Dobongsan hike

On Tuesday I spent most of the day in Buyeo. Leaving my motel at 9ish I walked the 30 or so meters to the temple site of Jeongnimsaji. Arriving on the opposite side of the site to the entrance, I walked around and looked over the wall to see excavation work going on, and a fairly uninteresting looking temple with a brick pagoda next to it. Although I completed the circuit to the entrance, I decided not to bother going in and instead headed up to the other attraction of Buyeo – the Busosan park and fort. This area was even nicer than the fort in Gongju and I spent a very pleasant 90 minutes or so just strolling around the perimeter, checking out the restored buildings, enjoying the views and the autumnal colours. With a minimum number of school trip children crossing my path, this was a very enjoyable morning. From there I decided to head back to Seoul, and then slowly back to Dobong (Chi-Hé's stop).

Yesterday, I did pretty well nothing. In the morning I tidied and sorted my bag out a bit, and in the afternoon I drank coffee, read my book and watched two couples break up (I assume that's what they were doing...there were certainly tears). That was pretty much it.

Today I went on a hike. Despite the fact Chi-Hé lives spitting distance away from Dobongsan – even drooling distance away in fact – she has never set foot on this mountain. I thought that, I having more time than she, it might be nice for one of us to attempt this feat, and we could share the pictures. To give some indication of where Chi-Hé lives in Seoul, and what type of city Seoul is, this part of Seoul is not on the lonely planet Seoul map, only on the Bukhansan National Park map, a National Park which is mostly within the area of the city of 10.4 million that is Seoul. So I set out to walk to the next subway stop and the entrance to this particular hike this morning, picking up a pizza baguette at the local Paris Bakery, making sure I had some layers and lots of water, and that my (holey) shoes were tied securely on.

Starting at the bottom of the mountain, I had my usual 'why are all of these people wearing all this hi-tech crap? What the hell do you need climbing poles for? Are those hiking boots really necessary? Gloves?! He has climbing gloves?! Oh give me a break!' reaction. Having got a fair way up, I stopped briefly to check out the view and munch on the fruit (this: http://www.travelblog.org/Photos/1623710.html) a friendly Korean had thrown to me (after I'd politely declined his offer of Makgeoll [막걸리 ], which is unrefined rice wine...often with bits of rice still in. Chi-Hé – presumably in a fit of madness, or thinking of something else - recommended it once...we left it at the motel, I also had some in Busan...as much as I thought was necessary to be polite). From there it was all up hill. I mean, it had been all up hill anyway...but this was real knees to your chin, grab hold of that handhold and pull yourself up, up hill walking.

The last stretch (about 10 meters) up to the very peak was up a 70 degree angle piece of rock, with a very conveniently placed fence to one side, and the odd hand hold – quite fun, but a touch tiring. The view from the top was beautiful if hazy. Walking back was fairly uneventful aside from a couple of 'almost flat on my ass' slip ups which I largely blame on my shoes and the sandy soil in some areas, and some slightly sore hands from gripping trees and ropes. The route I took takes you via a fairly uninteresting temple – but it was nice to stop for a minute and take a look at the art on the outside of the building, and then continue down the last stretch back towards the subway – which I walked alongside for 2 stops to get back here. All in all I think I walked about 14km (8.5 miles) on my 5 hour hike, which is not bad going...although I may be going on another walk tomorrow...and then dancing in the evening, so we'll see how I feel then.

I'm now approaching my last days at Chi-Hé's, in Seoul, in Korea, and indeed on holiday which is somewhat daunting particularly as I was hoping I'd know more about what I'm doing for the next 12 months by now...but I'll still be waiting to hear about those things when I get back. Anyway, the plan for the next few days is – go on a Shamnist walk around some shrines (apparently Korea has a history of Shamanism and presumably some of this is still active), go to Chi-Hé's school to help out with some Haloween activities on Saturday, and then to Suwon to go to the Folk Village on Sunday. Monday will be my last day of souvenir shopping and coffee drinking, and then I fly home via somewhere on Tuesday night, arriving Wednesday.

Andong and beyond

After a very pleasant few days in Busan, visiting a few sights, enjoying the much improved weather, drinking pretty good coffee and reading my new book (Karamazov Brothers - because my bag just wasn't heavy enough already) I headed off to meet Chi-He in Andong, a town in central S. Korea. Andong is famous for its Soju museum, and folk museum, at which location a popular Korean show is filmed.

When I say famous...I may overstate the case. The Soju museum is a room with exhibits on the culture and brewing of Soju - the classic Korean alcoholic drink at about 20% alcohol. The biggest draw to this museum was the Lonely Planet advertised shot of Soju at the end of the tour - this did not materialise. Never mind, at least the walk back to town along the main road was pleasant enough...there was a rather nice bridge along the way.

The following day we redeemed our voucher for a free donut at dunkin' donuts and headed out to the folk village via a 7 storey brick pagoda. It being very much autumn in Korea, and this bringing out a range of colours on the trees the countryside is really quite pleasant at the moment, and the walk near the dam - which displaced the houses relocated into the folk village - and along the river was quite pleasant as a result. The village itself was not particularly interesting as there were very few displays or anything of that nature, only the buildings themselves - however it was a fairly pleasant stroll around in the warm autumn sun.

Although the food was very pleasant, and the 4 hour train journey back to Seoul wasn't too bad, the motel was pretty mediocre (it was no ritz that's for sure), the place too was of no particular interest to most people I should imagine.

I have now moved on to Geongju from Seoul, a place with tombs and a fairly impressive fort overlooking the new town - which was very nice to walk around, and then from there to Buyeo (pronounced boo-ya...no kiding), a place with similar attractions. I had planned to spend tonight in the Buyeo hostel...having walked up there to find the 'less institutional feel' hostel (LP) looking very much like a school, with a coach outside, and with a load of kids running around I decided 'fuck this', took a quick walk around the sculpture park and up to the nearby river and then headed to the Arirang Motel, a motel comparable to the Ritz with a PC in the room, 'mood lighting' free tea/'coffee', a water cooler/heater in the room and so on. Tomorrow I'll see the Buyeo sights then head back to Seoul for my last few days and bits of sightseeing there.

Busan

Typing this up on a very old pc, from my laptop as there's no wireless here, which may be set to Korean (and is therefore saying most of what I type is wrong...so forgive spelling mistakes)...

I haven't had a 'human kindness' story for a whle, my avowal to discontinue such acts disregarded, but today provides a good opportunity to give an example. Today I came to Busan. This was against my plan to the extent that just 30 minutes before I decided, I told Chi-He I'd be in Gyeongju for another night. However, the rain started, and a detailed weather forecast suggested it would only get worse. My only plan for the day was to go hiking, however hiking in the rain without a coat and with only one set of clean clothes in my bag did not appeal, not to mention the fact that the clouds were so low it would be dangerous and largely pointless. Thus, I got breakfast in the same place as yesterday - which made them smile - toast, jam, 'strained through my one day old underwear' coffee/water, and some free local bread which is a bit like 2 Scotch pancakes stuck together with red bean paste in the middle. Then I headed for the 1 hour, 1 every 10 minutes bus to Busan.

Leaving straight from the bus station to the hostel on the Busan subway I found my place easily enough, and was met outside the appartment building by the owner who took me to another building (she owns a few appartments) in a twin room for the first night and then a dorm for 2 more. My room mate is a Korean girl who teaches Korean in Seoul, but is here for one night visiting people and seeing Busan (for the first time). She invited me, and n American girl who was in the living room too, to join her and her friend for a day of sightseeing. It was thus that I had a taxi round Busan, to a very nice Korean restaurant, to a temple not in the guide (Haedongyonggungsa, on the coast - quite beautiful), to a nice coffee place overlooking a beach, up a mountain overlooking Busan by night, and then back to the hostel. Despite the fact me and the American girl kept insisting we pay for something (parking, petrol, cofee), the guy (he called himself John) refused each time and indeed paid for the coffee.

On the way up to the mountain we made a stop at a small fish market by the coast. At this place we had (I watched) fresh octopus - freshly cut in front of you and still wriggling as you eat it with seasame sauce...mmmmm.

A day which was going to be one of me sitting in a cafe drinking good coffee and reading my book instead turned into a full day of sightseeing with local knowledge, with the ease of a car, and with friendly companions along the way - excellent :). Now I'll explore the rest of Busan, and then on to wherever Chi-He and I end up this weekend :).

Gyeongju

Today it is raining. Not just 'a fine soft day' but actually torrential downpour river in the street kind of rain. Every time I think it's easing off, after a short period it instantly reverts back to insane downpour levels. After an early wake up (7am), and the slaughter of 5 mosquitos with my pillow this morning (I'm moving beds so it's ok) I sat alone watching the rain and reading my book waiting to move room and hoping the rain would die down. I also did my usual internet rounds, and was reminded by Chi-Hé that I had completely neglected to mention anything about Gyoengju. Now that I am holed up in a Starbucks for the foreseable future, plans to go to Beomosa temple put on hole, this seems a ripe opportunity to write about it. I'll even backdate the post so it fits in where it should.

Gyoengju is a largely unattractive town in itself to be perfectly honest. The hostel was also a fairly unattractive place. I took the opportunity of a night in Seoul to have my first private room since Hong Kong – quite a time. I needn't have bothered as the next night I moved to a dorm (in fact 3 mattresses on the floor in a room rather than the usual bunk bed dorm arrangement) and had the room to myself. The 'tv room' was by the stairs to go downstairs to the main reception and the owners living quarters, a small corner of a room which could comfortably seat 5. However, they were very friendly aside from the son of the owner trying to persuade me to stay in a single room (despite the fact no one else was in the dorm). They've also been open since at least 1985 judging from the 'Thank you' letters framed on the wall – fairly impressive.

The area is full of Shilla era architecture and history (I'm afraid you'll need to wiki that because I can't be arsed). Within Gyoengju there are a number of Tumuli, that is, tombs. Indeed there is a park (Tumuli park) full of them. Although these are quite beautiful, and obviously have quite a history behind them, they are not particularly interesting for more than half a day's walking around. They are at the end of the day just big grassy mounds.

The Bulguksa temple outside of Gyeongju (on UNESCO world heritage list) was a very pleasant (Shilla) temple surrounded by gardens, forests and hills. I walked the 3.2 km up one of these to Seokguram Grotto (also on UNESCO list), which was a very pleasant if somewhat tiring walk up hill through woods inhabited by chipmunks – and everyone loves those. The crowning piece in this Grotto is a stone carving of Buddha surrounded by a range of other dieties and guardians. This is unfortunately behind glass – which is reflective, and you can't take photographs, it was however a fairly impressive set of carvings. The view from up here was particularly attractive, and I was very glad to have been to both places despite the swarming crowds of school children – including the approximately 80 children who I had to wait to go in and come out of the Grotto prior to my entering it. After that I walked back down and towards the local 'folk village'. Some of these villages are actually decent reconstructions of old style villages with nice arts and crafts stuff and some history – including one we hope to go this weekend, and another in Seoul. This one was a set of craft type shops, which was grossly overpriced and in a fairly unattractive setting – never mind, the walk there was pleasant enough. That evening I went out to eat with a couple of people from the hostel. We had ssambap (to quote lonely planet - “Lots of tasty sidedishes which you wrap up in lettuce and other leaves”), although some of the things were quite delicious, as I suppose should be expected, others were not – I just don't like seaweed and very fishy tasting fish dishes, nae mind. And that brings me up to the next blog from Busan.

On another note, I just went to change $300 of traveller's cheques (a lot, but hell it's Korea), and the woman gave me the money and a receipt only after looking at my passport – i.e. She didn't bother asking me to sign the cheques until I suggested I should (I don't want her to get in trouble!)...trusting, or hugely incompetent? You decide. Also, this story: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/oct/23/george-osborne-nat-rothschild-oleg-deripaska
is hilarious, and I greatly enjoyed this cartoon: http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2008/10/22/bellbell512.jpg

Chuncheon

Chuncheon

Throwing some things into our bags (so nice not to be lugging my cheap art laden backpack around) we headed down the subway line to the train station for Chuncheon. We grabbed some burgers and snacks and jumped on the conveniently timed train. After a very pleasant train journey – especially novel for me having not booked it, something much harder in China – we arrived and nabbed a taxi to our motel. The Ritz Motel – or Ritz Hotel depending on which sign/motel paraphernalia you looked at – looked very nice from outside, to the extent that had we not read about it in the guide, and checked the prices ahead of time we probably wouldn't have gone in. Inside it was a quiet and clean motel, with a vending machine in the lobby for all your needs. If those needs happened to be love motel needs that is – vending machine underwear anyone?

My understanding is that, in S. Korea people live at home until they are relatively older than their Western counterparts. Thus, for some privacy couples head to 'love motels'. The one we were in was not seedy – although it was fairly anonymous and there was always that vending machine in the lobby...and was in fact one of the nicest places I've stayed in the last 10 weeks with a very clean bedroom with water dispenser (hot and cold), VCR (extensive library downstairs...we did not check out the titles), TV and fridge and well stocked bathroom. Pretty good for $15 each. The guy behind the desk was called into service action when we asked him for a bus route, and spent a good 5-10 minutes finding us maps (2), and telling us where to go for the bus and so on. I suspect he doesn't often get to give out tourist information, although perhaps more so given they're in the Lonely Planet.

We'd decided to make use of our full day away by leaving Chuncheon by local bus for nearby Gangchon. The drive there was pleasant if rather crowded. As the weather was exceptionally nice, we decided to make a walk of it up to the waterfall – the chief attraction. Thus, eschewing the options of bikes, motor bikes or quad bikes – particularly popular with the visiting Korean students – we set off on our walk, which turned out to be shorter than expected, and along a fairly pleasant road with views of a valley, prime positions for watching the ridiculous poses people pull while driving quad bikes, and plenty of interesting looking bugs for Chi-He to photograph.

The waterfall itself – with entrance fee – was not particularly impressive. In fact, barely so at all. Having seen it, and climbed up a hill nearby – the name of which I only vaguely remember – we both agreed that the nicest part of the visit was that autumn had changed a reasonable amount of the leaves to various shades of orange and red, providing a beautiful backdrop. Thus, not a place I'd particularly recommend outside of autumn.

Heading back to Chuncheon on an even more crowded bus we attempted to walk back to the hotel, to find ourselves closer to the food district. Or more accurately the Dakgalbi Geori area, where that particular meal can be bought at a great number of restaurants. I'll look up what's actually in it some time, but to briefly describe – you get condiments, and a large amount of raw chicken, veg and rice cakes mixed together in a slightly spicy red marinade. Despite the fact the restaurant didn't serve beer – something I didn't think would ever happen in Korea – the food was delicious and I would happily eat it again.

The following day we did the usual dull errand things – checked out, bought tickets onwards and so on – and then took a walk along the lake in Chuncheon with the intention of catching a ferry to the island. Along the way we saw a very impressive colourful and large spider, and a number of somewhat interesting statues. As we got closer to the lake we could see the shore litered with Swan peddle boats (a few of which were beached on the slope up in disrepair – hardly an advertisement). However, with all of this excitement, a toll had been taken on us, and we decided to sit for a while...then go back towards the bus station to get some food and leave for Seoul, and my next stop (and one assumes, blog topic) – Gyeongju.

Seoul

In keeping with the theme of making rash judgments on other cultures with very experience of them (tautology?) I'll make some comments on S. Korea:
1)People wear crap suits. I'm no suit expert, but I can see when a suit doesn't fit, or when it's made out of VERY shiny material. In fact I've seen a silver suit on more than one occasion. I assume that not all of these people are pimps.
2)There are lots of coffee places – I approve of this greatly
3)Subway trains have 'old age person' seats. These seats are never sat in by young people – indeed I was told off for sitting on one. However, middle aged people will sit on these, people who you'd not want to offer the seat to in the UK for fear of offending them. Often these don't offer their seat to the older person.
4)At cafes when you order, you are given a buzzer which will flash and vibrate when your order is ready to be picked up at the collection counter. I am not convinced this is particularly efficient, but it is quite novel.

On the train back from Insadong today (nice area) I gave up my seat to an oldish woman – I really can't abide being stood over by a woman talking to someone sat next to me who is struggling to reach the hand holds which were clearly not designed for Asian women (although they do also bang me in the face so they're not that high up). She proceeded to talk to me, and sign either that I had a big heart or big breasts – it wasn't clear which. Before I knew it I had about 5 oldish women talking to me and trying to help me to where I was going, and one young Korean who spoke English and translated a bit which was very nice of her and saved me just shrugging and smiling embarassed afterwards. I was told I had to get off before my stop, so while vowing never to do another good deed again, at least not in a confined unescapbable space I checked the map to see if I was in the right line (pretty certain I was) and indeed I was but this train was terminating so I had to swap to the next one. I could probably have worked that out myself – although I did see one guy walking down the empty train after it left its terminus – but it was very nice of them to tell me anyway.

On the train from there up to Dobong (my stop) I was very happy to see the standard peddlers of 'crap you don't want'. This was – as I'm sure you may imagine – even more the case when an old and non-too clean woman approached me with a bag full of gum packs. She proceeded to stand over me, attempt to place the gum into my hand (in such a manner as to force me to create a fist), and then try to place the gum on my leg and ask for money. After a minute of this she sodded off. I hope I told that story properly – I'm told it was funny the first time :p.

On Friday we left Seoul for Chuncheon, a town/small city not far from Seoul (2 hours on a slow train as I remember). The main draws to this place were a pretty town near by with a waterfall, and the presence of an island in a lake at this town. More on that in the next post.

South Korea

Tomorrow, or Saturday I will leave Seoul for somewhere else. It will be near to Seoul, partly because for it to be otherwise would involve me leaving the country. There are a few conveniently located towns/cities around the country located near at least 3 places of interest. It feels very odd to call a city of 3 million (e.g. Busan, 3.7 million, 2nd city) a city given that in China the smallest place I went had 800,000 and after that the smallest was a few million. This size difference also goes some way to explain the proximity of multiple sites of interest near to each of the potential cities to visit – even from Seoul many places of interest could easily be reached.

The plan is to go away for a weekend with Chi-Hė, then I'll go on to Gongju and Busan during the week before meeting up with Chi-Hė again the following weekend (possibly in Mokpo?), again going somewhere else before heading back to Seoul for my final weekend away. So we'll see how that works out!

So far Korea has been very pleasant. After a lot of historic site seeing (the sites were historic, not my seeing of them) I decided a trip to a modern art gallery might be a pleasant experience. I'm happy to say that in contrast to the Shanghai art gallery, it was indeed a pleasant experience – no doubt influenced by my avoidance of the school group in there too. The gallery houses a permanent collection by a Korean artist which was a set of quite nice fairly traditional paintings. The rest of the building was full of modern art related to the senses – many of which were interactive. You could throw butterflies like dried leaves, you could move a Snow White statue and evoke a set of 7 dwarf shadows to follow her around (clever set of lights and sensors I guess), and you could move a bright red ball behind a massive semi-transparent screen imitating the sun/a light and prompting the moths on screen to follow you around. Amongst other things that is. After that I went for a fairly long walk along a city stream which has been restored to create a very pleasant pathway with various bits of art along it, stepping stones over the river (and occasionally fake rocks/false river beds in the water which look interesting and create an interesting flow) and fountains.

Today (my second day) I went to Bonguensa Buddhist temple. A fairly large temple complex, a cultural centre which aims to teach people about Buddhism, and a teaching centre training Buddhist monks. The area itself is over the road from one of the biggest malls in the world (irony) and is actually a bit of a building site at the moment. The buildings are rather nice traditional wooden buildings with the same colourful painting style seen in China. The complex also houses the tallest Buddha statue in Korea. It's quite tall.

Unfortunately when I was there were rather a lot of people who looked like they were actually Buddhists and were listening to the chanting being piped out and praying...so I didn't want to go into the buildings full of these people and take photos. Interesting to see an active Buddhist community though as I hadn't seen one since Thailand. On my way out of the site I was approached by a middle aged woman “Do you speak any English?” she asked; “I certainly hope so” I responded. She then handed me a booklet “The Way To Meet God”. Nothing like people trying to convert you to Christianity in a Buddhist temple. This makes me a lot less angry than in Cambodia and similar places where the allure of Christianity's foreign money partly in the shape of school and health care (no hidden agendas there!) and of course a church draws people from their traditional religions.

Food news (because I wrote this first and then decided to write other stuff and I don't know where to put it now):
On my first night Chi-Hė and I went out for a Korean grill meal (you griddle your own meat) eaten with rice and various vegetables and so on which was very nice, and a pleasant change from Chinese. Last night we met before Chi-Hė's Korean class...and had very nice Western food – which was a pleasant change from pretty piss poor Western food.

By way of a final China piece:
A few experiences all Westerners commented on in China were:
1)Bare faced price inflation
2)Children pissing in the street
3)Spitting
4)Everyone I asked had the experience that prior to coming out, various internet forums and people had warned them to expect to be treated rudely, to expect officials to be brusque, unhelpful and often rude. In contrast, I and all those I spoke to felt that people were generally very friendly and helpful – including the officials who are happy enough to smile at you and be friendly, and have also been helpful to fellow travelers along the way. I'm sure things change over time, and things may well have improved but I'm also sure that many of the stories are a combination of racism, and annoyance at being a novelty. But I'm sorry, when you point at pictures on the wall of a restaurant you do look ridiculous, either get over it (as I did) or learn the language – don't complain that people might smile at you as you do it. All in all, it is certainly a country I'd happily go back to, aside from anything else I've seen so little of it and I'd love to see more of the inland areas.