Jeonju - Summer Vacation Part 4

Our last stop was Jeonju (전조시).

By this point we had mostly gotten tired of waiting for buses, so we traveled a lot by taxi. Luckily the taxis were actually really inexpensive. 

One of the first things we noticed as we exited the train station was that in Jeonju they seemed to decide that giant blocks of ice set in public areas was the fix for the intense heat. They were very nice.

Our day in Jeonju started with a tour of some traditional buildings. There is a very large gate called Pungnammun Gate. It was the south gate of the Fortress/Palace/Gyeonggijeon Shrine and is the only surviving gate in Jeonju. Although I assume it used to be attached to said fortress wall, it is currently sitting lonely as the centerpiece of a round about. It's neighbor is the Jeondong Catholic church, which is a rather large and famous church in the area, built to honor the Catholic martyrs of the Joseon Dynasty.

We went over to the shrine, which was the palace of the king who overthrew the Goreyeo Dynasty. He is known as King Taejo (although his birth name was Yi Seonggye). This palace was absolutely gorgeous and adding to the effect was the fact that there was a large number of people visiting wearing their hanbok, which is traditional clothing (from the Joseon era). 

There were several areas where preserved items were kept on display including a lot of old books that were impeccably preserved. There was actually a small royal portrait museum as well, where a large collection of original paintings of the royal family of the Joseon Dynasty have been gathered together. Later when I went to the museum in the Gyeongbokgung palace grounds, I saw a replica of the original portrait that was kept in this museum. 

This was also where I learned about the significance of the Irworobongdo, which is a folding screen which a stylized nature scene. There are five mountain peaks, two waterfalls, the sun, and the moon. I had seen it a lot before in the museums, palaces, and temples that I visited but I didn't even really notice that I had seen it repeated in so many places until now. This screen was the traditional backdrop to the king's throne during the Joseon Dynasty. 

I also learned a bit about the symbolic nature of some of the structures in traditional buildings. There are often several figures (guardians) on the roofs of important buildings. The turtle figures were places to protect against fire as were the giant bowls of water along the paths in the courtyards. According to my friend, the fire demons would see their reflections in the water and be scared away. Also, more practically, there would be water waiting in case of a fire so that it could be quickly put out before it became too big. 

After the palace, we walked briefly through the hanok (traditional) village. This was probably the only disappointing part of the trip. The Jeonju Hanok Village, it really well known and a huge attraction for Jeonju, so we had really high hopes. Unfortunately, all we found was a huge tourist trinket shopping area with some interspersed food stalls in buildings that were made in a hanok style architecture. There was a lot of tourist photospots and over all it just felt really commercial and unauthentic. It felt like standing next to a cardboard cutout of a celebrity to get a picture with that celebrity. 

It all turned out okay though because, since the hanok village did not entice us to stay for long, we had time to take the advice of a previous taxi driver who had recommended that we visit Deokjun Park to see the lotus flowers. I would have taken the train to Jeonju just to see this park. There was a small flower garden in the front with a traditional swing which I couldn't help but try. It's really hard work because it's actually a swing that you stand on to make it do anything. It's basically a cardio and upperbody workout to swing on them.

Most of the part was taken up by a giant lake. The lake was separated by a bridge, which cut it approximately in half. One half was a regular lake, but the other half was completely full of lotus flowers in full bloom which were absolutely gorgeous. We spent a lot of time there admiring the scenery.

We walked to a close-by restaurant, recommended to us by the taxi driver who drove us to the park. There we had some bibimbap (without the seafood for me), because Jeonju bibimbap is kind of a big deal. I have to admit it was better than the bibimbap I had before, but that was at a mall food court so I wouldn't exactly expect a mall food court dish to measure up to a restaurant stone bowl dish.

In any case we had a delightful dinner, nearly got lost a few times and finally made our way back to the train station to head back to Seoul. This trip was absolutely incredible. I loved being able to get out of the big city, to breathe in some real, fresh air and experience these new places. I only hope that I can see more of South Korea before I leave. 

  

Snapfish Album for Jeonju

Busan - Summer Vacation Part 3

So, we are at the third city of our trip: Busan (부산). This was very close to Gyeongju so the trip there was very short, which was rather merciful considering how late it was when we were trying to find where our guest house was.

We stayed the night in Chinatown which was an interesting experience to say the least. There was a lot of really cool architecture and art. I went for a little bit of a late night walk and found Busan Station where I happened to stumble upon a really cool water and lights show out front. It was really long though. I sat there and watched it start and eventually, everytime the music changed I started thinking that "Okay, this is it. It's over I can leave now"... then the music would start up again and it kept on going. The breeze of the water was really nice and there were a whole bunch of kids that kept running out to play in the water and kept getting scolded by the security guard there which was entertaining.

We didn't stay long in this area of Busan. The next morning we went to a new section of Busan by Seomyeon Station (서면역) to check into our next guest house. We  spent the rest of the morning wandering around the market district. Our first stop was the port: Jagalchi Fish Market (자갈치시장). It was incredibly extensive with certain parts outdoors and other parts indoors because the fish being sold there required more temperature control. Some of the fish were sold live. Some fish were sold live with someone on standby to make it into sushi while you wait. Other fish were dead and ice, gutted and dried, or even prepared to eat already. The scent of fish was rather strong as you can imagine, but luckily my previous zoo experience got me used to the overwhelming smell of fish so I didn't mind it too much. 

From the fish market we found an International Film Festival road where I had my first ever Hoddeok (호떡), which is a delightful streetfood that is a fried dough-like concoction with caramelized brown sugar and nuts inside. 

Our real goal was a specific area of the big international market called Bupyeong (also known as Kkangtong which means tin can) Market (부평시장 (낑통시장)). Our main destination was the giant section dedicated to used bookstores. We spent a lot of time on the streets that were just completely full of used bookstores. The variety of books that could be found there was incredible. In one store I found a four volume encyclopedia set of fish... in German. I managed to restrain myself and only walked away with one book, which was a book of famous Korean Poetry. Each poem is written in both original Korean and translated into English. It appeared to be part of a set and some of them were illustrated beautifully but considering I barely understand a minuscule amount of Korean I decided to stick with the translated one. 

We took the subway up to the Haeundae beach area of Busan where two more of my co-workers (and good friends) were spending their vacation week. We had lunch together at this little Italian place where the owner gave us free dessert, probably for being foreign and sitting in his restaurant. (I have found that a lot of places like to give obviously foreign customers service like that in hopes of us bringing friends back. There is this one cafe near our apartments that often gives us free size upgrades and/or dessert. One time the owner gave another co-worker an umbrella because it was raining and he didn't have one.)

I went for a walk along the coast because the beach was absolutely mobbed. There was a nice rocky area next to the cliffs though, with a nice walking path. There we found a cool mermaid statue and a lighthouse as well as the APEC building which hosted a world leader convention in 2005. 

Further on up the path some cute cats lured us toward a group of elderly folks who were finishing up eating dinner. They (mostly one ajusshi-a korean gentleman past a certain age) who wanted to tell us all about how his friend's daughter lives in Virginia and how he lived in Santa Barbara for a while. They gave us apple popsicles and we eventually insisted it was time we continued on. We walked around the nearby streets and a little bit along the beach when it was quieter there, before we separated. I took the subway back to the guest house. 

I wish I could have had more time to explore Busan, since it is the second largest city in South Korea and my friend was telling me about the cool temples she visited that were hidden away in the mountains. Those would have been fun to visit. However, out of all of the places I visited on my summer vacation, Busan was probably the least exciting. The feel of the city is very similar to Seoul. It's a large city. Everything is very modernized from the food to the buildings. It was like being in a seaside, Seoul. It was a wonderful place but I think exploring there didn't feel as new an experience as the other cities did because it was so similar to Seoul. The other cities were small enough to have a small town with a long history keeping in touch with their traditions (and this is where words have completely failed me, I apologize), feeling to them that was different from Busan, just like it was differ from Seoul. 

Snapfish Album for Busan

Gyeongju - Summer Vacation Part 2

The second city was called Gyeongju (경주), and it was also a seaside city. It is on the eastern coast and a few hours to the south of Samcheok.

I took the bus and met two coworkers there in the evening, in time for a night tour. For the first part we had one driver who was a biker touring South Korea and decided to stay in Gyeongju for a little while to work for the guy who owned the guest house we stayed at.

Our first stop on the night tour was Donggung Palace (동궁) and Wolji Pond (월지), which was a small manmade pool with a few temple/palace buildings next to it. The pool was apparently made because of some mythology about the reflection of the moon in the pool. I'm not quite sure if the translation I got was 100% accurate to what he said though. Our tour guide seemed to be elaborating more. Anyway... there used to be 21 buildings near this pool, however they were destroyed during a Japanese attack (historically the Japanese have been the cause of a lot of destruction especially due to pirates). There are currently four buildings that have been rebuilt and I believe that there are plans to restore more. They currently have two models that I saw of how it used to look with all the buildings: one at the sight, and one in the Gyeongju National Museum.

The pool is sort of an odd shape. I found out later that it was made to be a map/representation of their portion of the world. The shape of the edge of the pool is supposed to be China with a peninsula that represents Korea. There is also a rather large island that represents Japan.

We walked through the buildings and around the pool before setting off to our next location.




This location was an old hunting lodge for the king where there was this cool pond called Seolchulji. It was the location of a folk tale, which I will give an approximate retelling of. The king and his people were out at this lodge and a talking crow and a talking fox came up to him and said to follow them. He did and so he and his party were led to an old person (I can't remember if it was a man or a woman) but basically this person gave them an envelope/letter. The king was told that if you open the letter, two people will die. If you leave the letter closed, one person will die. After much debate they made the decision to open the letter, which said to shoot the chest behind them. The king did and they found that inside were two assassins, now dead, who had been attempting to murder the king.

This was a pretty cool location. It was really far off of the beaten path and it had an isolated vibe to it which was probably only enhanced by the fact that it was dark. Maybe it was the dark and maybe it was the folk tale we had just been told but the whole thing had this really cool, deserted, haunted ghost town (swamp) kind of aura to it that I loved.

There was a massive population of bullfrogs if the noise was anything to judge by. It was in fact the first time my friend had ever heard bullfrogs because she's lived most of her life in California and apparently the frog population there isn't large.

The third location was a cool bridge that isn't completed but is currently being rebuilt. It's historical significance is that it was the first covered bridge to be built. This location was pretty cool because as it is a bridge, it crosses a river. One thing that I've noticed is that stepping stones across rivers is a huge thing here in Korea, we literally stood in the middle of a massive river on stepping stones to take pictures of this bridge.

The fourth location was a pretty famous landmark from what I understand. It's a rather squat tower that looks a little like a bowling pin with the top broken off of it and is more that a little reminiscent of a brick pizza oven. It is believed that this structure was an early astronomy tower. Because they are historians whose professional lives are dedicated to this kind of thing, I am inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt, but honestly it didn't look functional for anything let alone an astronomy tower.

I can only assume that it was roofless because the only opening was one small window that seemed way too high to regularly get to comfortably. It just really made me think of a tower for Rapunzel to be locked in, unless there is a secret tunnel entrance somewhere. Regardless, it's still a pretty cool remain of a distant time and the mystery makes the creative story explanation part of my brain excited. I kind of want there to be a secret tunnel entrance though.

We stopped back at the guest house to switch drivers to the owner of the hostel who drove us to the beach. He seemed to take delight in driving like a crazy person insisting it was only because he knew the place so well and that it is not a crowded drive. I personally just think he liked to hear all the reactions. There was some definitely shrieking from a few of the less composed members of our group. The beach was pretty cool. It was rocky but the sound of the ocean was really nice. We had some snacks and failed to light a lantern but it was an enjoyable way to end the evening.

The next morning I set off with one of my friends to visit the Gyeongju National Museum. Gyeongju is actually a really historically significant city in Korean history. A little background: the most recent dynasty/last monarchy in Korea was the Joseon (조선)Dynasty. The one previous so that was called the Silla (신라)Dynasty. Gyeongju was the capital city of the Silla Dynasty.

This museum was pretty incredible. There were several different buildings that held old jewelry, old pottery, even some more ancient bronze and stone age artifacts. Unsurprisingly there was a huge focus on the Silla Dynasty.

One of the interesting bits of topography in the area are these rather giant hills. These are actually burial mounds for a bunch of dead kings which is pretty crazy considering the size of some of them. They look a little like small mountains in certain areas. In the museum there was one segment which as far as I could tell was dedicated to demonstrating the burial process and hill building.

There was one building with a whole bunch of ancient clothing and jewelry that had been buried with the kings and their households. They had quite the obvious love of gold jewelry. It was in a style that I hadn't really seen anywhere before too. There was a trend of long thin pieces of gold that had been flattened to act as the base with smaller bits of shaped gold or precious rocks dangling from it. It was a very distinct style and all the royal jewelry looked rather heavy and uncomfortable to be honest.

There was a large collection of Buddhist art and an entire building dedicated to the moon pond that we had gone to see the night before. There was a small scale recreation of what it would have looked like, videos of the restoration and excavation, as well as a lot of artifacts, even a small canoe-like boat that had been discovered in the remains. It looked like there might be a plan to rebuild the rest of (or at least more of) the moon pond buildings.

We ate lunch at a rather famous restaurant near the Seolchulji pond, which was the hunting lodge we had been to on the night tour the night before. This restaurant had a beautiful view and was the kind of renowned restaurant that has an opening time and a certain number of meals that they will make for the day and closes when they run out. We were still there when they started turning people away because they were done for lunch; in fact they only had two portions of rice left for the day by the time we had been served. We had a wonderful meal of rice and mixed vegetables, which may seem like it should be the norm living in South Korea, but I haven't had a meal I enjoyed more before or since. I did, however, make a fool of myself by being the clumsy foreigner and knocking a chopstick off the table with my elbow causing the waiter to bring me new chopsticks as well as a fork in case I was incapable of eating without throwing the chopsticks on the floor.

It was in a beautiful area.

After lunch, and some waiting at bus stops, we made our way to the Bulguksa Temple (불국사). It was located at the top of the hill and unfortunately, parts of it were under construction while we were there. Everything was picturesque and beautiful (except for a few parts where the construction sites were peeking out behind gates and walls hundreds of years old. There were also parts of the temple that remained in use as spaces of worship and photos were prohibited in these areas, although I certainly saw a lot of tourists taking pictures there anyway. It was actually really difficult to take photos that did the temple justice because there were so many people posing for pictures. I don't mind having people in my photos unlike the friend I went with, but having picture after picture of tourists posing in front of buildings for their own photos was not exactly what I was looking for in my photos. In any case, there was a well of mountain water for use as a water fountain, which was very refreshing in the hot, hot, humid sun, especially after we had been walking up all the steps of the temple. It is worth mentioning that these steps were in general super large and steep steps that made my friend who has a phobia of heights extremely uncomfortable and made a lot of the tourists visibly struggle with getting down.

After the temple, we decided to take a taxi back to the bus station because we yet again had trouble with the buses. The trouble wasn't that we couldn't figure out how to use them because I can muddle through and my friend is fluent. Rather our trouble was that the buses didn't seem to be coming to our stop. It really made me appreciate the efficiency of the subways in Seoul and the frequency of the buses here as well.

(the bus stop)

We got on the train and took it to our next location which was Busan (부산). We got off at the station in Bujeon (부전) and took the little baby subway system that is Busan's subway to where we'd be staying the night.

When I was here I really felt like I was able to grasp the beauty of traditional architecture. All of the fortresses, palaces, and temples are built with beautiful lines, based in symmetry which makes for gorgeous aesthetic and for perfect wind flow to control the temperature. The roofing was fit together so well that it didn't require any bolts to hold it in place. The clay slabs and tiles were simply built to stay stuck together, even well enough to survive hundreds of years and several invasions and wars. Many of the old buildings I have visited have been fixed up or repainted but there have also been a large number that haven't simply because they were built so well that they have lasted this long even with their original paint.

Snapfish Album for more photos