After a slightly annoying and costly hitch, I left Bali on my way to Mexico.
Landing in South Korea I had 12 hours to kill, so I booked myself on a free transit tour organised by the tourism authority (go South Korea!) on a local cultural tour. We passes through rice paddies with scarecrows, went through mountains and generally got to see a lot of ‘local’ Korea.
Our tour guide Mrs Sung talked to us about the country’s 5000 years of history and told that Korea has been invaded more than 900 times. She also talked about North Korea and how close we were and pointed out the razor wire that cutoff the beach to protect them from spies who come in via the sea.
We visited a ‘royal palace’ – a house where a king once lived. To be far, Mrs Sung did warn us that it wasn’t actually a palace. The king lived here, then when he became king he never came back to see his girlfriend ever again. Men!
We checked out the local farmers market where garlic cloves hung everywhere. Apparently it is one of the main ingredients in Korean cooking. And we saw lots of pickled vegetables that get used in Kim Chi, the national dish. This island is famous for ginseng and we stopped in on the ginseng market in an attempt to improve our health.
(Garlic. Definitely no vampires here!)
(Pickled….something!)
(Gingseng)
After a traditional Korean lunch of a variety of pickled foods whilst sitting on the floor, we headed to a 1600 year old temple. The scenery was stunning an the buildings had beautiful and colorful architecture.
(Lunch starts like this…)
(Ends like this…)
(Gate into the temple)
South Korea, I am impressed. Though I mainly saw your airport – with free wifi, massages, showers and more – I liked what I did get to see and will be back 🙂
