We had a four day weekend this week because of the Children's Day holiday. A group of us went to the northeast coast to a city called Sokcho for three days, and it was a hoot! On Saturday, Taggart and I got up and went to the temple. It is beautiful in the spring, with the grounds all green and the flowers in bloom. Flowers here in the spring are just gorgeous!
Look who we saw! We love the Goffs! :)
Immediately after finishing up at the temple, we hot-tailed it over to the express bus terminal to catch our bus to Sokcho. We met our group of lovely friends there and our adventure began!
Here's Yeji being super cute, and a shot of Taggart's insanely hard Sudoku book;
Gina had a great view to check my Korean homework by :)
I hadn't been on a charter bus since I went to Japan with the Children's Chorale (over 10 years ago!), but I don't remember our bus being that cushy. The seats reclined, there were foot rests, and even Taggart had a surplus of leg room - over 7" of extra space! Color us all impressed. And for only ~17,000 KRW, it was a sweet deal. 3-ish hours later, we got to our quaint little guest house. I didn't snap any photos of the house, but I made sure to get a couple shots of the hostel dog - he's a Sapsal (Korean breed), and he was the fluffiest, friendliest dog in the world. He loved to jump up and give big dog hugs, which freaked out our Korean friends (they aren't as used to big dogs here, remember?)
Aww, but he was soooooo cute! How can he even see through all that hair?!
After getting settled, the 6 of us went to the beach to find us some good ol' fresh seafood. The coast has these little harbors everywhere for fishing boats to get in and out, an they have these concrete pylons (not sure what they're called?) along the waterline to keep flooding at bay. They were an interesting sight.
The sea was so calm the whole weekend! Very peaceful.
We got to a smallish fish market about 15 minutes from our hostel, and just like places in Seoul, everything was still swimming. There were several vendors at various stalls yelling and trying to make a sale. Lucky for us we had three Koreans in tow, so they did all the negotiating for us. Here's a couple of shots of the contenders for our dinner:
Here's an exclusive look at the final contents of our basket. It was about $100 for 6 of us (including side dishes, drinks, and soup) after everything was said and done:
After we had our "order", we took it back to the preparation room, and could have watched them prepare the whole thing! We watched for a minute, then decided it would be best for all of our stomachs if we didn't watch our actual basket being prepared *barfs*.
Side bar for a quick funny story: The basket before ours had a huge halibut in it, and at one point both fish is the basket flopped out as if they were making a run for it. Not one of the workers even batted an eye while these fish were flopping across the floor, just stepped over them while they were doing their work, and then eventually put them back in their basket. But we were like, "Get it off the floor, people!!!" O_o
Aaaaaannnnd, here it is! We got two huge platters like this, full of Hue (raw seafood). The outside is the halibut, called Gwang-a. It's the most famous, and the favorite for almost all of the Koreans we know. The other light colored fish were smaller round fish, one of which was my favorite (the other two were kind of tough). The two dark, snot-looking things in the middle are variations of sea cucumbers. We couldn't get the guts up to try the red one because it literally looked like a booger, but the darker one we both tried. I liked it better than Taggart did, who said it was "fine". haha. It was actually hard and chewy on the inside, but slimy on the outside...? How? Who knows... I don't understand the mysteries of sea life.
Here's Heather and Taggart looking nervous (and a little queasy) at the thought of eating sea boogers:
But, of course, Gaji, Yeji, and Gina all loved everything! :)
Mercifully (or so we thought), we were presented with fish soup halfway through. We were excited at first, but that slowly changed when we realized the fish soup contained all of the leftovers that you didn't see on the platter above. It looks appetizing now, right?......
But, then you accidentally ladle out this, and have a mini heart attack! X_X
So our sneaky selves decided to take the leftover Hue and cook it in the broth. Don't worry, our Korean friends also did it too, so we weren't totally giving up on the experience. Overall, it was pretty good!
We needed to blow off some steam after that (or fish guilt? I'm not sure), so we headed to the corner store to buy FIREWORKS! In Sokcho you can light fireworks pretty much wherever you want.
What says Beach Party better than dried squid and Roman Candles?!
Taggart, your inner-pyro is showing...
We headed to a big rock on the beach to (as Jim Gaffigan would say) start blowing crap up!
We were not, by any means, the only ones either...
This is the north side of the city, where the coast is much rockier, You'll see later that the farther south we got, the better the beaches got too! Here's me with a giant gold crab.
After recovering and sleeping like babies at our guest house, we got up bright and early (REALLY early by Korean standards ^_^) to go Hike in Seoraksan National Park. It was foggy and warmish at first, but pretty soon it started to rain... perfect. By the time our bus got to the park entrance, it was really coming down. Thank heavens for $2 ponchos! Ponchos for everybody!
Gina and I are so cool! (I don't think I've worn a poncho since I was 8 at the Calgary Stampede)
Just like on my Hong Kong trip, I've come to love the fog rolling through the mountains. While I know we missed out on some incredible views, the fog among these AWESOME old mountains in the park was truly magnificent. Plus, once we got out of the main entrance, there weren't that many people around us, so it was quiet and peaceful, and the rain just poured:
Picture that I didn't get in time for this blog was a huge iron buddha to rival that of Ngong Ping's. Gaji has it on his camera, I'll include it in a later post!
Because of the rain, we couldn't hike to Ulsanbawi like we wanted to, so we opted to hike to Biseondae Rock, then to the Geumganggul cave temple, and take the cable car at the end.
Boy, are we glad we chose this hike, though! What gorgeous views.
The huge rocks created barriers in the streams for crystal clear waters.
It got steeper and steeper, until we got to the top of Biseondae.
From the top, we looked back on the side of the mountain we just climbed, as well as saw where we were headed:
Going up was way scarier than going down, because it has those nasty stairs that let you see through to the ground... For a little bit. then you end up having just rock steps carved out of the side of the mountain, and they are STEEP! Don't look down!
Here's us at the top of Biseondae Rock, exhausted and sweaty. I did sing a couple notes at the top to test the echo... it was pretty cool. Next time I'll sing, like, Ombra Mai Fu or something. :P
Oh, but once we got to the top... It was amazing. These monks climb that hike every day to come to the temple. This tiny little temple was nestled in this cave hundreds of feet above the ground. I kept waiting for flying bison to appear. It was incredible.
The monk let us take a picture of the inside.
Here's Heather Gaji, and Yeji on the scary overlook ledge (yipes!):
You can't tell I'm holding the rails, right? RIGHT?? haha Not nervous at all....
Exhausted, but proud:
Alright, time to book it back down to make our cable car time!
We gave up on the rain at this point, because we were hot! (and already drenched, you know?) :P
I didn't miss the opportunity to climb a huge rock though! Also, everyone in Korea thinks our Chacos are ridiculous. They were looking at us like we were crazy people in our shorts and sandals!
At last! We made it to the cable car. I must say, after Ngong Ping, this cable car didn't even hold a candle, especially because of the length of the trip and how many people were crammed in it, also the lack of visbility due to the fog. But it was still pretty awesome!
We grabbed some quick lunch of mountain vegetable bibimbap, and we got to try squid rings, which is a food that Sokcho is famous for. It's a squid body stuffed with meat and vegetables, and fried in an egg mixture. It's actually pretty good, like souped up calamari!
Apparently I'm pondering the deliciousness of the lunch...?
The rest of the day was spent showering, sleeping, sending Gina off (she had to leave early for work, boo), getting some galbi barbecue, and playing cards well into the night. What an awesome day!
The next morning we woke up stiff, tired, and feeling lazy. It was sunny at first so we were pumped, because it was going to be our beach day! We quickly noticed the cold ocean wind was bringing fog in. No!!!! But as we had so masterfully conquered the weather the day before, we decided to make goo don our plans. We first headed to the Naksan Temple, and found this dried fish market on the way form the bus station (oh boy!). But they had TONS of variety of dried fish, which we found out they turn into soups and stews. They even had giant dried stingrays for sale! They were unreal (the smell, not as great).
Some guy bought one as we watched. I'm sure he felt awkward haha.
Once we got to the temple, we realized it was time to work out the kinks in our bodies from yesterday's hike. haha Shake it off! It was cold and windy, but beautiful.
The fee to get in is only 3,000 KRW (like $2.95). They had a ton of people there, though, and you could tell the temple does ok, by how well it is maintained.
The flowers!
I love these lanterns, they are everywhere, set up for Buddha's birthday on May 25th. You can see them being hung all over Seoul, but the temples go all out.
The temple grounds are enormous, and just as beautifully colored as any we've seen:
This is an original 16th century pagoda. Height gauge provided by Taggart.
The sunim allowed us to get a picture inside, then teased me about my bare feet. I guess depending on the order of Buddhism you practice, it is either only acceptable to be barefoot at all times, or only wear socks and never show your bare feet. I started to leave the temple, and he laughed and said it was ok, he practices both kinds and would allow it. Then he told me that he painted everything in this temple, laughed again, and left. So who knows, really? >_<
The sun came out for a few minutes (also, you can see the huge Bodhisattva in the back)!
These are wishing stones. There are piles of them literally everywhere. In Buddhist culture, you make a pile of stones to represent a wish you want to come true. The more intricately and difficult the placement of the stones are without toppling over, the more opportunity there will be for your wish to come true.
We made it to the top to see the giant Bodhisattva!
Once the fog cleared, the views were amazing:
The whole temple is nestled on a cliff that juts out into the sea. Gorgeous.
It just keeps going and going!
Artsy shots courtesy of the hotness himself.
The water fountains were scattered throughout, and were all very intricately carved.
Here's Taggart with a turtle and a dragon turtle, respectively.
This pathway leads up to the temple. It's supposed to relieve tension form the body by walking on it barefoot. The path is full of steep ridges, sharp stones, and just generally uncomfortable things. It's said that if you walk on it and feel any pain, then your body is not in good health. 'Guess I'm screwed, cause it was not pleasant! haha
We finally made it to the beach! I think this picture of Gaji sums up our feelings about it perfectly:
We had a blast playing in the sand and the water. It was FREEZING at first, but eventually the sun broke through the clouds, making for a perfect, balmy afternoon.
I caught a wave, and got soaked. It was VERY cold.
Check out our gams, making toe moats for our sandcastles!
Yeji looking lovely, as always.
We were lucky to have two photographers on this trip. Thanks, Gaji!
Heather, you're so freaking adorable, we all can't even stand it. Just go home (wait, no, don't!).
At some point in the afternoon, we decided it was hilarious to partially bury each other and take a picture of the differentiating heights that ensued. I'm sure we looked like absolute idiots, but we thought we were the funniest people in Sokcho (maybe the world!):
It all culminated in me being completely buried by Taggart while everyone else took a nap.
As you can see, it was quite the tiring afternoon! :D
What a perfect trip. We would go back in a heartbeat. And we still have another day off! I love long holiday weekends, can they be every week? haha. Bye for now!
