Yeah...Korea!

Well...now that we've had a bit more time to settle into our trip we are all finding Korea extremely agreeable. Everyone is laid-back and friendly, the landscape is filled with trees and there is a lot to see and do.

After spending one night in Busan we headed to the historic town of Gyeongju where we stayed in a great little hideaway with an ondol room (charcoal heated floors) for two nights. We spent our days visiting 'important' places and seeing 'important' things. Having not purchased a guidebook for our short trip in Korea and not knowing a lot about Korean history, I must admit that much of this was lost one me...
In spite of this, on one particularly enjoyable day we climbed up to a temple (the original was built in the 500s) and a Grotto where we were able to see a Buddha carved out of the side of the mountain. Although restorations, it was amazing to see what would have been created so long ago.

Our next stop, Samcheok, was a five hour bus ride up the east coast. The ride alone was worth the trip...on one side we had views of the ocean and tiny fishing villages filled with brightly coloured roof tops. Along the highway, lines of squid were hung out to dry (mmmm...car fumes and squid...). On the other side of the road were vaguely familiar hills that put the theme song from MASH into my head.
Samcheok is a small fishing town with a lot of tourist activities in the vicinity. On our full day there we took another bus (harrowing...) to the Hwanseon caves. We spent over an hour wandering within the caverns and staring at awe - lots of stalactites and stalagmites - all the good stuff from Geography class. At any moment I imagined Smeagle slithering up to us...wawawa.
In the afternoon we managed to find...yes another...penis park. Alex and I can't seem to stay away from these genital theme parks. This time, it was next to the ocean and was used to bring fishermen good luck (the full explanation of this is long and you will likely arrive at the same conclusion as me - a sorry excuse for men to spend their time carving out giant phallic objects). The pictures to support this will be arriving shortly.
Tomorrow Alex and I will head to Seoul...