Sokcho is a fishing port town nestled in next to Seoraksan National Park. Laura and I headed up there for the holiday weekend; I alluded to the trip in my previous post. It was amazing. Forgive me if I don't go into detail, because I've already written an article for Compass. I'll post the link when it's published.
Also, my camera's battery died at the end of our second hike, so some of these pictures were taken on Laura's camera. Though, I did take the landscape ones I have posted here, obviously the ones of me, she took, and vice versa.
Sokcho's beach would probably be nice in better weather.
We ate an enormous amount of Korean barbecue.
Onto the exciting part! Here is a website with the descriptions of hiking courses in Seoraksan from the Sokcho area.
The first day we checked out a temple, took the cable car, and hiked up to the fortress. It was freezing outside and raining hard. We didn't feel comfortable on a strenuous hiking trail in those conditions, so we ended up at the jjimjilbang for the evening.
Gwongeumseong Fortress is an open area with jagged rocks. It was mildly terrifying seeing as everything was slick from the rain, and there were no guard rails. It is supposed to be the site of a former castle, but there is no evidence of that now.
Tiny pagodas stacked up by tourists
September 24, 2010
Chuseok Adventure Part 2
Busan is the location of the United Nations War Memorial
(for the Korean War, or as its called here "The War").
The UN Guards were very interested in me, why I was there, and where I was from. Their English was impeccable and if I had the time I would have wanted to stay and hear their story, what lead them to the UN, what it was like working at such a historically significant site.
They had a huge list of causalities listed by country (and in the US section, by states).
The cemetery was set up by country, and had a section for unidentified fallen soldiers. It was rather busy because of the holiday, but was quite a solemn affair nonetheless. A few countries had statues by the graves, one in particular had "We will never forget you fallen sons of Canada" inscribed on it. There were very few graves for American soldiers, although was one of the longest lists of deaths on the Wall of Remembrance.
I had enough time to see the National Museum of Busan (remember the National Museum of Daegu from a few weeks back?). It was a pretty interesting place, actually. I liked exhibit about the folk masks best. They have me pretty excited about the Andong Mask Festival that I am going to tomorrow.
There was a tribe in Busan that intentionally flattened their heads and removed their front teeth. The skulls were shocking. I wish I read Korean, and could have read more about the history, the English explanations were lacking.
I went to the Beomeosa Temple, which is located just outside of the city, partway up a mountain. This is in the temple entrance, protectors of the temple.
This is one of the "bad guys" by the protectors' feet.
The temples color's were more based on yellows than the other temples I have been to. I loved the colors and paint was elaborate and beautiful.
I love the bells handing from the corners of the temples, I finally broke down and bought a small one for my apartment with a little fish hanging from it.
These are slabs that you can write prayers or wishes on, for a price, and the monks will pray for you. For Chuseok, I assume, they allowed people to paint on them.
I left the temple, having taken a taxi there, without really knowing how to get back to the city. I ended up walking about 20 minutes down a one way road looking for a bus or cab. Unplanned travel is exciting and open to change. It was nice to not be on a schedule.
It was a great vacation. I spent some time at the beach and in the hotel pool, I greatly appreciated having a bathtub again. A friend joined me for a day trip, we checked out the bars around the beach, and attempted to go to the world's largest department store, which was closed for the holiday. Even just wandering around the place was interesting though - they have a movie theater and an ice rink inside! As fun as it was in Busan, I am happy to be home and back with my cat, who seems needier than ever since I've come back!
September 23, 2010
Chuseok Adventure Part 1
Chuseok! Its a Korean holiday for the harvest, similar to America's Thanksgiving. It means Tuesday to Thursday off work, and great deals on holidays in beach resort towns because most Koreans are with their families and September marks the end of beach season here, supposedly. So I packed up my luggage with clothing appropriate for wherever the week would lead me and a few bottles of wine and went south. Busan is beautiful, my hotel was on the beach and lovely. I was traveling alone and felt invigorated by the freedom.
Busan's Museum of Modern Art was having its Biennale, which is a biannual exhibit. This year's theme was Evolution, which, from my understanding, isn't a contentious issue in Korea. There seem to be references to evolution in every museum I go to here, actually.
This was the exhibit featured on the advertising campaigns, and it really captured my interest. Everything was set up on sand and was about as thin as a sheet of paper. The images really popped against the background and I spent a lot of time trying to guess their connections to one another.
This is a representation of how much blood the human heart pumps in one hour and twenty-eight minutes. Its a mind-blowing amount.
I miss my bright orange Buddha.
This reminds me of Rebekah. Also, its been installed in a handful of pretty cool places. You can see the pictures at the bottom of this shot, of abandoned apartment complexes and houses, a pile of rubble - the bird cages and broken dishes have been hung there, too, which would have actually been a much cooler location to view them.
I love aquariums, so of course I had to go here.
But the main pull was the fact that I am going to go swimming in this tank later this year! I discovered that you can, without a diving certification, dive in the shark tank for a really reasonable price. I checked out the aquarium and made sure it seemed worth the trip - it totally does, check out this video:
I tried to get a picture with a shark, but couldn't. I am really excited regardless.
I took a ton of pictures, and will look through them and update more soon - I also went to the UN Memorial Cemetery, the world's biggest department store, and Beomeosa Temple. You can expect more soon :]
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