Seeing another 'ju

This last weekend Dom took the reigns and decided to plan a lovely trip out of town to take in the last days of fall, and of course the lovely fall colors that Korea is finally having. Our destination was Gongju, a historical and calming city about two and a half hours north of Gwangju.

Now that Fliss and Holli are out of the picture, we needed to branch out and get new traveling partners. The best and most obvious choices were my co-worker Oliver and his girlfriend Emily, Katie (Dom's new coworker) and a gal Dom recently met who is lovely and also named Emilie. The six of us planned to meet at the bus stop at 10am on Saturday. Naively, I managed to forget that Oliver has had a few problems with punctuality in the past, and without a working phone at the moment, we had to leave without those two. Don't worry though, after a few hours we managed to meet up in Gongju.

The bus wasn't as smooth as it could be. There was no direct bus from Gwangju to Gongju so we made a detour in Daejon. We arrived around 12 in Daejon, starving and ready for some food. Unfortunately, starvation had been a common feeling for me because I had spent the last 4 days carb free. FYI: That shit is stupid and it sucks and I gave up later that night. We went to a diner and I started to realize my "Living in Korea" seniority when I could explain all of the different foods and read the menu, unlike half of our newbie party. After eating literally 1/3rd of what I was served (because rice a.k.a. a giant ball of carbs, is the predominant staple in Korean food..ugh) we headed back on a bus to Gongju. Both bus rides were filled with chatter between me and my new friend, Emilie, who will make a lovely new addition to my friendship circle. She's also from North Carolina like Holli (don't worry Holli, you could never be replaced!)

Our first stop was the Royal Tombs of Sangra-si. Here is the copy and pasted 411 on this spot: Some of the tombs were discovered in the early 20th century, although the most famous of the tombs, the Tomb of King Muryeong, was accidentally discovered while performing maintenance on the other tombs in 1971. The discovery proved to be one of the biggest finds in the history of Korean archeology. The tomb contained some 2,906 artifacts, 12 of which were designated National Treasures.

While this is obviously interesting, we managed to be more in awe of the talking information headphone machine things that we got in the museum and the fact that the outside of the tombs looked like boobs. See here:

I kid, I kid. By the time we finished this the day was basically over and we finally met up with Oliver and Emily at the Bus Terminal's coffee shop. A place that I can now say is the first establishment I've ever been kicked out of in Korea. Apparently if you don't order an adequate number of hot beverages you are not allowed to hang out there, bastards.

Next on our agenda was finding a place to plop our packs down and call home for the night. As I may have mentioned, Love Motels are thee place to stay in Korea. They don't really have many real hotels here, just multiple tall buildings with flashy signs on the top and the well known Love Motel symbol on top. I don't even know what it is, something like three wavy fire-like smoke signs. I found an example from google:

Anyways, as you may know, I am the master negotiator in Korea. I think you're not supposed to be able to negotiate most things, but I use my favorite go-to phrase, "Gaka Chuseyo" and manage to get something out of it every time. But after three different motels, this was a no go. Oliver, who has witnessed my negotiation skills in and outside of the workplace was the most disappointed in me, though we still managed to get a decent price. So much so that we even sprung and only put TWO people per room instead of four. That means we all got to sleep on an actual bed. This was definitely one of our plusher trips.

Finally after that was all settled we headed to find food. Once again I was reminded of how grateful I am for Gwangju and its prevalence of food everywhere. And not just any food, really good food. We must have walked around this neighborhood for a good 20 minutes until we found a place that served food that we wanted. We opted for Bossam, which is a steamed pork that I had recently discovered at this great restaurant downtown. It comes with a delicious version of Kimchi that is actually more sweet than the usual kind. You also get the regular side dishes and you just wrap it up and eat it. I even learned how to say how I wanted it prepared (without fat) a few weeks ago, but this Gongju version just wasn't as great. Dom was especially disappointed with the flavor. Thus, I was left feeling unsatisfied and my confidence in my food recommendations had been shattered. I did what any logical person dealing with this sort of guilt and shame would, and drank away my sorrows. Or I just drank because it was dinner with a bunch of my friends and I wanted to. Either way, I failed at my little no-drinking goal. Woops. Self-control has never been one of my strong points. So we had a few more at a different bar, and finally ended up at a Noraebang (once again, we all saw this coming). Katie got to experience her first Noraebang and I got to hang out with two girls (Emilie and Katie) who get drunk faster than anyone I have met in Gwangju. So much so that both of them managed to fall up/down some steps. Regardless of their clumsiness, it was a good time had by all, and we all were in bed by 1:00am ready for day two.

By 10am we headed out. We stopped and grabbed some infamous "Toast" breakfast sandwiches and walked across a long bridge to the Gongsanseong Fortress. We walked all around this fortress, catching some great views of the river that it was on. There were also a handful of interesting temple like buildings and even an old, and waterless lotus pond.

A close up, side view of the pond

After a good couple hours of walking around there (with multiple rest stops) we decided to head to Dom's most anticipated portion of our trip: The Pavilion. This was by far one of the most beautiful spots I have had the pleasure of seeing. The trees were all sorts of amazing colors, the greenhouse was lovely, the Koi fish were huge and gorgeous in the river, and the amazing weather made it all a perfect afternoon. Of course, the 4 sappy single girls couldn't help but think of how necessary a man and a picnic basket were for this particular trip, but we made it work. Oh, and Oliver's farts and obnoxious behavior also reminded us that being single ain't so bad. (Love you Oliver!)

We made it back to the bus station around 3:30 absolutely pooped. The crisp fresh fall air and day of walking had exhausted every last member of our group. Our weekend was over, and I think we all could agree that it was lovely to get out of Gwangju for a bit. On the bus ride home I tried to imagine what it would be like if I was actually moving home in a few weeks instead of visiting and I couldn't even imagine it. I need to start writing a list of things to do next year just so I'll be able to leave in 2011 feeling satisfied with my time here, because I still feel like it's just beginning.

Oh, one last thing. HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD. I love you. I'll try to stay up to call you, but if I can't, I'll be there soon for our ice fishing extravaganza!

P.S. All past pictures updated! Yay!