This Weekend: Chungju, Danyang, and Gosu Cave

[In this episode, we wander aimlessly until an ajumma hand-feeds us, get on a boat, and spelunk.]

This weekend, Kristen, Tom, and Lee, and I headed out to Chungju, a town (or tiny city), northeast of Daejeon. Chungju is the proud owner of the Chungju Dam, a hydro electric extravaganza that has created one of the most beautiful lakes in the country. There are regular ferries on this lake, too, so it's an excellent opportunity to see the Korean countryside at its (mostly) unspoiled best. The lake stretches through to Danyang, a tiny little town that is best known for the surrounding caves.

Now caving is not my usual bag, so I was pretty excited when this opportunity popped up. (We went through Adventure Korea--I wanted to introduce the 'new kids' to the wonders of weekend-tour programs, and also it seemed like the easier thing to do.) I vaguely remember tromping around in Tennessee's Cumberland Caves when I was a wee one, and I remember enjoying it immensely, but I also remember it not being nearly as cool as this.

In order to be ready for the bus in Chungju at 9:10, we decided to head into the city on Saturday night and stay in a cheap room. We didn't get out of Daejeon until about 4:00, so we didn't really have anything to do in Chungju except wander and eat. We made our way through the market, which is always intriguing. As always, I took market pictures... (I think my fascination with market pictures comes from a deep guilt of never taking market pictures in Ghana.)

Here are some various kimchi dishes for sale--I don't think it's regular kimchi because I believe that there are fish inside it.

And here are some pajamas and various Ajumma clothes for sale. I was pretty happy with the way that these pictures turned out. They are quite delightful. Anyway, after leaving the market, we wandered through a more hip district, where it seemed like all the young people were, and then we stopped in a random SamGyeopSal restaurant--which turned out to be the best decision of the trip.

SamGyeopSal is meat that you cook on your own little barbecue plate, and they bring it to you raw. Or--in this case, you retrieve the meat that you want from a buffet in the center of the restaurant, and you pay a flat price. (This one was less than eight dollars.) Here is Kristen stirring up our first batch of meat.

 However, it soon became clear that the owner of our restaurant, a wonderful enthusiastic middle aged woman [or, ajumma] , didn't see many foreigners. She decided to come talk to us, to which I sort of responded--but she had NO English, and I had only very limited Korean. (As in, I answer yes or no to what I THINK the question is.) But she was so happy to see us that she just wanted to help us understand how to eat SamGyeopSal. The whole time she insisted that the men at our table needed more garlic--to become strong men. "Maneul, MANEUUUL!" As with  all Korean dishes, there is a proper way to consume SamGyeopSal. The meat should be eaten with a tasty red sauce, with a piece of garlic and wrapped in a lettuce leaf. The wrap should be eaten in one bite, so as to avoid lettuce-wrap explosion. Anyway, Lee didn't really get it, so she did it for him--and then PUT IT IN HIS MOUTH. We were laughing hysterically as we watched him just sit there with lettuce poking out of his mouth, a look of utter horror on his face.

From there the night descended into uncontrollable laughter (it actually bordered a little on hysteria), too much food, and one seriously amazing good time. She even took a picture with us.

(from Left to Right, we have the woman, Lee, Kristen, me, and Tom.) She insisted that she was fifty five but I didn't believe her. By the end of the night, we were calling her Ommah, or mom in Korean, and she gave us delicious glass-bottle pepsi, apples, and literally fed us until we were insane. Kristen and I were laughing so hard we were crying, and it was really over absolutely nothing. We decided we'd have to get out of there before someone offered us alcohol, because we were already so far gone that that was the LAST thing we needed.

After leaving the restaurant, we walked all the way across town, back through the market, along the river, and towards the bus station so we could find a place to stay near our departure point. We ended up staying in the Love Motel district, at a neon-lit, blinking cluster of buildings that cater to Korean couples. These buildings attract patrons through sheer gaudiness, and decorate the buildings with neon lights that make them look more like a cake than a hotel. Ours was named Titanic. Quite excited about the potential sinking that we were going to do, we booked two rooms at the unbelievable price of 35,000 a night. For this 35,000, we got a working computer, a huge tv, an amazingly clean room, a bathtub with JETS, and all of this fancy madness....

Anyway these types of hotels, if you don't already know, are designed so that couples who either a. both live at home, or b. have spouses, can spend some time away from it all for cheap. These are extremely discrete places. The hallways are dark. Cars license plates are covered with blue wooden planks, in case anyone is looking for them. Keys are left in a corner in the elevator, not with the desk woman when the deed has been finished. But for travelers, these things are the best thing in the world--because they really are paradise for half the price.

Our night was uneventful. We watched a plethora of English tv, like Scrubs, and then we crashed out early. We woke early and headed back to the bus terminal, met our Adventure Korea bus, and then headed to the Chungju Dam, where I aggressively played a broken "Wack a Mole" until our ferry was ready to depart.

On the lake it was frigid, because we were traveling so fast, but it was beautiful. The water was very low, and so layers of rock were exposed, with the most intriguing coloration from years of water rising and falling.

The mountains in this part of the country are jagged, with exposed rock. They look fuzzy in the winter, because there are no leaves on the trees. The cloudy day made things seem awfully sinister, and the freezing wind on the deck added to the feeling. It was invigorating.

As we got closer to our destination, the water became greener and greener, and there was more and more rock standing there, strong, still, and perfectly straight. Like I said in my last post, there is something inherently 'Asian' in my head when I see those kinds of rock formations. It just doesn't seem to happen elsewhere, not like this.

Our final destination was a ferry terminus some ways away from Danyang, situated inside this gorgeous valley. It is a part of Korea's "Eight Famous Sceneries", or things in this area that Koreans have uniformly decided are beautiful. That includes stone pillars, climbing mountains, and an all around glorious display of rock, mountain, and water.

From the ferry terminus we left these mountains and moved onto new ones--this time mountains that we could go inside. We visited Gosu Cave, or Gosudonggul. I was really unprepared for how beautiful it was inside--I had no idea how much the earth could do in its spare time.

The cave had been developed with rather precarious looking metal stairs, but they didn't move or teeter, so I was happy. There was a course which we should take--as there always is in a Korean tourist destination--but it was not a disappointing one. Stalactites and stalagmites were everywhere, forming in groups, forming in patterns, forming in enormous organ-pipe shapes that took my breath away.

The cave walls were one thing, but the ceilings were the most impressive. Looking up, row after row after row of dripping stone could be seen, stretching up into black forever. It amazes me how long this took, and how long it went on doing this without any eyes to watch it. There are so many things under the surface of the earth that we don't know about... so many beautiful things that we won't see until we look under the barriers.

I was also extremely pleased with how my camera behaved. I switched it over into Manual and actually felt like I had some grip on the controls for the first time since I've had it... and I didn't use flash for ANY of these pictures. Props to my awesome Canon. Switching cameras before coming here was a 100% good decision. Now if only I could get up the courage to do more people shots....

Anyway, more about the cave... inside the cave there were certain points where men with digital cameras and huge flash umbrellas waited to take pictures of couples and travelers tromping the cave course. They stood in front of some of the more famous stalactite formations, and it was kind of intreguing--these older men (adjoushis--the male version of ajummas), just sitting in these boxes with cameras, attached to the metal framework of our course. It must be an odd underground job. Despite the fact that they were doing tourist things, their little booths looked industrial to me, and I got a rather cyberpunky feeling from the whole thing.

The course was wild--curving through the cave, spiral staircases, wet with water that dripped from the top of the cave--at one point my friends were twenty feet above me. Tom said he thought that the cave was overly 'sensitized' and 'touristy', but I rather liked the course and the lights that lit up the different formations. It helped me get pictures, and it helped me appreciate everything.

Anyway Gosu Cave is a must see. It's not really a day trip from Daejeon, as it took us 2 buses and about 3-4 hours to get home, but if you made a weekend out of it, you could hit up some of the other caves in the area as well. (Gosu is extremely popular for tourists, and so in the summer months may be more crowded. There are others.) Also in that area, which I plan on seeing soon, is the famous Guinsa Temple.

Sunday's Excursion: Magoksa Temple near Gongju

[In which we ride the oldest bus in Korea on the twistiest roads in Korea, and are forced to eat temple food by an enthusiastic monk.] 

Lately Gongju has simply been the best place to start for intriguing day trips. People in search of some interesting destinations around Daejeon would do well to start there. On Sunday, we decided to enjoy the warmer weather and take the day to do something cultural. Kristen has a new coworker at her school, so we were treating him to the 'life in Daejeon' skit, but since we hadn't done anything other than eating and partying, we figured it was time to do something 'cultural'. (Though eating and drinking is basically a cultural experience here.)

We set out around noon to Gongju, and got our bus at the Yuseong bus station. The Yuseong station is a crowd of bus madness, pulling in and out through the traffic of a regular street. I don't know how these drivers manage to do this without killing anyone--or hitting the other buses--but somehow it all works out. People wait in the corner of the small lot patiently, and then when the bus arrives (destination written only in Korean), you make sure that you make eye contact with the driver so that he knows that you are actually getting on the bus.

The bus ride to Gongju is also quite beautiful, since you are passing around Gyeryongsan National Park. While in Gongju we walked across the city (not knowing we could pick up the Magoksa bus at the big terminal!) and took some silly tourist pictures.

The local bus station in Gongju is right by the market. Now when Stephanie and I went to Gongju in September, it was a big holiday, and so the market was closed as closed could be. However, on Sunday, it was a big old markety mess, and I was instantly in love. The buses pulled into little "ports" when they were about to leave, which meant that there was a covered platform where the destinations were listed. On the market side of the platform, some old people were playing "Yoot", a game that we played at the Traditional New Year's Party last week. At first I didn't know what they were doing, because they were doing it with such enthusiasm--and at first, in my direction--that I thought they were attempting to exorcise me or something. This ancient woman in a pink felt zip up tossed those sticks like a fortune teller, speaking in the harsh Korean dialect that the older people tend to use. (Which to me sounds SO much better than the whining tone that the younger city kids seem to have.)

Sneaky as I am, I took a video.

Anyway, we meandered around the market, looking at the fish, meat, various feet products, and, of course, RED PEPPERS!

These bags come up to my waste. Looks like Kimchi dipping season is soon.... One of my students mentioned it to me, so I think it is coming up. These are the peppers that go into literally every Korean dish imaginable. In the fall they were all laying out to dry, now here they are in huge bags.

 Anyway we explored the market, saw our fare share of weird animal products, boots, buckets, and oddities, and then we hopped on the bus to Magoksa.

Sadly I don't have any pictures of this bus, but it was probably the oldest Korean bus I have ever been on. It was mostly open, with a few seats. We sat in the back, on the raised part above the engine, and we slowly jerked through Gongju, then we were released into the surrounding countryside. We were at first in a city, and then we went through a tunnel, and arrived in what seemed to be a completely different country. The countryside was empty except for farms, occasionally grave yards, and these little cement houses. The road became narrower and we jostled and flew down the road and increasingly more precarious speeds, and I was feeling delighted. The only people on the bus were these ancient ajummas, who all seemed to know each other. Just like in America, life in the country in Korea must be a completely different world.

We arrived at the temple feeling ready for an excellent time, and then we began our walk. Magoksa was established during the Baekje kingdom, but was also a principle temple during the Silla period. And then, during Joseon (when the Japanese invasion of the 1590s occurred) the temple was a place of refuge. So, in short--most of Magoksa is now entirely intact--which cannot be said about most other temples in Korea. Unlike all the things in Buyeo that Stephanie and I visited two weekends ago, the Magoksa buildings haven't been moved, rebuilt or even repainted in quite some time.

Yet there are new buildings among them, and we had a very pleasant time strolling through the complex. We heard chanting coming from a service inside one of the main halls. I paused to listen for some time. A few monks spoke to us--enthusiastically explaining things in Korean which I didn't understand.

When we were about to leave, I heard the bell being rung, so I skirted close so I could see it. This tiny little man with a sort of bucket hat on was ringing the bell (I assume for dinner), and then when he saw me standing there, he began to talk to me. I mostly had no idea what he was talking about, but when I inquired about their temple stay program, he lit up and dragged us back to their office. (We were a little bit worried about the last bus at this point, but we couldn't be rude.)

Then after a long discussion, and many, many brochures, he said "I am very hungry!" Oh, well we need to leave, so I figured now was a good time to escape... because I had definitely convinced him that I understood MUCH more Korean than I actually do. Now was the proper escape time. But no, no, "I am very hungry and you are very hungry!" He wouldn't take no for an answer. We kept saying "bus, bus!" but he kept saying "time many time!" So we really had no choice. Lee, the new guy, seemed a little concerned, but I was happy to finally feel like I was traveling, and I just put my hands up in the air and said, "It'll work out."

So we went downstairs to the monk's quarters--a new building--and feasted on some delicious vegetarian bibimbap style food. It was delicious! And the monk came up to Lee and made a huge round sign with his hands, and then put it to his stomach. Then he grinned with this absolutely uncontrollable joy and bounced off to speak to more people. Then the temple secretary gave us this weird piggy bank thing and we set off.

It was a really odd experience, but one that I absolutely loved!

You know, I write a journal more than a blog...

I guess that's okay, most of the time. But I am enjoying reading some of the other things that I run across--more bloggy things, and I wonder--how can I do that?

My mom sent me this article on the Matador, called: "The Expat Conundrum: The Longer You Stay, The More You Complain". It is kind of an interesting article. They are taking about Mexico, but I do feel like the people who have been here the longest complain a lot. I actually ran into a guy down by the river who had lived here for several years. He definitely had the "they" attitude that the author talks about. Harsh. Serious. Acted like he got stuck here. After I said I was new, his first idea was to give me the name and number of someone to call if I "got into any trouble."

Now the other article that I was reading on this website was this: "6 Ways To Not Be A Holier-Than-Thou Traveler." I am guilty of some of these things--especially here in Korea. I'm trying my hardest not to let Ghana spill over into my experience here, especially now that I am trying to make new friends... but I can't help it. I mean, everything there seemed so much more hard core. More difficult. So when this gentleman told me that if I "got into any trouble", I should call this guy... I thought: "What kind of trouble can I possibly get into that is worse than the trouble I could get into in Ghana?" So I am majorly guilty of the Holier than Thou attitude. Because your wallet can get stolen in any country. Your passport can get stolen in any country. You can be in a terrible car accident in any country--but I drop "Africa" like it is this magical place that makes me more hard core than the others here. And I know that if my African friends heard me say those things, they would be annoyed. But sometimes, that "this is easy because I've done something much harder" attitude gets me through the difficult days here. Because, really, it is hard here, too, and I need something to remind me that I can do it.

Anyway I am really enjoying these articles on Matador, and browsing through them. It feels good to be a traveler again, no matter where I am--and that brings me to my excellent weekend, which I promised I would report on.

Let me sum it up for you.
Saturday:

Sunday:

On Saturday, as I mentioned before, Stephanie and I visited Gyeongbokgung. This enormous palace was constructed for the Joseon dynasty, which ruled Korea from 1392 to August 1910. The picture above is from the retreat quarters of King Gojong. Inside there are quarters for the King and Queen, as well as a study--though it was most certainly blocked off from tourists. The area was restored in 2007, after having been dismantled in 1909, during Japanese occupation. An art museum was put on the location in 1939.

The palace had two main areas--the public and the private. The public areas were enormous, impressive, places where the king could strut, as it were. The roofs were two tiered, everything was tall and extravagant, and the painting was out of this world. Humans just looked insignificant next to and inside these enormous buildings.

 After going to this palace, Stephanie and I set out for a market, that turned out to be a shopping mall and not a market. But the journey to the market was one full of tiny street vendors. In Korea street vendors sell things out of these little retractable trailors. When they are finished selling, they close down the doors and drag the metal box away--like a dragable garage. Then they bring it home or just leave it in some alley somewhere. I saw one man packing up and I thought this was just brilliant, and quite hilarious to boot. Of course, there was another man along the road who was selling notebooks and paper supplies out of the back of a pick up. Stephanie stopped to grab a notebook, and I just stared in true-love fascination.

I picked up a bunch of little trinkets, which I adore, even though they may be kitchy and touristy. I like touristy stuff--no prob for me. Now I have some little glass kimchi peppers on my phone, haha.

After we discovered that the market was actually less interesting than the street-to-the-market, we departed for Itaewon, which is the foreigner section of Seoul. It used to be sleezy, because it was mostly military men, and there are a lot of American GIs still there, I guess, but now it is full of just about anyone. There is a big mosque on a hill, and there are Muslims everywhere. I was simply overjoyed about that one. There were lots of Africans, too, and Stephanie and I went to a restaurant owned by Ghanaians!! Not only Ghanaians, but people from the Ashanti region, which means that they spoke Twi! We made some nice new friends... and actually this one guy insists on calling me two or three times every day, which is something that I hated when I was in Africa, but now it's kind of nice. I get to talk to someone before work, and it isn't about work, and it isn't complicated and confusing. Just talk. It also helps that I don't live in Seoul, though, lol, because he doesn't constantly ask me to visit him. 

Anyway, our new African friends were definitely NOT Muslim because they decided that it would be an excellent idea to get us to try their 'healing' wood liquor that had been home made in Korea. (Of course, it's home made in Ghana, too, but seeing it in Korea is weird and confusing. Also because it definitely looked like it was in a juice jug.) That was an enlightening experience, lol... especially because they totally refused to let US refuse. I had a good laugh, but had Stephanie not been there I probably would have been awkward and upset about it. I do believe, though, that it was the same material that I had been drinking in the stilt village on my 21st birthday.


Anyway, on Sunday Stephanie and I visited a huge Buddhist temple called Bong Eungsa, or 보은사. This is a full time used temple, with monks and nuns and worshipers coming in and out. I loved the feeling of it. A quiet, sacred sense settles over you, and you feel like a tourist, but not like a worthless tourist. You feel like you've come to see something important. There is also an awkwardness about it, because there are people praying and worshiping around you. That is hard, but the tension makes you realize things. Tension always leads to realization, I think, anyway, and I enjoy it.


The painting on this temple was out of this world. I've seen good painting, especially at the palace that we visited on Saturday, but this temple had murals on the walls. Scenes from the Buddha's life, scenes from the lives of Bodhisattvas and probably kings as well. There was no one to explain it, so as the monk chanted in the main building, I simply stared at it, and attempted to take a few measly pictures. They don't do it justice.


The monk was chanting when we arrived, and the prayer hall in the front of the building was full to the brim of women. It was all women, not a single man. I don't know why. The chanting was as beautiful as the buildings. As the monk left, I came eye to eye with him, bowed my head in some kind of greeting, but I don't know if it was rude or just 'typical' for a foreigner to do something awkward like that. But I wanted to let him know that I appreciated his voice, and his temple, and his religion, and his purpose... so I looked him in the eye and greeted him. I hope he saw it that way, but I doubt it. Ah well.


The temple had several main halls in the front of the complex, but it was in front of a rising mountain, so smaller Bodhisattva complexes rose up into the forest above. The higher we climbed, the more of metropolitan Seoul spilled out from behind the temple roofs. The ancient, painstakingly maintained buildings with delicate painted halls stood in front of glass sky scrapers--the Seoul World Trade Center--the Co-Ex twin-tower shopping mall--roads of busy, honking traffic. It was ironic and rather superb that this temple, a relic of "old" Korea, but a reminder to "new" Korea, stood in the middle of this development and urban bustle.  

After the temple we went to a market, which is where the first picture is from. It was mostly closed, but I enjoyed it anyway, and since there was a lack of people, I didn't feel too pushed and shoved with my big backpack on my shoulders. (Then quite full of trinkets, clothing, and rinkydinks that I bought.)



It's time for me to get on my bike and tool down to work, so I'll leave you with this image, and a link to the others on Facebook. 

Holy Canoli, Batman! Seoul!

So this weekend I made my first trip up to Seoul from Daejeon to visit Stephanie! We had an excellent time. We ate at an Indian-Nepalese restaurant, an African (Ghanaian!!) restaurant, AND a Mexican Restaurant! We went to a beautiful palace AND a beautiful temple, and we even heard some amazing chanting. I bought shoes, shirts, and kitchy trinkets that I l-l-love! We even went to a book store!

I arrived around two on Saturday, and Stephanie and I went to Gyeongbokgung, or 경복궁, which was founded in 1395 by the Joseon dynasty. Since then it has been destroyed twice by the Japanese, once in the 1592 invasion, and again in the more well known invasion precluding WWI. One of the important figures in Korean occupation was Empress Myeongseong, who fought the Japanese until she was assassinated in 1895. I'm excited to find out more about her, but so far I don't really know much. All of these buildings were beautifully restored in the mid 1990s and early 2000s, and they're still working on other parts of the enormous complex. It is intriguing and breathtaking that this place is so old but so young, and also such an important symbol. There were many tourists there, but they were from everywhere--and more than 50% were Korean tourists. I heard some Japanese, and actually spoke it a little bit with an older woman. And by speaking I mean, I repeated what she said because I understood it, and she was dumbfounded and asked me if I spoke Japanese, and then I said "a little" and went on my way. But you know. Whatever you can get. Actually that day I spoke four different languages... because I spoke to the Japanese Lady, spoke Korean to folks, and English with Stephanie, and tiny Twi with the owners of the Ghanaian restaurant. Granted... I only used a few words in all but English, but, yeah I'd say that's pretty cool. I'll give myself permission to be proud of myself for that. :P

Anyway, the grandeur and impressiveness of this palace are just beyond beautiful. Everything is enormous, complicated, intricate, and well thought out. There are two impressive mountains standing behind the palace grounds, and they are distinctly Asian mountains. The rock formations are just not anything you would see in the US, and the way they stand is different from American mountains and African mountains. It might be easy to assume that rock is rock everywhere place to place, but no.

There are pictures from the weekend posted on facebook. I won't regale you with the entire story now because that post would just be too long, but check out my gallivanting, and hopefully you'll have a long enough attention span when I attempt to write about it!