A sidetrip to Korea

Here are just a few pics from my venture to Korea this past week. It was our fall break here at KCJS and my roommate, Andrew, and I took a week-long trip to South Korea. Here's a quick rundown of our itinerary: First we arrived in Seoul and spent the night with one of my friends from high school, Matt Hecker. He's over there teaching english and living in a pretty spacious (by Japanese standards) apartment and enjoying 7,000 Won all you can eat yakiniku buffets. In fact, he took us to his favorite spot the first night I got there and the food was delicious and one of the best bargains I had on the whole trip.

The next day I explored some of the old palaces in Seoul and walked around some of the Lonely-Planet recommended parts of the city. They have a great riverwalk area that they're trying to develop and that was really fun to hang around. My first impressions of Seoul were not that great because it seemed like any other city with not much character, but after walking around and learning a bit more about the different neighborhoods of the city, my opinion changed and I think that overall it's a pretty nice city. Not necessarily somewhere that I really want to go out of my way to get back to again, but someplace that I wouldn't mind visiting another time. That night I stayed in a hostel in Hongkik, the university district of Seoul, where there are a bunch of young people and hip shops. Andrew and I tried to eat in a delicious looking restaurant, but we couldn't speak any Korean and didn't know how to order anything. It was from that point on that we decided to stick with LP-recommended digs.


With a guard in front of the palace in Seoul

The next day we woke up early and headed down to the historic city of Gyeongju by bus. It was a long ride, but well worth the visit to Gyeongju. I saw the old tombs and a really famous "Flying Horse" tapestry that is a big symbol of the city. There is also a big park and a pond with beautiful pavilions that reflect in the light of the pond at evening time.
The next day was a full day of historic temples and sites outside of Gyeongju. To Bulguksa and umm another cool temple in a hill. The problem with Korean names for me is that I'm not used to the language and can't really pronounce any of the words correctly, so I can't remember the proper names of places >.< Andrew and I hiked from Bulguksa to the other Grotto temple on a beautiful mountain trail. The leaves are all changing color here, so the forest was aflame with bright red, orange, and yellow leaves making for a great 1-hour, 2.2 Km long hike.


Colorful leaves on the way to Haeinsa

From Gyeongju, it was another bus ride to the city of Daegu (3rd largest in South Korea) where I stayed overnight before heading to Haeinsa temple. Haeinsa is sited in a national park (also full of color-changing leaves) and it is the repository for the Tripitaka, a woodblock set for printing copies of the Buddhist original scriptures. It's really old and took a long long time to make. It was destroyed once, but then they worked again to remake it. The approach to the temple was very beautiful through a forest of changing leaves, but once I actually arrived on the temple grounds I was slightly disappointed because of all the reconstruction work they were doing on the surrounding temples. Overall though, the walk through the grounds in the beautiful scenery was well worth the trip.


Just how corny the DMZ has become

That night we caught a bullet train back to Seoul and went to bed early to get up for our tour of the demilitarized zone the next morning. The DMZ tour was fun and really showcased how the drama with north korea has turned into a huge tourist attraction. The bus took us to the "freedom bridge", which wasn't that exciting and you couldn't see much because it was blocked off anyway. Then I went to the 3rd tunnel where the North Koreans tried to dig their way to attack Seoul. It was interesting to see, but not terribly exciting. We also stopped by the observation post to see the world's tallest flagpole (in North Korea, of course) and then went to eat a delicious Bulgogi lunch.

Now i'm back in the kitchen in Kyoto with a bunch of homework, laundry, and in dire need of a good shower and sleep back in my own bed.