Jeonju and Maisan Provincial Park

For Chuseok, Korean Thanksgiving, we decided to explore Jeonju. Historically, it was a key part of the Joseon Dynasty so there were lots of building and relics to explore (although it being Korea most of them had been refurbished in the 1970's!). On Friday 28th, it was Nina's birthday which was celebrated in good fashion at a singing room! Some of the students bought some lovely gifts and she somehow ended up with 4 birthday cakes!! Here are some of the presents the students gave Nina:

Early Saturday morning we took the train from Jinyeong to Jeonju. We checked into our hostel which was a really nice chilled out place although we think the owner had an addiction to the computer game 'bejewelled' as everytime we saw her she always seemed to be playing it. The first day we looked around the city. Jeonju is split into two areas the new city and the old. In the old part all the buildings are in the traditional Hanok style. It's a really lovely place to wander around. Our first stop was 'Jeonju Gyeonggi-jeon' as it was right next to our hostel. We think it may have been a living quarters for some of the royal family. At the front gate there were some of our favorite dressed up guards. Although, it has to be said, that these guys had nothing on the ones in Seoul! There was no sign of fake facial hair and they spent most of the time trying to chat up passing Korean girls! We played a competitive game of 'arrow toss' (don't think that's it's real name), Nina came out as champion.

Working up an appetite we decided to find something cheap to eat for lunch. We came across a small restaurant which appeared to meet our needs. A couple ran the place, well actually the wife ran the place and the husband was possibly the worst restaurant manager ever! He probably made the restaurant harder to run! We ordered some Gimbap (Korean sushi) and some Mandu (Korean dumplings). He prepared the gimbap but when cutting it he managed to break the seaweed so it just ended up being some rice and seaweed in a pile on a plate! He also warmed up the Mandu, took them out of the microwave and then forgot about them for about 20 minutes! Later on whilst we were scooping rice from the plate into our mouths he just stood in front of us and stared for a while. After a few minutes he looked at Nina and said 'beautiful'. In other circumstances, it would have been taken as a compliment but his lack of teeth in his grinning smile made it all rather creepy.

In the afternoon we looked around the Hanok village where there were some lovely boutique shops and cafes. It was all too tempting for Nina who bought some hair bands and a scarf, all things she really didn't need but they were very pretty!  It being Korean Thanksgiving all the restaurants were rather busy come dinner time. We were about to go into one place which looked ok but a Korean came up to us and said "The food is not delicious here". We thanked him for his advice and tried to ask whether he'd recommend anywhere else to eat but it appeared that his English only stretched as far as the first initial phrase. In the end we found a great place serving kimchi & steamed pork.

On Sunday we got a bus to Jinan to visit Maisan Provincial Park. We took a taxi to the South Gate of the park and we had arrived all prepared with sandwiches and snacks for lunch. However, this all went out the window when we saw that the restaurants at the bottom of the park were selling barbecued pork ribs! The area is famous for 'black pig' which we're not sure if it's tastes different to any other pig, but they first smoke the ribs in an oven then finish them on the barbecue. We each had a plate of ribs along with a bowl of bibimbap and we both agreed it was the best meal we've had in Korea!!!

Once we had filled our bellies, we walked through the park to see a place called 'Tapsa' which is a beautiful temple built within the rocks. There's a story that a religious man stayed there for 15 years and built 80 stone towers around the temple. Apparently even in the strongest typhoons they never topple! The park was beautiful and we walked up to the North gate to take a bus back to Jinan.

In the evening we decided to go to the cinema to see 'Ted'. All the staff seemed very excited to see foreigners! The box office was located on the bottom floor of the building however the cinema screens were on different floors all the way up the building. Unluckily for us there seemed no logic to this cinema labyrinth as the first floor held screens 7 & 6, the next floor screens 4 & 3. The other problem was that as our cinema ticket was in Korean we couldn't work out which number was our seat number and which was the screen number! So we spent a good 10 minutes wandering up and down trying to locate the right floor! Eventually we sat down to watch the movie along with 4 Koreans (apparently it isn't such a popular film over here!).

The final morning we explored the Hanok village a little more and walked down the river. We stopped at a cafe as it was quite a warm day and ordered some lemonade which to our surprise was blue! Ed was not impressed! We then ventured over to the bus terminal and took the bus back to Jinyeong!

Zip Lining in Herb Hillz

Last weekend we headed up to Daegu with our friends Luis and Linzy to a place called Herb Hillz. We got the train up to Daegu then got the bus 'Express Line' no.2 just down the street from the station. Herb Hillz was designed as an 'Eco-Friendly Theme Park'' and the park itself had perhaps seen slightly better days. We were welcomed with an 'exciting water zone' which was made of concrete and looked very much like a car park. Around the park there were many different old school amusement rides like the viking boat and dodgems. However, the main form of entertainment seemed to be the photo points. There were literally about 100 different photos points in which Koreans could take funny or serious (and it was mainly serious) photos of themselves doing things such as 'driving a bus', 'getting married', or those head through the wall ones where you can see your face but you have a gorilla's body. It was hilarious watching one Korean woman plump up her hair and check her make up before moving behind a cardboard cut out of a bus! We had a wander around the park and found the 'eco adventure centre' where you could do the zip lining. We were given a briefing in Korean in which we just about managed to work out what our guide wanted us to do. We had a little practice circuit then we were free to pick our course! It was a close contest between 'The King Kong Course' and 'The Tarzan Course'. The Tarzan was technically more difficult and the Korean guide warned us that it was very hard but I guess we didn't really take him seriously....... how foolish we were. The first challenge of 'The Tarzan' was a hefty wall climb which wasn't actually too bad, it was quite long but we all enjoyed it, everyone's spirits and confidence were high! The second challenge then removed all confidence entirely! Bearing in mind we were now quite high up, it was a long row of large stirrups swinging down from the trees. There were no instructions on how to go about completing this challenge. Nina ended up in some sort of awkward crab position clinging desperately onto each saddle. Luis seemed to have similar difficulties. However, Ed, with his super long limbs just managed to do the challenge in two long lunges! Each obstacle was equally awkward and challenging. Although it wasn't quite the flying through the trees with minimal effort that we had envisaged, it was really fun (perhaps a little more in hindsight rather than during) and we all really enjoyed it. We all survived the course relatively unscathed although our friend Linzy managed a get a hairline fracture on her foot from trying to stop at the end of the zip line but hitting her feet and bouncing all the way back up along the zip line again! The first thing Ed said after completing the course was, "I need a beer.".
We had most definitely earnt our lunch so we took the bus back into town and walked (poor Linzy hobbled) to the all you can eat Sushi bar and feasted. Our photos of the trip are courtesy of Linzy's camera, thanks Linzy!

Camping on Jinha Beach

We decided to make the most of the slightly cooler weather by heading to Jinha Beach just south of Ulsan for the weekend. We got up early enough to see sunrise and hopped on 3 buses in order to get to the beach by lunch and get a spot for our tents in the shade. Thankfully when we arrived it wasn't too busy and we managed to set up our tents in a circle under pine trees looking straight onto the beach. John Adams our inflatable killer whale made another appearance although the sea was a little chilly to swim in so he just kept watch of the camp for us. While we were setting up we were joined by quite a strange elderly korean woman. At first she just stood there and watched us set up our campsite but soon she started shouting "USA" at us while biting a 10,000 Won banknote between her teeth. There was a point that we thought she would never leave, but to our relief she walked off soon after. We saw her intermittently throughout the day and steered well clear each time! After settling in, we chilled out on the beach for most of the day. We did some penalty shootouts and had some epic America vs. England beach volleyball matches. Yet again Ed was dressed in his 'anti-sun' attire. Fashioning special sleeves, and a hat he got from the £store which made him look a little like Lawrence of Arabia. To his delight, he didn't get sunburnt! Hooray! Although he did mysteriously start peeling on his arms a few days later.
 As the sun was going down we prepared our BBQ dinner on our gas stove before making our very own bonfire. We had a bit of trouble starting the fire but after a while it was providing us with much needed light and warmth. We then went for a nighttime stroll along the beach to see the island which had been lit up. Whilst walking we stumbled upon a strange blubbery mess on the beach, we weren't sure what it was so we decided to poke it with a stick! We realised that it was a washed up jellyfish which we thought was just a one-off but the next morning while walking we saw that there were loads of them dotted all along the beach. Before going home, we explored an old Japanese fortress you could climb which overlooked the beach and the town. It gave us a really nice view of the coastline and was a great way to end the trip.