Well, I just came back the other day from a long weekend trip to the middle of nowhere, also known as the middle of Korea. I was asked to join a good friend of mine, a fellow teacher named Toni, on one of her final weekend treks to somewhere that she knew a lot more about than I did. Before we went, the trip seemed like it would be ideal - the weather was looking nice, and that would make for beautiful sights in the mountains of Korea.
We started on Saturday morning, leaving on the second biggest holiday in Korea- Lunar New Year. We took a train, with only standing tickets, and were somewhat less than excited by the prospect of four hours of standing on a train by the bathrooms, no matter how fun the trip would be. We finally got there (we found seats after two hours of standing/sitting) and found out that our prospects of a ferry ride to see the eight scenic spots of Danyang were impossible- for the first time in over 20 years, the river was frozen over - so six of the eight scenic spots were out of the question. We hit up the two remaining with the help of a nice local, and then headed off to Chunju to see some other sights.
We got to Chunju, and were hoping to see two things - their famed hot-spring hotel, and also take what was supposed to be a beautiful scenic ferry tour of their man-made lake. Unfortunately, the ferry wasn't anything close to scenic - Toni admittedly fell asleep half-way through, and I just wanted to get off the freaking boat- the rumbling of the poor boat engine was making me sick. We tried to get to the famed hot-springs, however, after being misinformed (for the 3rd time, not the last) by the tourism agent as to where we were supposed to catch our bus, we gave up and stayed in a simple hotel.
The following day, we made off for Daejon, as a stop-between, so we didn't have to take a four hour bus-ride. We decided to stay for a bit longer than just a stop-off, and were highly recommended to see the Expo 93 site, where a world expo apparently took place....Again, the tourist agent told us that, after reminding us that we were lucky that it was Lunar New Year, that we should definitely head there and take part in a huge festival at the Expo park. So after taking a bus ride for over 45 minutes all through the whole city, we get there, to find out that there's just slighly over 30 people total at the park; not exactly what we were expecting. We knew things weren't looking good when, printed in the brochure, over half of the theme park pavilions were closed - even the guidemap had them printed as closed - not stickers, but solid proof they weren't opening soon. So after spending twice the time getting there and back, we jumped ship for our final stop, Jeonju.
In Jeonju, we arrived at night, and after the promise in Lonely Planet of every amenity we could imagine, we packed it in for the night in the Tomato hotel. For once, they were close; not exact, but close. We woke up hoping to stop in and see either the Hanok Folk Village, or Woraksan Park, where they have a suspended cable bridge for over 50 meters. We get to the open tourism booth to find out that on every last Monday of the month, the Hanok Folk Village is CLOSED. Righto...And why wouldn't it be closed....We went anyways, stopped in the open shops, and spent some time to make the visit feel like it was worth it. Woraksan was out of the question, because we couldn't get the bus ticket salesperson to understand our request for when the bus would come back from Woraksan - we knew we could get there, but getting back would be harder if we didn't know when we would actually get back. In the end, we decided to take a bus back to Seoul, and when the bus arrived in Seoul earlier than expected, I was proud to note that for once on the whole weekend, something went right.
All in all, it was more fun than it reads- we did get to see some nice stuff, and it felt good to get away from Seoul. The air is much better out of the city, and I felt that I gave myself another few days on earth by not living in this city.
Well, I hope your weekends had better luck than mine - I hope and pray things are going well - I'll catch you all on the other side around.
Me