Buddhist temples up a steep hill. We walked up most of the way, but did not see the last temple.
(Click on the image below to see more pictures of the temples and the view.)
Our last stop was the Cheonjeyson Waterfall, which is really three waterfalls. We saw the first two and then walked across an interesting bridge to meet our bus. There was an army couple with us, and they were trying to get pictures at the top of the jump of themselves jumping. I happened to catch them and sent them the picture later on. It seems that this is a new fad! (Click on the picture to the right for more waterfall images.)
Tom and I were dropped off first at the Hana Hotel. It is much nicer than the hotels of the last two nights. We walked to a nearby hotel, the Shilla Hotel and had a good, rather Western and expensive dinner. Tom had salmon and I had a ham and gruyere open faced sandwich. We both had truffle mushroom soup that was really good. Tom had tiramasu, and the waiter brought me some fruit grown on Jeju--also delicious.
April 13, Saturday--Breakfast was buffet and quite adequate. They had good scrambled eggs. Tom was able to get cereal. We were met in the lobby at 9:00 by our tour guide, Yeoung. She said that we had seen the West side of the island yesterday so we were going to see the East side today. We started with a stop on the seaside where the lava had made some columnar shapes (Jongdalri Road?) When we looked at the columns from the top, they appeared to he hexagonal.
After that we went to the Seongeup Folk Village where the houses still have thatched roofs. (Click on the image below for more pictures of the village.)
Some of the houses were still inhabited, but those that were had been modernized. There were also some very old--maybe 600 years old--Zelkova trees. One of them had fallen on the government house and the house was presently being reconstructed. We really wanted to see the Women Divers's Show, so Yeong took us to the Women's Diver Museum first and then we went to the show. The show was in the ocean at the foot of the Seongsan mountain-also known as Sunrise Peak. We went down to see the show rather than trying to climb up the mountain, but we, of course, had to climb back up after the show. The show ended up being five of the divers who showed us how they suited up and how they dived. Shirley and Zerona showed up at the show. They had been mixed up about when they left Korea, and, since Shirley was feeling better, they joined the tour again although we weren't on the bus tour today since we had a private tour.
(Click on the images below to see videos of the women divers.)
(Click here to see more pictures of the divers.)
After the show we went to a tiny restaurant the a friend of Yeong's had showed her. Tom and I had fish and the usual assortment of condiments. The fish was particularly good. There was a brass kettle there that looked exactly like one I brought back from Korea in 1965. There were several dogs tied outside that seemed very friendly. After we left, Tom and I both were hoping that the dogs were pets and not someone's supper, but we doubted it. (Click on the picture below for more pictures of the restaurant, its surroundings, and even some of the dogs.)
It was late when we left the lunch spot and it would take about an hour to get back to the hotel, so Yeong said we would stop on the way to see the Dongnum market. It was like so many of the markets we've seen, but interesting.
When we reached the hotel we were really tired, but decided to see what we could find to eat; We went to a nearby Hotel and found a supposedly Italian restaurant. We walked around the world before going to this hotel because we started out looking for ice cream at the 7-11 and then decided to try one of the hotels. Tom thought that a driveway would take us the the hotel we wanted, but it didn't, and we had to retrace our steps and start over. We shared a club sandwich and then a four scoop bowl of chocolate ice cream before returning to the hotel to sleep.
April 14, Sunday--Our guide met us at 6:45, which was 15 minutes before the breakfast room opened, but we were able to go down and get some toast and orange juice. The flight was on Asiasia Air (sp). There were bonsais at the airport in Jeju.
When we reached Seoul, we were met by Joe, our guide, and Mr. Lee, our driver, to go to Garrison Humphreys. It took about an hour and a half to drive down even though the road is now a major highway and there are no animals on it as there were 48 years ago. When we reached the base, we found that we needed someone on the base to vouch for us and be our escort. The guards were very apologetic and even called MP's to find out if they could get us on base. Mr. Lee also called people he knew. In the long run, Mr. Lee found someone who would escort us and we were able to get on the base through a side gate. We were only allowed to go to a restaurant run by the Alaska Mining Company and eat lunch, but at least it was setting foot on the base.
We returned to Seoul, and after resting, we walked along the Han River park in a row of cherry trees with hundreds of other people and enjoyed the people and entertainment. (Click on the image above for a video from the walkway.)
(Click on the picture below for more pictures of the walkway.)
When we returned to the hotel, we asked at the desk about eating bulgogi and they suggested Bulgogi Brothers right behind the hotel. We went there and enjoyed our meal. They brought the bulgogi to the table to cook and served it with the usual condiments. The waitresses were very helpful in instructing us on how to eat.
April 15, Monday--We had a free day today with no guide. We had missed the Cheungbok (sp) Palace when we were here for the earlier tour because it was closed on Tuesday, so we decided to go there first. We went by subway and had to figure out how to use the subway. We bought renewable cards, but didn't realize that they had to be charged first. People were really nice about helping us get everything done. We navigated the system to get to the palace and ended up right at the door to the palace.
(Click on the picture for more images of the palace.)
After walking through the palace grounds we continued on to the Korean Folklife Museum and spent several hours there. We stopped at the concession stand twice--once for something to drink and once for lunch. While we were there we discovered that a worker (probably the manager) had been a ROK captain and was very interested in Tom when he found that Tom had served here in 1965. He took two Polaroid pictures of us and gave us one. He wrote on the one he gave us and Tom wrote on the one he kept.
We were too tired after the museum to walk in the antiques area that our Jeju guide told us about so we went straight back to the hotel. We rested for awhile and then went out to eat. We had thought maybe we'd go to the nearby Paris Croissant for supper, but they really didn't have anything but ready-made sandwiches so we walked around the block and discovered an Italian restaurant where we had a pizza with a slice of salami on each piece. s
April 16, Tuesday--We met our guide in the lobby at 8:00 and drove up toward the DMZ. There seems very little tension among the South Koreans, but we did have to leave the car and get on a bus for the tour.
(Click here for DMZ pictures.)
We stopped at Freedom Bridge. This was the bridge across which South Korean POW's walked to return home. We were told that they were told that they had a choice about whether to go south or not, but that they were told that if they chose to return to the South, they would actually be taken somewhere and shot--probably not true that they were told this because thousands returned. We then went to an Observation Point where we could see into the DMZ and somewhat North Korea. It was cloudy so we couldn't see well. Also, the DMZ is about four kilometers across. After that we went to a museum about the tunnels and saw a train station that was built when the Koreans thought that they would be able to run a train into North Korea. After they built the station their hopes of that much travel were squashed so the train only comes up from South Korea three times a day and then stops before it reaches the DMZ The industrial complexes were still closed, but we could see them and Panmunjun from the Observation platform. We could see that the highway on which workers to the industrial complex usually traveled was empty. Finally, we walked down Tunnel #3. We had to walk down steeply 350 meters to reach the end of the tunnel. The first part of the walk was an entry way dug by the South Koreans and the last part was the infiltration tunnel dug by the North Koreans. We walked all the way to where the tunnel was blocked so we were walking under the DMZ. We were given hard hats to protect our heads, but Tom had a particularly hard time because of his height. It was hard to walk down to the tunnel, difficult to duck and avoid hitting our heads in the tunnel, and really hard to walk back up out of the tunnel!
(Click here for more pictures of the eel restaurant.)
After the tunnel our guide took us to an eel restaurant where we sat on the floor and ate delicious fresh eel. The food was prepared in the kitchen on the tables and then the tables were brought out and placed in front of us. After lunch we walked around looking at the wire, fences, and guard towers and then went to a park that was near the restaurant and bordered the DMZ fence. There was a tower of sorts where we could look into the DMZ, but the visibility wasn't great. There were guards at intervals along the fence.
(Click on the picture for more images of the park and the views from there.)
When we finished the tour we drove back to Seoul and to the airport only to find that rather than leave at 7:00, our flight had been cancelled and we were leaving at 9:00. There was a costumed procession at the airport.
We had a long wait at the airport, but finally took off for Honolulu.