12 days off is never enough, but it did give us enough time to hit some of the "hot spots" in Korea's most southern province Jeollanam-do.
My sister flew over for 2 weeks, and after partying at good ol' dubs and monkey beach in seoyheon, we got a train down to Boseong - green tea land!
Julie had her first love motel experience, a lot cleaner than she expected ㅋㅋㅋ
a taxi took us to the fields which grow something like 80% of Korea's green tea. they were pretty breathtaking to say the least, but I'm a sucker for symmetry. Well not much else to see in Boseong really, well, maybe there is but we sure didn't stick around. After locking ourselves inside the hotel room - and trying to mcgyver our way out (we finally realized that hey, i have a phone and we can call the hotel and scream 502, room 502 key no, in broken Korean - that someone will come rescue us) we headed to Wando.
Wando is one of the many islands dotting the south west coast. I had read in the lonely planet that Sinji-do, a smaller island off the coast of
Wando had beautiful beaches. So I'm totally
picturing you know, quiet small island deserted beach. ha ya right. After our bus ride which drops you right off at Myeongsasimni beach, we walked into mayhem! Tents, people, people PEOPLE, food, more tents and those yellow swimming tubes EVERYWHERE!!! aughh! but you know, the next day, tuesday everybody disappeared! it was fantastic! Our little tent was seriously one of the hand full of tents that were left, AND the tent adjoshe never came by! camping at the beach was nice and then we met these 3 Korean dudes who were awesome. We had a bbq tent party with them and the next day we all hiked up a mountain
to see a temple.
My sister couldn't get over the Korean people wearing clothes in the water phenomenon. I actually think that a lot more Koreans were wearing bathing suits and bikinis this year compared to last, but it's still shocking to see a whole mass of people going for a dip in their Sunday best.
So off we go back on the bus and another bus and head to Haenam, home of something special (a guy on the bus told me what it was, some kind of bird or something or maybe a reed?) to stay in the mountains of Duryunsan Provincial Park.
We went to this beautiful zen temple complex - Daedunsa Zen temple complex -that was really well hidden in the forest and sooooo very huge and we got to hear some monks chanting and more fun temple stuff. When we got to the forest zen temple zone, (after hiking up some huge hills to the hostel we were staying at) we saw lots of people camping in the forest, which we though what idiots we are! we could have camped here, but you know it is cicada season and we probably wouldn't have been able to sleep.
1 sleep later and off to Gwangju (Koreas 5th largest city) where we find another cozy love motel to bunk down in for our last 2 nights away. We travel to the Damyang to see the bamboo forest and bamboo craft fair. OMG what a let down! The forest was beautiful, but so hot and of course there were some nice plastic pandas to welcome us. We did get lost in it though - the red trail and orange trail were basically the same colour. The market was the equivalent of those 3 stores in china town in Toronto that sell all that bamboo stuff made in China. We did eat some delicious haemul pajeong made from bamboo, drink some southern version of makalie and have some bamboo noodles. delicious!
Gwangju is sort of like seoul or any other korean city really. We stayed by the bus station where nothing is going on. and thinking the "downtown" was within walking distance (which hey, it could be if you chose to walk to right way) we ventured out to find some nightlife. The shopping area was nearly an exact replicate of Myeongdong in Seoul.
We never made it to the bar area which i'm sure would have been another replicate of hongdae or the like. We did norae bang it up though! Our last day it was too hot to do much, we stayed inside and saw the sights of the National Museum (pretty good museum actually) and watched Dark Night. Then the monsoon which had held out for the entire trip broke free and it rained. boy did it rain. then julie jumping over a puddle fell and broke her foot! But somehow we managed to get back home the next day.
12 days off is never enough, but it did give us enough time to hit some of the "hot spots" in Korea's most southern province Jeollanam-do.
My sister flew over for 2 weeks, and after partying at good ol' dubs and monkey beach in seoyheon, we got a train down to Boseong - green tea land!
Julie had her first love motel experience, a lot cleaner than she expected ㅋㅋㅋ
a taxi took us to the fields which grow something like 80% of Korea's green tea. they were pretty breathtaking to say the least, but I'm a sucker for symmetry. Well not much else to see in Boseong really, well, maybe there is but we sure didn't stick around. After locking ourselves inside the hotel room - and trying to mcgyver our way out (we finally realized that hey, i have a phone and we can call the hotel and scream 502, room 502 key no, in broken Korean - that someone will come rescue us) we headed to Wando.
Wando is one of the many islands dotting the south west coast. I had read in the lonely planet that Sinji-do, a smaller island off the coast of 
Wando had beautiful beaches. So I'm totally
picturing you know, quiet small island deserted beach. ha ya right. After our bus ride which drops you right off at Myeongsasimni beach, we walked into mayhem! Tents, people, people PEOPLE, food, more tents and those yellow swimming tubes EVERYWHERE!!! aughh! but you know, the next day, tuesday everybody disappeared! it was fantastic! Our little tent was seriously one of the hand full of tents that were left, AND the tent adjoshe never came by! camping at the beach was nice and then we met these 3 Korean dudes who were awesome. We had a bbq tent party with them and the next day we all hiked up a mountain
to see a temple.
My sister couldn't get over the Korean people wearing clothes in the water phenomenon. I actually think that a lot more Koreans were wearing bathing suits and bikinis this year compared to last, but it's still shocking to see a whole mass of people going for a dip in their Sunday best.
So off we go back on the bus and another bus and head to Haenam, home of something special (a guy on the bus told me what it was, some kind of bird or something or maybe a reed?) to stay in the mountains of Duryunsan Provincial Park.
We went to this beautiful zen temple complex - Daedunsa Zen temple complex -that was really well hidden in the forest and sooooo very huge and we got to hear some monks chanting and more fun temple stuff. When we got to the forest zen temple zone, (after hiking up some huge hills to the hostel we were staying at) we saw lots of people camping in the forest, which we though what idiots we are! we could have camped here, but you know it is cicada season and we probably wouldn't have been able to sleep.
1 sleep later and off to Gwangju (Koreas 5th largest city) where we find another cozy love motel to bunk down in for our last 2 nights away. We travel to the Damyang to see the bamboo forest and bamboo craft fair. OMG what a let down! The forest was beautiful, but so hot and of course there were some nice plastic pandas to welcome us. We did get lost in it though - the red trail and orange trail were basically the same colour. The market was the equivalent of those 3 stores in china town in Toronto that sell all that bamboo stuff made in China. We did eat some delicious haemul pajeong made from bamboo, drink some southern version of makalie and have some bamboo noodles. delicious!
Gwangju is sort of like seoul or any other korean city really. We stayed by the bus station where nothing is going on. and thinking the "downtown" was within walking distance (which hey, it could be if you chose to walk to right way) we ventured out to find some nightlife. The shopping area was nearly an exact replicate of Myeongdong in Seoul.
We never made it to the bar area which i'm sure would have been another replicate of hongdae or the like. We did norae bang it up though! Our last day it was too hot to do much, we stayed inside and saw the sights of the National Museum (pretty good museum actually) and watched Dark Night. Then the monsoon which had held out for the entire trip broke free and it rained. boy did it rain. then julie jumping over a puddle fell and broke her foot! But somehow we managed to get back home the next day.
