Damyang, Boseong, and Seoraksan

These past couple of days have been filled with some fun adventures. Now that it's May, the weather is nice and there are several festivals in Korea, so I plan to fully take advantage of both of those aspects. This past weekend I went to Damyang and Boseong and spent the night in Gwangju with Marisa and Lea.

We left Seoul at 8 a.m. on Saturday to head to Damyang to visit the bamboo festival. We actually learned about the festival in my Korean class so it was neat experiencing all the activities firsthand. After 5 hours on the express bus, we finally arrived in the town of Damyang. After seeing that the festival is relatively close to the bus terminal, we walked there, which allowed us to see the quaintness of the town. We arrived at the festival to see a lot of people, tents, and a beautiful river with several stone walkways. As you can guess, there was bamboo everything at this festival. There were boats made out of bamboo on the river, tents filled with bamboo goods to buy, and cute bamboo statues found throughout the town. We sampled bamboo hotteok, a honey-filled pancake, and later made bamboo candles.

The tents at the bamboo festival.

Posing by the river on a stone walkway.

Boat made of bamboo.

Bamboo hotteok.

Making bamboo candles.

We then headed to the main attraction of the festival and town of Damyang: the bamboo forest. The forest was breathtaking. The bamboo was much taller than expected and when there were no people around, the forest was very peaceful. The forest was unique to me because as someone from the U.S., when I think of "forest" I think of pine trees or maple trees. The bamboo was foreign but inviting, and allowed for some great photos which the three of us took advantage of wholeheartedly. 

Posing in front of the bamboo forest and giving a sense of how tall the bamboo trees are. 

Inside the forest.

We took a lot of photos that day!

The bamboo was so tall!

After exiting the forest, we went to a restaurant by the river to try tongbab, rice steamed in bamboo and mixed with other healthy ingredients. Like I mentioned, I read about the festival in my class and this was one of the activities described, so I was dying to see what the rice was like. In short, it was delicious and did taste different with a slightly bamboo flavor. We also received a bunch of other Korean dishes with our lunch that were healthy but very filling. The cool thing about tongbab is that you get to keep the bamboo "cup" it was made in as a souvenir, so I have it sitting on my desk as a reminder of my experiences. After our early dinner, we headed back outside to a nearby tent to try bamboo ice cream. It tastes like a faint green tea ice cream and it was very refreshing for a hot day. 

Tongbab.

Bamboo flavored ice cream.

We took one last loop around the festival and then headed back to the bus terminal to head to Gwangju to stay for the night. On our way to the terminal, we stopped by a store that sells bamboo goods. The storeowner was incredibly sweet and even invited us for tea, but we couldn't stay because we had to catch the bus. I ended up buying a bamboo basket made in Damyang as a souvenir. 

After waiting a couple of minutes at the terminal, we caught the bus to Gwangju and rode it south for about half an hour. On the bus, we actually met other exchange students from Yonsei who had the same weekend plans as us, so we chatted during the bus ride. I was surprised by how big Gwangju is, but it makes sense because it's the third largest city behind Seoul and Busan. After arriving at the terminal, the three of us looked on a map and saw that our hotel looked to be not that far away from the terminal, so we opted to walk there instead of hail a taxi or find a bus. That proved to be a mistake, because the distance was actually much larger than expected and ended up being around 3 miles, so it took us an hour to walk. Despite the distance, we were all in a good mood and didn't mind a lot of walking, plus we were able to see the city better. We arrived at our hotel and passed out soon afterwards, preparing for our next day at Boseong.

Similar to how Damyang is famous for its bamboo forests, Boseong is famous for its green tea fields. We left for Boseong at 8 a.m., first by taking the taxi from our hotel to the terminal and then taking a 1.5 hour express bus ride to Boseong from Gwangju. I just want to say that the amount of green was shockingly beautiful the whole time we were in the south. Everything was a bright lime green and the trees and grass were just so vibrant. The scenery differed from the north, which is still green but darker and not as vibrant, and I spent the majority of the bus ride in awe as I looked out the window. When we arrived in Boseong, we were welcomed by extremely kind people. 3 people individually went out of their way to help us since we looked kind of lost looking at the bus schedules to the green tea fields. This would never happen in Seoul, and it makes me want to travel the south more because the people are so friendly. I think it's universal in most countries that the people residing in the south are more hospitable and friendly.  

We ended up taking a taxi to the green tea fields by the friendliest taxi driver, and arrived in about 20 minutes. Unfortunately, the weather was not in our favor and it was slightly raining and misting on and off. However, the size of the green tea fields and their beauty made up for it. The mist also added a neat "mysterious" factor to the photos. The atmosphere also greatly reminded me of the Northeastern U.S., and I had to keep reminding myself that I was in Korea. We took a ton of photos on the fields that were on a mountainside, and it was so neat seeing what green tea looked like in person. I was kind of surprised because the leaves reminded me of a simple shrub you would see in the U.S. and I wouldn't be able to differ between the two. 

The green tea fields.

Posing in the fields.

Posing again to show the distance between the hedges.

A moment that stands out during our time in the green tea fields is when the three of us suddenly became celebrities. Since we were in the south, seeing white foreigners is kind of rare and so when a Korean does see us, they either want to take our photo or call us "beautiful." At one point when Marisa was taking my photo, a Korean man also took my photo and called me beautiful. I was just cracking up the whole time, haha. Later, a group of Korean men came to Marisa and asked to take a photo of her, which she obliged after which Lea and I also got involved. They took so many photos of us! We took at least ten different group photos and individual photos as well. I got a huge kick out of it and they were so nice about it that I didn't mind. I wish there was a way to see how many albums I show up in around the world because this was not the first time this has happened, haha.

We were celebrities, haha.

After our celebrity status moment, we hiked up the mountain that the field was on to head to a nearby waterfall. The hike was kind of brutal since it was just mud "stairs" all the way and it was compounded by the fact that the mud was very slippery. I'm honestly surprised none of us slipped and our shoes definitely paid the price (I'm sure mine still have some mud on them now even though I tried wiping it off when I got back to Seoul). We finally arrived at the top of the mountain, but we could unfortunately only see fog. As we were descending, we walked through a forest which looked mysterious with the fog and then came across the waterfall. Because of the rain, the path itself became a waterfall, so it was slightly challenging jumping from stone to stone with a stream of water running through. 

The fog at the top of the mountain.

I felt like I was in the Northwestern U.S. with the fog and pine/cedar trees.

The waterfall as we descended the mountain.

After reaching the end of the path and back in the bottom of the fields with the stores and restaurant, we stopped for lunch. This restaurant had Korean meals that were made out of green tea. I ordered green tea bimbimbap, which had green tea rice. It was surprisingly delicious, and the green tea paired very well with the vegetables in the dish. We then headed back outside to shop for green tea items, and I ended up buying green tea cookies, green tea powder, and green tea latte mix. For those who know me well, you know that I absolutely love green tea. In Korea whenever I go to a cafe, I always order a green tea latte. So being in a place that specializes in green tea made my heart swell in excitement. I also ordered green tea yogurt ice cream at a stand after we went to the shop, which was also delicious. 

Bimbimbap with green tea rice.

The several green tea things you could order.

This area of Boseong also had a bamboo forest that we wanted to check out. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the bamboo there was much more green and much taller than the bamboo in Damyang. There were also barely any people there so it felt like we had the whole forest to ourselves. 

These trees were bigger and more green than Damyang.

Me being excited with all my purchased green tea goods.

After the forest, we headed to a taxi stand to head back to the Boseong terminal to head to Gwangju, and then head to Seoul from Gwangju. Even though leaving at 3 p.m. seemed early, when you take into account the amount of traveling time back to Seoul (around 6-7 hours), it wasn't that early after all. We called the taxi driver that drove us to the fields, and he picked us up to head to the Boseong bus terminal. We only had to wait about 20 minutes for the express bus, which we took to Gwangju. After arriving in Gwangju we decided to take the KTX instead of the bus because we didn't want to worry about waiting in traffic. After taking a taxi to the train station and standing in line to purchase our tickets, we found out that all the train seats heading back to Seoul were sold out. So we bit the bullet and still bought train tickets, we would just have to stand or sit on the floor. After getting on the train, we sought out the area between the train cars where the bathroom was because it had the most room, and we stayed there for the whole 4.5 hour ride. The ride was honestly not that bad, considering we had to sit on the floor. It was my first time taking the train in Korea so it was neat experiencing something different. I was surprised by the amount of people who also had to sit on the floor, and those number of people increased after each stop we made. Marisa and Lea played games the whole time and I nodded on and off between sleep and being on my phone, and before we knew it we arrived in Seoul around 9:30 p.m.

Making the best out of train circumstance on the way back to Seoul.

My weekend was wonderful, and one I will always remember. I hope more people travel to the south because it's wonderfully different than the north, and I plan on traveling there again at the end of May.

I went to class on Monday but we had no school on Tuesday because it was Children's Day, one of the two days of school we get off for break (the other being Buddha's birthday on May 25th). Marisa and I took advantage of the day and travelled to Sokcho for a day trip. We took a 2.5 hour express bus ride to the east coast of Korea to venture into Seoraksan National Park, arguably South Korea's most popular mountain range. We then took a local bus from the terminal to the park.

The weather was beyond perfect that day; not too hot and not too cold and there was not a single cloud in the sky. The sky honestly looked as if someone filled it in like in MS Paint. Marisa and I hiked two trails that day: one to Biryong Falls and one halfway to Ulsanbawi rock. Each trail took about two hours to complete, and we stopped for lunch on the waterfall trail and for a beverage break on the second trail. The trails were "medium" difficulty, which was just enough to get a decent workout for the day. I was also surprised by how nice the trails were; there were bathrooms on the trails and benches for resting. Hiking that day was very cathartic and I greatly enjoyed being in nature again. I also finally hiked my first mountain in Korea! Hiking is Korea's most popular pastime, and you see Koreans of all ages hiking mountains all the time, especially when the weather is nice. If I lived in Korea longer, I would hike a lot more frequently because it's a good exercise and you get to see wonderful scenery along the way.

A view of the Seoraksan mountain range.

The waterfall we hiked up to.

A giant Buddha statue before the second trail.

What our path looked liked: lots of rocks.

A view of Ulsanbawi rock and the temple at the top of our second trail.

A temple in the national park.

After completing the second trail it was about 4 p.m., so we decided to head back into the town of Sokcho before catching our 6 p.m. bus back into Seoul. Since we had time, we wandered to Sokcho beach to take some photos and enjoy the water and people-watching. We also grabbed some dinner at Lotteria, Korea's equivalent to McDonald's, a sort of tradition we have. For some reason there's usually always a Lotteria by bus terminals and for 4 trips now I've eaten there before boarding my bus. For some reason fast food just tastes and sounds so good after a long day. Due to traffic, we didn't arrive in Seoul until about 9:30 p.m. When I arrived back to my apartment it wasn't long before I fell asleep, exhausted from a long past couple of days.

Sokcho beach.

These past couple of days were exhausting and long, but also so memorable and exciting. I can't wait to make more trips now that the weather is perfect. This upcoming weekend I'm going to stay in Seoul and be very productive with my schoolwork so I can afford to make more trips in the coming weekends. I plan on making another weekend trip next weekend, and then afterwards I'm going to Jeju, Busan, and other places in the South. I look forward to telling you about Korea outside of Seoul later and until then, see you later!