Jeollabukdo

Left Seoul for the weekend to check out some more of the country. Here are a few pics.

We stayed in JeonJu City as a base point and ventured around the province from there.
JeonJu is best-known as the birthplace of BeBimBap. Every Asian city is famous for some kind of food, which seems to trump any other purpose for going there. I knew that everyone at work would be asking me if I tried the famous bebimbap. So for that reason, I didn't.

JeonJu is also famous for being the birthplace of the Josun Dynasty.

We went to the JeonJu Hanok Villiage, which is a neighborhood in the city where all the old wood and tile buildings survived the war and urban development. With so much of Korea being demolished and replaced by huge apartment blocks, it was worth a walk around. "Hanok" is the old-style house.

The Korean drama - always a dead end around the corner

A traditional tea house in JeonJu City

Gyeongijeon

This palace was built originally in 1410.
Inside there is a portrait of Yi Seong Gye – the founder of the Josun Dynasty, whose family was from JeonJu.

This is a portrait of King Sejong (1397-1450)

He was the inventor of Hangul - the Korean Alphabet.

Bamboo Garden

Near entrance to Maisan Park

These are used to make a local medicinal tea.

Jeollabuk-do is a province two hours south of Seoul. It’s known for rice and ginseng crops. There are tons of large parks. Most of them have a mountain full of hiking trails leading to a temple at the top and barbecue pits at the base. It was a matter of picking one.

We hiked to Maisan Park. The translation is “horse ears mountain”. The peaks actually look more like horse ears when seen from the town of Jinan on the opposite side. The east peak, Sutmaisan, is considered male. The west peak, Ammaisan, is considered female. Both ears are conglomerate rock which is not common in Korea. Up close, the sides are full of large holes where the rock broke away and fell into the ravine.

The first temple is Unsusa. It features the largest seated Bodhissatva statue in Korea.

The temple at the base of the rock face is called Tapsa. There are 80 stone pinnacles – all made by the Buddhist Yi Kap Myong (1860-1957). Some of them reach 15m in height. No cement was used and yet they never fall apart.

Yi Kap Myong

Exiting the park, we had a black pig barbecue while waiting for our bus. It definitely tastes different from your standard pig. But I can’t say whether or not it was better.

The whole time we ate, I kept thinking of Jon Soderman’s farm in Stanley, New Brunswick. We played a lot of music out there in the University days. Apart from some chickens he never really had a lot of animals. But he did have a Vietnamese black pig – which is a freak of nature in Eastern Canada and to Jon he was more of a pet than dinner.

We headed back into JeonJu City on a little bus full of townies. I remember arriving in JeonJu the night before. Coming from Seoul, it had a quaint, small town feel. I figured we could just get around on foot. But now approaching it on the country roads with our new travel companions, it was like leaving the farm for a Saturday night in the big city. What trouble can we get ourselves into?

JeonJu is famous for a few traditional rice wine restaurants where you order a kettle of the wine, called “makoli”, and they literally fill your table with food and snacks. These aren’t nachos, though. Some of the plates were recognizable. Others didn’t look like food.

The bar was full of loud old men – the only female being the woman in the kitchen. There were fishing boots and hip-waiders at the door. So I’m guessing this is not the cool thing for young people to do on a Saturday night these days. But, being an old man myself now, I guess I fit right in.