macau and the last evening in hong kong

Not surprisingly, hana and I got out the door later than intended the last day we were in hong kong…it took us a while to figure out what we wanted to do, then took us longer to get going for the day…oh well…we decided to go to macau…like hong kong, macau is a SAR – special administrative region of china…like hong kong, macau hasn’t always been ruled by the Chinese…for over a century, macau was ruled by the Portuguese…it wasn’t until 1999 (two years after hong kong) that macau was given back to the Chinese…and like hong kong, macau has the same provision in the handover agreement: the government of the area is to stay the same for 50 years…I wonder what changes china will make in each region after the 50 years are over…

To get to macau from hong kong you have two options…fly, or ferry…we took the ferry, as it’s only an hour, and not very expensive…finding where to buy tickets was probably the most complicated part of the day…though hong kong is really good about signage just about everywhere else, once you’re in the subway station you know is the correct station, there isn’t much signage telling you where to go…we got turned around several times before finding where to get our tickets…oddly enough, when you buy tickets for the ferry, you aren’t assigned seats…you only get seat assignments a few minutes before you board…I don’t know why…going through emigration was easy…the worst part of the day for both of us was sitting on the boat and waiting for it to get going…it was rocking all over the place; I don’t know about hana, but I was quite concerned as to whether it would be like that for the rest of the journey as well…that would’ve been miserable…absolutely miserable…fortunately, the actual ferry trip wasn’t so bad…not great, but not bad…

Once we docked, we went through immigration again, another quick process…then out the door of the ferry terminal…we didn’t have the whole day to spend wandering, but we had a few hours, and decided to take local public transport to the center of town…bus fare was 3.20MOP…macau patacas…they’re tied to the hong kong dollar at the rate of 103MOP to 100HKD…the atm dispenses 100s…I was able to break it into 10s…but the bus doesn’t give change…argh…hana had to go buy another sprite and ask for small change…we were worried about figuring out where to get off the bus, but that ended up being okay…the official languages of macau are portugese and Chinese, though not many people speak Portuguese there anymore…English is more common…but even English isn’t that greatly used…the Chinese influence seems so much stronger on macau that on hong kong…(though they’re both very Chinese in nature)…fortunately, I had slight memories of my visit to macau in 2007, so it was easy enough to know when to get off the bus…

We alighted at largo senada…it’s a large public plaza…easily identifiable by the pink and yellow building, as well as the zebra striped sidewalk…there is a small market on one side street, and while we were there, a display of macau history in another area…while waiting for the ferry we’d looked at the map mom gave us, and figured out a couple places that sounded interesting…there is tourist signage for various sights, so it was easy enough to figure out which way to go…

Our first stop was the ruins of st pauls…probably one of the most famous sights of macau…though if you’ve never been to macau, it isn’t really known outside of the colony…originally built as a church, that’s what it was used for in different denominations for years…then, at one point it was turned into army barracks…how or why that happened I don’t know…then a fire burned it all down…what you see now is all that was left after the fire…in other words, all but the front façade was burned…still, the front façade, with the steps leading up to it is a pretty photo…we posed for pictures of our own and pictures for a random Chinese man in front of the church…(both of us have been in tons of photos for strangers over the years, we don’t much care anymore)…lol…under the ruins, at the back of the church is what used to be the crypt…we were the only ones in there at the time, which was a bit of a surprise, simply because the air con was going strong, and with the swampy feeling of the weather outside, I’m surprised people hadn’t found the aircon for a brief respite…there were displays of various bones up the walls on either side, I didn’t know whether to be creeped out or not…

After the ruins, we walked back down the steps, and I convinced hana to get one of the Portuguese egg tarts…everywhere the Portuguese colonized then left, they left behind these tasty egg tarts…a sweet egg custard tart…with buttery, flaky crust…yum…I could eat tons and tons of them…especially when they cost less than $1USD!...clearly, some people buy a lot of them, as all the places that sell them have boxes of different sizes to make it easy to carry a lot of them…the other food we noticed for sale all over the place is pork jerky…there are tons of different flavours, some more spicy, some more salty, some more sweet…I like it, but didn’t want to buy any…

Then we found what was just called the cathedral…I don’t remember the history behind this one…since the Portuguese colonized macau, and the Portuguese were catholic, macau was catholic too…that’s one legacy that is still there, all the churches…I liked this church, but wasn’t able to stay in there long, as there were no fans going, so the hot muggy air just sat on your shoulders…when hana first walked in she was just wearing her sundress, which has no shoulders…the nun motioned to me that hana needed to cover her shoulders…thankfully, she’d brought a sweater along that day for just that reason…after coming out of the church, she couldn’t get that sweater off fast enough…

From there we wandered down a lane on which was a typical mansion back in the day…I think it was two stories, though you’re only allowed to go in the first story…there were stained glass windows in the house, I thought they were gorgeous…not much about the rest of the house made me think it was very fantastic…anywho…we enjoyed the sidewalk in the lane outside…mosaic tiles made up designs in the sidewalk…lovely…

The next church to see was st dominics…this one is on a lot of postcards as well…a bright yellow on the outside…the church is nice, but the best part is the museum of “costumes” they have displayed on three floors…I don’t know the correct words for a lot of the stuff…chalices and communion serving sets, the robes the priests wear at various times of the year, especially those worn by higher ranking priests…a couple paintings…I liked walking around that area, though hana probably appreciated it more, knowing what all the stuff was…

By this point I was starting to get nervous about catching the bus back to the ferry terminal…we got some food to go at a popular eatery, and in a quick walk through the start of the market I mentioned earlier, hana got some fruit she’d enjoyed while living in the Philippines…lanzonas, I think she said? I have no idea if I’m spelling that right…then we got back on the bus (having prepared correct change ahead of time) and went back to the ferry terminal…I wanted to exchange the patacas I had left, but that proved to be more difficult than I thought was worth it…I guess cousin Kevin will be getting more patacas than I originally intended…

The boat ride back went just as smoothly as did immigration on both sides…and again, we had trouble getting out of the building, and down into the hong kong subway system…go figure…we made it back to the hotel in time for a brief rest, then went to mom’s room to go for our last outing in hong kong…

One of the most famous sights in hong kong is the city skyline…and the best place to see that is from Victoria peak…I reckon most visitors to hong kong go to the peak while they’re in the city…there are three ways to the peak…one, hike…two, bus…and three, the peak tram…we’d intended to take the tram both ways…it’s quite steep, to say the least…howeva, when we found a bus we thought would take us to the base of the peak tram, it turned out to take us to the peak itself…along a really windy road…which meant hana felt like crap again…I wasn’t feeling so well myself…mom wasn’t feeling great knowing that both her daughters were suffering and there wasn’t anything she could do to fix it…it seemed like the bus ride went on and on and on…finally, it ended…when you get off the tram or the bus, you’re directed into a plaza area, with two large malls on either side…going into one of them, you have the opportunity to buy tickets to get out on the viewing platform…I think they call it the sky terrace? Those tickets are $30HKD each…from previous experience, I thought it was worth it…you don’t get that view from anywhere else…there ended up being a lot of fog the night we went, but we all still enjoyed the view…that skyline, both at day and night, is on a lot of hong kong postcards…we took the tram back down, then the subway back to the hotel…

The next afternoon we flew back to seoul…

hong kong festivals

the next day, 10 may, was a big day…it was the only day we spent mostly together in hong kong…this year, 10 may was buddha’s birthday…when we first got to hong kong, I wasn’t sure whether it would be as big a holiday as it is in japan and Korea, but it is…it was also the day of the cheung chau bun festival, which takes place on one of the smaller islands of hong kong…I’d never heard of this festival, and wouldn’t have known about it if not for the brochure we were given at the airport…when we first got the brochure, this one the thing hana immediately knew she wanted to see...

we left the hotel just after 0800…as that was earlier than we’d gotten going previous days, I don’t remember hana and I being quite with it, but oh well…we headed to the ferry pier, and after figuring out which boat to take (the fast one or the slow one…we just wanted the next boat to leave, we didn’t care whether it was fast or slow…but there didn’t seem to be a list anywhere of when boats were scheduled to leave) we were good to go…an hour later, the ferry pulled into the dock at cheung chau…according to the guidebook, it’s a small, crescent shaped island…pretty quiet most of the time, this festival is the busiest day of the year on cheung chau…

everyone poured off the boat, and the three of us found each other and set up a meeting point and time…as many people as were already there, and as small as the lanes and alleys were, we knew there was a good chance we’d get separated…so off we walked…and we did get separated…hana and I walked past lots of little shops and stands, many of them selling bun festival souvenirs…you can buy just about anything…keychains, pillows, t-shirts, etc…we walked until we saw four bun towers…one in the middle of a basketball/soccer/rugby/play pitch, and three others right next to each other in front of a temple…I don’t know what the support is for the towers, but the outsides are covered in buns…you know, the white, fluffy ones you can eat all over china…usually the buns are stuffed with meat, veg, red bean paste, or just about anything…most of the buns for this festival are stuffed with red bean paste, or something else, I can’t remember what it is…

the highlight of the festival is the bun scramble…when the starting sound goes, contestants climb up the tower and collect as many buns as they can…the buns at the top of the tower are worth more…the person who collects the most buns, wins…there were supposed to be practice sessions, but we didn’t get to see those…hana wanted to try climbing, but that didn’t seem to be possible…the official bun scramble takes place at midnight, so we didn’t get to see that either…it would’ve been awesome, I’m sure…I don’t know how many people participate…

there was a temple close to the bun towers, and when we got there it was jam packed with incense and people…it wasn’t any different from any other temple I’ve seen, but the incense was pretty intense…huge sticks of it, small sticks of it, and every size in between…the inside of the area was cloudy from all the smoke…add that to the heat and humidity and I wasn’t feeling so steady…WHOA…as we were leaving the temple area, we were stopped when a couple dragons entered…and by dragons, I mean two people working together covered in a costume…a very colourful costume with a huge headpiece…there was some dancing around, and it probably meant something…and a whole lot of people trying to get the perfect picture…

from there we walked down another lane, which seemed to get smaller and smaller as we kept walking…or maybe it was just the increasing number of people who seemed to be around…or maybe it was the heat and humidity continuing to get to me…I don’t know…

as we walked down the lane, we ended up watching as two dragons “fought”…one of them ended up bowing down to the other…I’d love to know the story behind what happened…that probably happens all day long…further along we found a couple of the bakeries that make the buns…apparently this year not as many were made, because some law was passed requiring that the stamp on the outside of the bun be put on on the premises of the bakeries…in the past I guess they’ve done it elsewhere…having to do it at the bakery somehow meant that not so many buns would be made this year…I’m not exactly sure how it all works…anywho, from the time we got off the boat hana and I knew we wanted to buy one of the buns, just to see what all the fuss was about…we watched as they put the buns in the steaming ovens, and as they took them out…HOT HOT HOT…then one lady got to work stamping…it’s not difficult, but it must be hot as all get out…as soon as she stamped all the buns in a tray, it was moved over to a table, and the buns sold…for less than a dollar each…hana and I each got one, then moved out of the way…as we kept walking, we realized there was a long queue…did we jump the queue when we walked up to the bakery from the other side? We never did figure that out…apparently mom did jump queue, and was told to go back about 300m at some point while she was wandering around…

another purchase along that lane was some sort of juice for me…it was red…other than that, I know it came from a tree…I’m assuming there was a fruit on that tree, but the picture they showed me had no fruit…anywho, it was good, and liquid, which I very much needed…from there we found our way back to the path along the water, which was marginally less crowded…there is a parade with this festival, scheduled to start at 1230…so barriers were being set up for that…at one of the souvenir shops hana ended up buying a festival t-shirt, the same shirt many of the guys involved with the dragons were wearing…we figured that made it “official”…I’m pretty sure the shirt was big enough to hold three of hana, but that’s beside the point…mom bought a pillow with the festival logo on it…I bought a small tote bag…

we got back to the ferry with good timing, and ended up near the front of the line for the next boat…I ended up standing where a fan was blowing, which felt great…the ferry was an hour back, and pretty calm…I don’t mind those kinds of ferries…back at the ferry dock we were hungry/thirsty, and mom and hana wanted caffeine…of course we went to starbucks…just like in seoul, there are starbucks every two blocks in hong kong…(if only coffee beans were that common!)…

from there we went to the subway station, and started making our way to lantau chau…the biggest island of hong kong…it’s the island on which the airport is located, but not an island that is heavily visited by tourists…there are plenty of good hiking trails all over lantau, and a mate from high school tells me a good group of expats live there as well…the train seemed to take foreva to get there, but we did have to ride to the end of the line, and it definitely wasn’t express…oh well…from the subway station, we walked toward the cable car…at first, our plan was to take the cable car up to a temple, and then take the bus down…in the end we decided it would be easier just to take the cable car both ways, and bought round trip tickets…we bought tickets for the regular cable car, not feeling the need to spend an extra $50HKD per person for the crystal cabin…the only difference (that we could figure) was that a crystal cabin has glass on the bottom so you can look straight down …when I’m in cable cars I don’t spend any time looking down, and we were able to see everything anywho…hana amused everyone in our cabin by reading about the views we’d have from different places during the ride…one view was fantastic, another beautiful, etc…I think there were five specific views in all, and they all had adjectives to go with them…I guess you had to be there…is the view of high rise apartment buildings ever that exciting? Or an airport?

At the top of the cable car we got out of our cabin, and headed straight for the loo…I was keen to get to the temple to see a performance listed in the booklet we’d been given at the airport, but bodily functions have to be taken care of, eh? When you first get out of the cable car, you walk through a village that is entirely made up of souvenir shops and places to eat…there is nothing about real life there…I think there was a theatre of some kind, but it didn’t sound interesting to any of us so I doubt hana or mom remembers either…after walking through the village we finally got to a big plaza area…on one side was a set of steps leading up to a huge Buddha…on the other side was a path leading to a temple…I wanted to find the “hall of heros” to see the performance…when we got there, I was a bit disappointed to see a clown on stage…really? For buddha’s birthday you have a clown performing? I think there was some kung fu later, but it wasn’t as interesting as I had hoped…oh well…we walked through the temple (which was quite small, there were donation boxes everywhere – they are collecting money to pay for a big expansion to the temple) and bathed Buddha…there were several places where a bird bath type of fountain had water running, and you could take a little bucket and pour water over a little Buddha…I’m not sure what this is supposed to signify, but everyone was doing it so we did as well…some people seemed to think Buddha was really dirty, as they poured quite a bit of water over him…others stuck with only one or two scoops of water…

We met up with mom in between the temple and the big Buddha…right before meeting up with her hana noticed a cow wandering around, so she went to take photos…we also shopped a bit in one of the souvenir places…they were selling little bookmarks with people’s names written on them in Chinese…my name was easily found…hana’s and mom’s names, not so much…though we found dagmar and other not so common names…I had fun teasing hana about that…

it turned out that mom had already gone up the stairs to the Buddha, so she waited while hana and I did the same…the views from up there are great…it’s the largest outdoor seated bronze Buddha, or something like that…I don’t remember…what i do know is that there are a lot of big buddhas all over asia, and many of them claim to be the biggest in one way or another…

the line for the cable car on the way back down was pretty long…when we got our tickets to come up, the lady said that the last cable car going down would be at 1830…thankfully, because it was a holiday and there were so many more people than usual, they kept running the cable cars after the normal closing time…I guess normally they tell people that you have to walk down if you’re late, but not on this night…seeing the footwear some of the people in line had on, it would’ve been really amusing (for me, anywho) if they’d had to walk down…there is a path that basically runs under the cable car, and it would be beautiful, but not so much after dark, and it definitely wouldn’t have been a quick walk…for whateva reason, the guy in line who sticks out in my mind would’ve had an easy time walking down…he was simply head and shoulders above everyone else…I wonder how tall he was…he actually stuck out from the crowd, due to his height…I don’t know why I’ve mentioned him at all…anywho, after the 25 minute cable car ride, we got back on the subway and went back to our hotel…a long day, and I think all of us were exhausted…

hong kong with the fam part 1

After the fun of a rushed transfer in Beijing (for those of you who care, you do get a stamp in your passport when you transfer through mainland china, even if you’re not staying) we landed in hong kong after 2100…baggage claim was easy, as was just about everything else…while waiting in line for immigration both hana and I were given brochures with events happening in hong kong around that time…and a decent tourist map of the area as well…yay…

we wanted to take the train into the city, which was also easy…for some reason you can buy cheaper tickets one way if you get more than one at a time, but you can’t buy those discounted tickets round trip…I don’t get it, but whateva…we also bought octopus cards, which can be used for most hong kong public transport, as well as in 7-elevens and other various places…mom had a mixup with her airport express and octopus cards, but we still made it to our intended stop all right…we checked into our hotel and were a bit surprised at the smallness of the rooms…but it’s hong kong, and unless you’re paying through the nose, you’ll never have much space there…hana and I went to sleep straightaway…

the next morning we met up with mom, and figured out where to start our day…we all wanted breakfast…despite numerous trips to hong kong, I haven’t spent time in any restaurants save one, but I figured it couldn’t be too hard to find food…one of the areas on mom’s list of places was times square, and I figured there had to be food somewhere around there…I’m sortof ashamed to say it, but we ended up at a place that starts with mc and ends with donald’s…then we decided to split up and shop…we set a meeting point and time, and went our merry ways…

hana and I headed first to lululemon…it was originally a Canadian company, though I think it might be American owned by now? (Americans are taking over the world, you know)…it’s a yoga/workout sort of clothing company, and I love it…it’s a bit on the pricey side, but the quality of everything is absolutely fabulous, and well worth it…it would’ve been really really easy to spend a LOT of money in there…as it was, I came out with a tank top and jacket, hana got a jacket as well…I also pointed out what I’d love to have as a Christmas/birthday gift if I happen to end up in a place that has a winter season next…hee hee…I don’t really expect that to happen…that particular lululemon store isn’t easy to find, and operates by word of mouth…despite this, it’s a pretty busy place…one lady in there seemed to want to try on and discuss every bit of clothing in the store, which was annoying as there are only two dressing rooms, so a small queue formed, to which she was allegedly oblivious…oh well…that store has now moved though, so they were stamping the new address on the back of everyone’s receipts…

after lululemon I was happy, and didn’t really care what we did the rest of the day…so we meandered through a number of different places, just checking things out…it’s been quite a while since I’ve spent that much time shopping for nothing in particular…we met up with mom at the designated time, and had dinner at the spaghetti house…very western, but fine…none of us were really feeling the need to have Chinese food…and that was it for the day

the next day was mother’s day…so we started the day with a fight…argh…so we separated for the day…hana and I took the ferry to Kowloon…somehow, I’ve never taken the ferry before…crazy to think that before the subways went under the water, people had to take the ferry every single day to get back and forth…it’s not a long ride, and the ferries go regularly, but it would still be a huge pain…it was very warm and humid, especially in comparison to the weather we’d had in Korea, but the breeze felt good…we got off the ferry and the first place we visited was starbucks…I really ought to buy stock in that company…we wandered along the avenue of stars (I think that’s what it’s called) which is amusing more than anything else…just like in Hollywood, they have stars on the ground of famous Chinese actors, complete with handprints…there were very few whose names I recognized, but oh well…hana showed off her muscles in front of the statue of bruce lee…lol…

from there we took a footbridge over the road, and started walking up Nathan road…it’s the heart of tsim tsa tsui…sometimes referred to as TST…i probably don’t say it right…that’s the area I stayed in with ivan and layna, it’s full of tourists and touts and craziness in general…along the way we were offered copies of designer purses and tailored suits, but we weren’t interested…and do I really look like someone who wants or knows anything by prada or any other designer name? I briefly took hana through the chaos that is chungking mansions…one of the only good things about that place is all the Indian food you can find on the ground floor…we each got a piece of naan as a snack for later…we continued up the road and ended up on a bench in Kowloon park to eat our naan…since it was Sunday, the place was packed with Filipinas enjoying their day off…there are a lot of Filipinas domestic workers in hong kong, and the standard day off is Sunday…according to the paper, they don’t even get minimum wage!! The union is fighting for a pay increase, who knows if it will happen…hana listened a bit and enjoyed hearing the familiar sounds of tagalog…at some point, a guy from the ivory coast (was it the ivory coast? Maybe Ghana, or Kenya, I don’t remember for sure) stopped and talked to us…then we moved on, and ended up at a little plaza…

there was a sign put up that said this was the kung fu corner…according to the sign, there was a show every Sunday, from 1430-1630…it was 1400, so we grabbed seats and waited…it was fun…the first act was a dragon…one of the dragons where it takes 10 people to keep it going, and the choreography is pretty complicated…after the act was finished, they invited members of the crowd to stand inside the dragon to have pictures taken…I was going to stand inside, and have hana take the picture but a guy offered to take it for us, with both of us in the photo…yay!! After that little photo session was over, the next offer was for kids in the crowd to be part of the act…really cute to see some of the kids hold up parts of the dragon…the next few acts were various people demonstrating different types of kung fu…I know nothing about it, but it was neat to watch them…I liked the lady with the fans the best…

we didn’t stay for the entire show, but continued up Nathan road, just wandering…hana got a bit turned around and thought we were walking back toward the water, but I knew where we were…getting turned around in hk is very easy to do…we found a couple places to get food, and on the way back to the ferry, picked up Indian food for dinner back in the hotel…the ferry ride back was nice, though it was good to get back into air con…we were both sunburnt, but oh well…

the next day we split up as well…hana and I started our day by taking the subway to the bank of china tower…you can go up to the 43^rd floor for free and have a great view over the city…while on our way to the tower, we met a dutch guy who had a long layover on his way from holland to new Zealand…he was using the time to wander around hong kong, though w/out a map he wasn’t really sure where he was going…or where he wanted to go…we ended up seeing him in the tower as well…from there hana and I went to the tea museum…it’s a free museum, one I hadn’t seen previously…all about tea in china…where it’s grown, how it’s served in different places, the importance of tea in society, etc…boring, but fascinating at the same time…and apparently there had been a contest of some sort, people entered ceramic tea pots and cups they’d made…I loved all the displays…

our next stop was a food court under a nearby building, where we had more starbucks and sandwiches from prêt a manger…(a chain I’ve also seen in the UK)…from there we walked out to st john’s cathedral…I can’t remember why, but hana wanted to see it…it’s a beautiful church, and still active…next on the list was the mid levels escalator…they say it’s the longest covered outdoor escalator…it’s not all in one stretch, there are a bunch of different bits…if you travel the whole thing you’ve gone about 800m…from 6-10am it goes down, but the rest of the day it goes up…after each section you can get off and take stairs down to street level…hana and I rode it all the way up, then walked back down…on the way up I’d spotted a salad shop, so on the way back down I got a salad for dinner…even though I’ve been out of Mongolia for a couple weeks, I still find myself craving veggies more than I ever did before…weird…

that was the end of that day…I don’t remember what time it was, but hana and I were both ready to be done with the day…

half a day in seoul

the next morning we took a bus to the train station…it’s a new station, having been built in the past few years…hana and mom both thought it looked so nice they took pictures…lol…it would be a whole lot more convenient if it were located closer to town, but when building the tracks for the train, that would’ve been ridiculous…it wasn’t a long bus ride anywho…we got to the station faster than hana and I had expected, so we took an earlier train…2 hours later, we were in seoul…a bit over an hour after that, we were back in our hotel…the same one we’d stayed in earlier…at this point, hana asked mom and I if we’d mind changing hotels the next time we stayed in seoul…the 20 minute walk from the subway station was getting to her…

After a quick planning session, we got back on the subway, and rode first to COEX, as all three of us needed something from an office supply store…across the street from COEX is bongeunsa…a Buddhist temple…probably the second most touristed temple in seoul, but I think it’s worth it…as buddha’s birthday was coming up, there were preparations at this temple as well…it’s a big temple, so there were crazy numbers of lanterns…EVERYWHERE…plus, each year bongeunsa puts together an exhibition of traditional lanterns…last year, the exhibition was in one of the temple halls, and the lanterns were lit up…this time they were placed all over the temple grounds, and I’m guessing they were lit up at night…I liked seeing them, and I think hana and mom enjoyed them as well…hana and I also sat for a little while in front of the big Buddha statue (it’s the tallest in some area, according to the brochure)…mom took our photo, of course, and later told us we looked very peaceful…hmmm…

From there we got back on the subway, and rode to my neighborhood…it was nice to point out to mom and hana the building in which I lived…we had dinner at a galbi restaurant, one of my favourites…I was rather amused (as usual) watching the two of them use chopsticks to put their meal together…after finishing eating, we were all knackered, but I wanted to show hana (in particular) a store where I knew she could find the kitchy Korean stationery she’d been keen to see…we ended up spending way too much time in the store…it’s one of those stores full of stuff you don’t need, but it highly entertaining anywho…all sorts of frog stuff, a large display of stationery, hair stuff, etc…fun…then the long train ride back to the hotel…

The next day we flew to hong kong… 

gyeongju with the fam

To get to gyeongju from sokcho, we had to take two buses as there are no direct buses…there are four bus stations in daegu, and to spend as little time on the bus as possible, I knew which one we wanted from sokcho…I thought we’d have to take a taxi across town to the other bus station in sokcho for our departure, but we didn’t, yay…the bus ride to daegu was longer than I thought, but oh well…while on that bus I was watching the tv at the front of the bus (when not dozing) and I realized at one point they were talking about osama bin laden…this was the day obama announced to the world that US military operatives had raided the compound in which bin laden was living, and killed him…needless to say, given the time and money the US has poured into this region of the world, and the fact that the US had been searching for bin laden for a decade, this was big news…from daegu we took another bus to gyeongju, that bus was only an hour…woo hoo…

As usual, the lonely planet map wasn’t so good…that map showed the two bus stations in gyeongju being a little farther apart, so we weren’t entirely sure which way to walk out of the bus station…hana and mom took the initiative and looked around while I “guarded” our bags…we quickly found the information station, collected a couple maps, asked a couple questions, and found a hotel…

After a quick planning session, we started walking…gyeongju is the second most tourist visited city in korea…it was the capital of the silly dynasty, which ruled the entire peninsula (including what is now north korea, I think) at one point…because it was the capital, there is still a lot of history to be seen in the area…tombs, temples, etc…the city itself doesn’t have much else to offer…our hotel was about three feet away from one of the smaller tumuli parks…tumuli are the tombs of the silla dynasty…think Egyptian pyramids, Korean style…they’re not quite as big as the pyramids, but they are rather large piles of dirt on top of a grave…royalty and other important folks were buried with things it was thought they might need in the afterlife…while walking through this first little area the information lady gave us a little brochure that told us what we were seeing…after crossing the road, we found another park, with more tombs…including one that is open to the public…that is, you can go into the mound of dirt…it has been excavated, and made to look just as it was when the guy was originally buried…there is no body there, but you can see the remnants of what was there…the “coffin” is in a glass case, and you can see all the rocks piled on top to create the huge mound, on top of which is all the dirt…around the edges of the chamber are little windows showing various things that were found in the tomb, including a big crown made of 18K gold…it must’ve been so heavy…a belt and earrings too I think…more gold, they must also have been heavy…I’m quite glad I’m not a royalJ…

More wandering took us through the rest of the park, which is pretty, but not exciting…across the road on the other side, there was yet another park…this is the area in which the oldest observatory in asia is located…hana and I wondered why someone didn’t just climb a tree, or sit on top of a hill…cause this observatory wasn’t big…at all…for some reason, there was an admission charge to walk into the observatory area, even though you could see it just as well from outside that area…since you don’t actually get to go in/up the observatory, we skipped that admission fee…more strolling and amusing picture taking led us into what little remains of a fort…the name starts with a B I think…if you’re not paying attention, you don’t realize you’ve entered the remains…all that remains is some of the walls, which are now covered by dirt and trees…toward one end is the only remaining room…it used to be the ice house…just from looking at it, you can’t tell that’s what it was, but the sign says so…Korea  can be very unpleasant during the summer, so having a place that would keep ice cold would be very useful…and probably a place people liked to hang out, if they could…

From there mom was tired…so we walked back in the general direction from which we had come, in search of food…we found a branch of my bank, and food…success!! I was finally able to transfer the money to pay for our DMZ tour…dinner that night was juk…which is what Koreans call rice porridge…or any porridge, for that matter…I had my favourite, spicy beef and leek…

The next morning we had coffee (I didn’t) then got on the bus to go to bulguksa, an important temple in the area…it’s a designated UNESCO heritage site…the bus ride winds around a bit, so hana suffered, but there wasn’t any other way of getting to the temple…(well, we could’ve taken a taxi, but that might’ve made her feel even worse)…the bus dropped us at the bottom of the parking lot to the temple…from the parking lot we walked uphill a ways to the temple entrance gates…one of the most expensive fees in Korea later, we walked through the gates…past a little man made pond, through another set of gates…in this gate were four bodhisattvas…each of them has a name, which of course I can’t remember…I think they’re basically protectors? If any of the two of you reading this can tell me and explain it in a way I remember, I’ll love you foreva)…a little farther and we finally got to the main temple area…there are two majour staircases, both of which are blocked off to the public in order to preserve them as much as possible…the bigger staircase has 33 stairs, which I believe are supposed to lead you to heaven…something like that…the other staircase has fewer steps, I think it’s something about peace...

We arrived in this area at the same time as a bunch of schoolkids…I’d say late primary school, possibly middle school? There were a lot of them, and they were loud…we explored the entire temple area, particularly enjoying areas before they were invaded by all the schoolkids…

A site close to the temple is called seokuram grotto…there is a bus going between the temple and the grotto, but it only runs every hour or so, so I got hana and mom going back down to the carpark in time to catch the bus…which goes on the twistiest road ever…switchback switchback switchback, all the way up…not a pleasant journey if you are at all prone to motion sickness…the driver did a good job, but it still wasn’t a fun drive…in order to quell the nausea and take a little break, we found a bunch of benches not long after getting off the bus…as we were getting ready to walk to the grotto, we were offered beer and strawberries by a bunch of folks enjoying a social gathering…the strawberries were great, and if I’d spoken any Korean, we might’ve joined their little group for a while…they were super friendly, and ended up giving us a couple cups of strawberries…I love nice people and happy surprises…

After paying another entrance fee we walked toward the grotto…the only time of year I’ve ever been to gyeongju is at this time of year, so it seems perfectly normal to me that the path would be lined by the lanterns for buddha’s birthday…when we got to the grotto area, there were majour preparations underway for the birthday party…lots of lanterns being put up everywhere…the grotto itself is what has been rebuilt of a temple…the original temple was more of a cave, if I recall correctly…now, the big Buddha that was carved out of stone has been covered by glass (no photos L) and a wooden temple built around it…there are signs telling you not to touch the glass, so there are no fingerprints or smudges blocking your view of the Buddha…it’s nifty…we went from there into one of the other temple buildings, the gift shop…I don’t know how it came up, but we decided to buy bracelets to remind us of each other and this trip…hana and I got matching bracelets, mom got another…hana and I got postcards as well…I think we were all pretty happy with our purchases…while walking back to the carpark/bus area, we passed all the schoolkids going toward the grotto…as it’s a smaller area, I’m glad we weren’t sharing the area with them…on the way back to waiting for the bus, all three of us rang the bell…it’s a big bell, and you get to swing a huge wooden thing to make the sound…you have to swing the wood pretty hard, mom missed the first time she tried…hee hee…

Another twisty bus ride brought us back from the temple…even though it’s rather touristy, we ate in one of the restaurants across the road from the carpark…some of the ladies are rather aggressive when you get off the bus in trying to get you to come to their place of business…we don’t particularly like that sort of behavior…

After lunch another bus took us back into town…we got off the bus at anapji pond, a man made pond built during the dynasty by one of the royals…it was built with a number of buildings right there, the whole area is supposed to be relaxing…they’ve rebuilt three of the pavilions, and have descriptions of the others, none of which are very interesting…with the landscaping, it is a nice place to walk around…until the schoolkids arrived, that is…then it just got loud-ish…again, I’m glad we were there before the schoolkids…

After returning to our hotel, we split up…hana and I went for a walk, and mom went for a walk…I don’t know that any of us had any direction in particular in mind, but we needed the time apart, and it was nice just to walk…hana and I ended our walk with ice cream from baskin robbins…which ended up being free because of the points I had on my happy point card…yay…

The next day we had coffee again (me, not so much) before hopping on yet another bus…this time to the tomb of king munmu…this bus didn’t come around nearly as often, so we had to wait a little while…I hadn’t seen this tomb the last time I came to gyeongju…Koreans say it’s the only underwater tomb in asia…since hana has seen a graveyard under water in the Philippines, she knows this isn’t true…legend says that munmu wanted to be buried at sea…the tomb is allegedly underwater in the middle of a natural pool in the middle of rocks about 200m offshore…another theory says this is only where his ashes were scattered…you aren’t allowed to swim out there to find out yourself, and apparently the government hasn’t made the effort to find out what is there…though the rocks are only 200m offshore, the currents are strong, as is the wind…

we got off the bus, saw the rocks, and thought, that’s it? That can’t be it…so we walked a little ways…as we walked, a Korean man came up to us and tried to hand his phone to hana…after wondering what this was all about, she took the phone and put it to her ear…apparently we’d arrived just in time for an emergency…when the sirens blew (which was scheduled in about 10 minutes) we were to follow this guy to safety…oaaaaa-kay…still not entirely sure of what was happening, we kept walking…then the sirens blew, and we saw people hustling up the hill…so we followed…after getting to an area where most people stopped, (which really wasn’t that high up, nor that far from shore) we were told by one of the other volunteers that we were having tsunami practice…good to know…apparently the Johnson ladies now know how to survive a tsunami…the chances of a full on tsunami ever hitting Korea are pretty small, (the majour fault along which japan is situated is on the other side of japan) but at least they are prepared…

After going back down the hill, we walked a little farther along the beach before coming to the conclusion that yes, we’d seen the tomb…hmmm…not very interesting…but I had fun trying to take decent photos of the waves crashing onto the rocks on the shore…according to the guidebook, this is a pretty popular beach during the summer…right now, not so much…the wind is strong and constant, and it’s not quite warm enough to hang out…after grabbing snacks and such, we waited for the bus going to the other way, and rode back into town…

The plan was to find somewhere close to eat lunch…it felt like we were walking for ages and ages, but it probably wasn’t really all that far…then the walk back to the bus station, where we caught a bus to the tomb of king muhyeol…you don’t get to go in this tomb, but the shape and size are similar to what we’d seen in the tumuli parks…across the street from this tomb is the tomb of his younger brother…after reading that sign, I realized we’d spent the day seeing tombs of one family…king munmu was papa, and king myhyeol was son #1, and the smaller tomb across the street was son #2…

After riding the bus back to town, we split up again…hana and I didn’t go anywhere…on the way back to the hotel we stopped at the information desk, and got the times for the train the next morning…hana and mom were keen to ride the KTX, Korea’s bullet train…at it’s fastest, it goes just under 300kms/hr…I don’t know else what we did, but it wasn’t much…

sokcho and seoraksan with the fam

somehow, neither mom nor hana knew the morning i wanted to leave for sokcho...when we checked into the hotel we had settled on three nights, so the morning after those nights, i figured everyone would be packing up...but i was wrong...hana asked me if we were leaving, and when i said yes, she said i should probably go check on mom and make sure she knew to pack everything...after a long-ish ride on the subway, we got to a bus station in eastern seoul and used the little machine to buy tickets to sokcho...the bus left about ten minutes later, woo hoo!!!
fortunately, intercity buses are pretty smooth, so hana didn't have any issues with motion sickness...i always thought i was bad, but hana is way worse...ugh...unfortunately, the weather wasn't so great, so we arrived in sokcho with dark grey skies, and spitting rain...argh...have i ever mentioned that i hate rain? we got a map from the nice information people, and they told me how to get to the national park the next day...we were hoping the weather would be better the next day...

we walked, and soon enough found a place to eat...it served donkasu, which is the korean version of schnitzel...all three of us had the one with cheese in the middle...too much to eat, but still yummy...we continued to walk, and i soon realized i didn't really know where we were...but we did know where we wanted to be...or, at least, the general direction in which we wanted to be...walking in that direction brought us to the fish market...or at least, seafood was one of the majour items sold in this market...crabs, fish, socks, etc...we bought some fruit...all sorts of random stuff...lots of different types of kimchi...too bad you don't get to try them all...continuing the walk, in the neverending search for my bank, we came to a paris baguette...in an effort to get out of the rain, we stopped for a while...i wasn't hungry, but mom and hana had a snack and coffee...more walking, and finally we decided to look at the map...hana is much better at these things than me, and she figured out where we were, and in which direction we needed to walk...
it turned out we had only just missed the bank by a little bit...ugh...anywho...when i tried to make the transfer to pay for our DMZ tour, it wouldn't work...eeeek...so i knew i'd written the account number down wrong, or it'd been wrong in the email i received...none of us were hungry anymore, so we went back to the hotel, and just relaxed for the rest of the evening...rain sucks...

the next morning was still a bit rainy, but there was also sun, so we had hope...we walked into town to get coffee for hana and mom (i had a chai milk thing)...then caught the bus to seoraksan national park...it's one of the most well known parks in korea, and is really easy to get to...if i'd stayed in korea longer i would've loved to go back and see more of the park...there is a temple just after entering the park, as well as a very large seated buddha...maybe it's the largest outdoor seated bronze buddha? who knows, but it is big...and with the rain, some of the photos made it look like buddha is crying...hana noticed that, not me...after dealing with entrance fees and such, and photos of a few stellae, we agreed on a meeting point for after hana and i were done hiking...we thought we'd take the cable car with mom after hiking...

so we set off on the hike...there were numerous others out hiking as well, but it was still fun...i don't know if hana and i have ever hiked together? the trail was very clear, and at times there were steps...easy enough, but it still felt good to be out there...and the weather finally completely cleared up...we both warmed up rather quickly and had to remove the jackets we were wearing...at the top of our hike there is a rock that is balanced carefully...if you push hard enough with a couple of your friends, it's supposed to move a little...lots of people were having their photos taken with the rock, so we jumped in the queue...well, it wasn't really a queue, more like a mob, where you just had to make a move in order to get your photo...the trees were beautiful up there, and there was a little buddha inside the cave...i wrote our names on a little piece of paper to make wishes for the upcoming birthday, but the lady wanted 30,000 (approx $30!!) which hana and i thought was completely unreasonable...so we walked away, and as we did so, the lady made a show of tearing up our paper...not very nunlike behaviour!
when we got down to the bottom and found mom, she said we'd just missed the last cable car...apparently they'd closed it for the rest of the day due to strong winds in the valley...gutted...completely gutted...i'd really wanted to take that ride with mom, especially because she hadn't hiked with us...she'd come out to the park, but not been able to do anything...argh...sooooo disappointed...we wandered around the temple a bit, but i think all three of us were upset about the cable car...argh...

the bus ride back into town dropped us off on the main street, and we soon found a place to eat...hana and mom had bulgogi, which is thinly sliced pork roasted for a while in soy sauce...it's a little sweet...with tons of side dishes...yum...since the weather was nice we opted to walk along the water for a while...at one point we wanted to walk across a bridge before realizing that the bridge hadn't been completed and that wasn't an option...we found the lighthouse observatory, and a little pavillion that went out over the water...we also walked by a LOT of seafood restaurants...we couldn't figure out what some of the stuff in the tanks was...and some of the seafood looked dead...in addition to the restaurants there were a lot of places selling dried seafood...yuck...lol...
that was it for our adventures in sokcho...