Summer Vacation 2009: Rob and Kat do Korea

So we've been back from vacation for about a week now. Rob started back at school, and although I've tried to go back to school, they just keep sending me home. I wish I was at school, because I never get stuff done at home. Internet TV is just too distracting...

Anyway let me tell you about our adventures driving around Korea... what I can remember anyway. So after Jisan Festival we headed to Wonju to pick up the car we rented. After some errors in communication we convinced the man that it was okay to give us the car. Unfortunately we couldn't convince him to rent us a navigation system, but instead he gave us an old dusty map book from 2003... did I mention it was all in Korean? No matter, I can read the little squiggles well enough to read names of cities. After filling out all the paper work we got on our way. Somehow we managed to find the highway to Taebaek and headed back to pack up some more stuff for the journey.

We really had no plan except to drive in a southerly direction. The first stop on our road trip was a beautiful waterfall that Rob had told me about, but never been able to see. There's no bus or anything that goes out that way. The waterfall is called Mian Pokpo, which translates into Beauty Waterfall or Beauty Fall (say that fast). It's a nice little walk to get to the waterfall. It was a nice humid day, and as we walked we saw many strange looking mushrooms and caterpillars. After walking through a small temple complex you walk a bit more until you come out into a small clearing. From high in the reddish tinged rocks falls a delicate stream of water. The legend has it that if you are lucky you can see angels bathing in the blue green waters of the pond below the waterfall.

After that we headed for the Bulryeong Valley. We drove through this scenic green forest covered valley until we ended up at Bulyeongsa, a Buddhist temple. This temple is famous for being home for 50 ascetic Buddhist nuns. The nuns were very surprised to see us, as I don't believe many foreigners make it to such an out of the way place. We received many warm hellos and annyong haseyos. It was extremely idyllic. We entered the grounds through a nice shaded pathway. The pathway opens up to the temple grounds. In the center of the temple grounds is a pond that reflects the mountains which circle the area. In the reflected pond you can "see" Buddha. It's really just a bare part of the mountain reflected in the pond, but from this angle it really did resemble a Buddha statue. It was extremely peaceful there, and of course I wish that we had stayed longer. On our way back to the car, we spotted a giant toad hopping up towards the temple. Perhaps the pond is his home, can toads be Buddhist?


more to come soon... photos also soon to be posted. please be patient, we are lazy.