Seoulscapade

My co-worker and I were fortunate enough to be allowed on a 3 day bus trip. That’s us above enjoying the experience. It was a special event organized especially for foreign students. But someone at our institute thought to ask us along, as foreign employees. The whole weekend trip would cost around $25. What kind of idiot would say no?

We were given information and application sheets that were all in Korean. So neither of us had any idea of where we were going. All we know was that it was south, which we could have guessed because if you head north of Seoul you hit North Korea. However, we did find out that there would be a steel works, a mountain, a temple, and a massacre grave site.

That’s all we had to go on. I was bothered to much, not for the price, and in any case, I was beginning to get used to receiving little information from Koreans. It didn’t get much better. When the organizers were contacted on our behalf and asked what we should take, the response was “nothing much.” The funny thing was that these guys weren’t trying to be funny.

I was at fault too, in all of this, because I didn’t think to take a map. I didn’t think I’d need it. That’s perhaps the thing I missed most, something to work out where the hell we were. Only after I got back was I able work that out.

This was our first stop, Namwon city, Jeollabuk-do province. This is the location of a famous legend that involves a pretty young girl–as usual, a betrothed and a bad guy. The girl’s love leaves town to do a government exam, and Chunyang stays behind where she is pressured to loose her virtue. Basically stays loyal to her man despite much pressure, like a good girl should, and eventually he returns, just in the nick of time to rescue her and live happily ever after. For her love and chastity, Chunyang is the model of a traditional Korean woman.

After a walk around, we all had lunch, and then headed further south.

The place above was our first stop, a folk village where people actually lived and worked. I didn’t have a clue where it was. After the trip I consulted a map and concluded that it must have been Cheonghakdong Folk Village, beside the Jiri Mountain ranges. It was interesting and picturesque. From the ramparts, you could watch farmers spray fields, themselves and their families with huge clouds of green colored power, which looked distinctly like pesticide of some kind. That was also picturesque. There was also a drunk passed out on the ramparts. It wouldn’t be Korea, if there wasn’t!

After here we headed to our hotel near the Jiri Mountains. We sorted out our shared rooms, had dinner, and were treated to a show of traditional music. I’m not one for these kind of shows, but when the women were soloing on the stringed instruments, and coming up with sounds that reminded me of Jimi Hendrix, I found a new enthusiasm for the performance.

Later, my work colleague and I headed into the town—whose name I will perhaps never know—to seek out a Jim Jil Bang, or oven room place, to sweat out the grime and generally relax. We found a small one, with rooms that were not nearly hot enough, but it was good enough.

Next morning we headed to this famous Buddhist temple in the Jiri mountains called Hwa-eomsa. It was Autumn, as you can tell, the time of year when hoards of people take to the mountains all over Korea to try and enjoy the scenery. This day, thankfully, not many people were there, at least not at the temple.

From here we headed further south, according to my guestimation, to Gwang-yang, which is where we visited some kind of Posco Steel presentation center, before heading on to the massive Posco steel works on the coast. We had lunch here after a tour of a section of the plant, where we were not allowed to take pictures. As you see below, we took pictures.

This was pretty amazing. A massive lump of steel goes in one end and comes out the other as a huge roll of sheet metal. From memory, a roll is churned out every 5 minutes or so, and each roll is worth around $70,000. And it’s all automated. There were just no people around, except us, on a walkway high above it all, taking pictures we weren’t allow to take.

From here it was further south to a small island called Odongdo, whose significance eluded me then, and eludes me now, but it was nice and, once again, picturesque. The island had a full scale model of one of those turtle battle ships that help Korea defeat the Japanese in an ancient war or two. Completing the scene, some cute kids were out on an outing there as well.

From there, we headed even further south, to one of the southern-most parts of the peninsula, called Hyang-iram. It’s the site of a famous Buddhist temple high on a mount, and is frequented by revellers on occasions like the first day of the new year to greet the first rays of sunlight to hit the peninsula. On this day there was quite a few sight seers as well as us. The place is also where you can get the freshest of seafoods, if you’re into that kind of thing.

Our tour buses are way below, on that little peninsula. The famous temple was quite a climb to get to, which we didn’t realize, an exhausting trek of endless steps and narrow passages between rocks. But if you visit the area, it’s the done thing. I just looked on it as good exercise. After getting back down, it was a relief to slump back into a bus seat and drive through the night back to the hotel.

We headed home the next day, and on the way took in the Naejangsan National Park, north of where we were and towards the east coast. By this time, the weather was turning foul, not that that bothered me in the least. It made for some quite surreal sights, with all the color and people walking around in colored raincoats. This place was packed with visitors. Much more like the usual for the season. We were given a couple of hours to walk around and enjoy the sites.

We headed home after this stop. The only thing to note on this leg was a Chinese gentleman, I believe, who was sitting on the bus a seat of two behind us, my co-worker and I and some girls we had befriended. This Chinese guy took his shoes off, which released the pungent aroma of foot odor, and on top of that, he would clear his throat expressively so that you could hear the phlegm tumbling and rasping with each hawk. I was attempting to read a book on Korean poetry so it was not a pleasant experience. We snickered with each hawk, but after a while it wasn’t funny anymore, and we just had to put up with it. Upon our arrival, I think several of us were traumatized by the experience and could not bear to hear that retching sound again.

Altogether, is was a well-organized and full tour, except that it might have been nice if we knew where we were and what we were looking at from time to time.