Wanderings and wonderings: Chusok Travels

Chusok is Korean thanksgiving (like harvest festival) and there is a 3 day national holiday. Tuesday - thursday. My school gave us the monday and friday off too so I had in all 9 days off work. Kev's school gave him the same so we decided to do a little bit of travelling around. My co teacher told me about a famous city in the south eastern province an hour from Busan so we headed there first and then to Dae Gu and up to Seoul at the end of the holiday.

We actually began in Busan as I got there saturday afternoon. This is the Lotte department store, possibly the biggest in Asia. Kev has since found out that there may be another one in Busan that is bigger. Either way this was huge!

View from the top of the mall, across the docks of Busan.

Famous fish market in Busan

Stalls selling massive fish everywhere!

Chips from Irish potato! They were amazingly gorgeous, just like my boyfriend... hahaha! :-)

Bulguksa Temple in Gyeong Ju.

Drinkable water from outside the Buddhist Grotto

We had no idea what these stones were for but little piles of them were EVERYWHERE outside the temple!

We got the bus (1hour) across to the coast to see the underwater tomb of King Munmu. The rocks you can see in the picture out in the sea are the underwater tomb. It was the biggest anticlimax ever. We took this picture, wandered down the beach, back up the beach and then went back to the bus stop. We waited about 30 mins for the bus back to Gyeong ju (1 hour) and then hunted around the town for somewhere to eat. Pretty wasted morning and afternoon!

This is the restaurant we finally found after the trip to the underwater tomb. Octopus bulgogi.

Pavillions on Anapji pond. We got there just as the sun was setting so got to see it lit up which is definitely the prettiest time to see the area.

These are the Tumuli tombs. They are dotted around the city, although most are in this park. They are tombs for different kings and leaders from past dynasties. There is only one that you can enter and it's not that exciting inside. They look like the teletubby hills.

This was Yangdong Traditional Folk Village. Unlike the one in Suwon this is actually lived in and not just for tourists. Today was the hottest day ever and I was so hot and sweaty! We wandered around and saw a few different places of historical significance built for random cousins of emporors etc.

'Traditional' house, complete with satellite dish!

And to Dae Gu. This is Woobang Tower Land. As it was peeing down with rain there were only 4 rides open. The entire city was deserted as it was the day of Chusok and with nothing else to do so we went in for some fun.

The carousel was open...

As were the bumper cars which we went on about 10 times! Us girls got quite a bumping from the boys where we nearly came flying out of the cars! Infact I still have a big bruise on my knee from the steering wheel!

We also met some uzbekistani men (who were incredibly pervvy) and kept coming on the bumper cars with us.

It was Chelsea's birthday so we went out and met some of Kev's friends from Orientation.

Much merriment was had by all.

Upon arriving in Seoul, The happiest day of Kev's life finally arrived.

We had dongdongju (makoli) at my favourite restaurant (pirate) I think it tasted a little like cider. Although Kev doesn't agree with this.

Traditional Tea in Insadong. Fermented Rice tea (cold) is definitely the nicest!

War memorial to the Korean war. This is called the brothers statue. The brothers are; older- South Korean Solider and Younger - North Korean solider. Meeting on the battle ground and finally reunited. Crossing the crack which is the division between North and South. You do get a definite feeling that the South Koreans want to be reunited very much but they are not sure how long it will be until this dream can become a reality.