Temple Sunrises and Harbors

Several weeks ago, it was a national holiday so we had a rare long weekend. In Korea, if a national holiday falls on a Thursday, so be it. You will have Thursday off, work on Friday, then proceed to the normal weekend. It's most unfortunate. However, this particular holiday fell on a Monday. So on Friday night, around 11 pm we met for a very long bus ride down to the southern part of Korea. 

If you look at the handy map of South Korea, we were in Jeollanam-Do, which is the southwest part of Korea. Seoul is in the northwest, where the blue circle with a number 1 is. It took us about 6 hours to drive from Seoul to Jeollanam-do. 

Do you see the province right above Jeollanam-Do that's called Jeollabuk-Do? Here's your Korean lesson for the day. "Do" (pronounced like doe not do) is the word for province. Buk is the word for North and nam is the word for South. So they are really called North Jeolla Province and South Jeolla Province. The two provinces used to be one province (along with Jeju-do) in the 14-1700's, but then they got split up. 

Anyway. We were on the bus for a long time in the middle of the night so that we could catch a sunrise from the Hyang Il Am temple. We got to the temple site around 4:30 and the sunrise wasn't until 5:45 or something like that. I went with one of my friends (another Sarah, just to keep things confusing) so we started the hike up the mountain about 25 minutes before the sunrise. It was quite the adventure getting up the mountain. We had no clue what we were in for, and it was pretty dark. We ended up encountering the monks at morning prayers/chants, which was slightly awkward. 

After the awkward monk incident, we went back down the mountain a little bit to wait for the sun to rise. Everything was very quiet and still. 

It was a misty morning, which was lovely in the pre-dawn light, but not so lovely when it came time to see the actual sun. 

There were some early morning fishing boats out on the harbor. I hope they stopped for a moment to appreciate the sunrise. 

Unfortunately, due to the clouds and the mist, this was about as spectacular as the sunrise got. I must say, after driving all night and climbing up 400+ stairs/a mountain at the crack of dawn, I was a little disappointed. 

The temple was apparently burned down relatively recently, so there were piles of rocks and other building materials. I believe that these are shingles, although I have no clue what they say. 

At one of the lookout points, there was a building with the 12 zodiac signs on it. These are the ones that correspond to the year you were born. I guess that you were supposed to toss a coin and make a wish. If your coin landed on the symbol representing your year, you would get your wish and have good luck. Or something like that. 

These are a few of the 400 steps we climbed to get to the top. It was almost harder coming down, because they were a little narrow and uneven. 

Some of the staircases were hidden around corners that didn't really look like corners. When we were climbing up in the dark, we got really confused. There was a Korean woman who was ahead of us, and she was also confused. We tried our best to communicate, but we ended up climbing this tree and wall, only to discover that it didn't get us any closer to our goal. So we climbed back down again, by the light of my trusty iPhone, and we managed to find the corner that didn't look like a corner. It was an adventure. 

There were lots of fun dragons to be encountered on the descent!

There were also some beautiful flowers. Azaleas are EVERYWHERE in Korea. 

I was happy to discover a whimsical lamp post on the way down. I didn't discover it until the trip down the mountain, because it was not lit in the dark of night. Oh, well. A girl can dream, right? 

This was the entry gate to the temple. We were told to climb up a hill and we'd see the gate. We were told we couldn't miss it. What we weren't told is that after the gate there were approximately 385 more steps to conquer before we could get a decent sunrise view. 

When we came back down, we were completely exhausted. Neither of us had slept on the bus, and we had another three full days of traveling. Our tour guide offered us the change to stay in this little hotel for a few hours at a reduced cost, so that is how we came to stay in this charming little house for about four hours. We slept in Korean style bedding, which basically means on a blanket on the floor. But we were so tired that it felt rather wonderful!

After the sunrise mountain climbing and a little bit of sleep, we got on the bus again and drove to Yeosu Harbor. We were going to take a ferry to a little island and spend an afternoon and a night on the island. There were lots of cute fishing boats floating around the harbor. 

Each one of those little umbrellas is a stand with street food. Each street food vendor is selling the exact same thing. I don't know how they all stay in business. 

Yeosu will hold the World Expo next year. I don't know how it happened to be in China this year and Korea next year, but it did. They are working on building new infrastructure for the event. And, because this is Korea, there were giant statues of adorable mascots ready to be posed with. 

There was an ajuma on this boat. She came out of the little cabin and was doing something on deck, but I couldn't see what she was doing very clearly. 

There was a beautiful bridge and view across Yeosu harbor. Our tour bus let us off on this side of the harbor and we walked across the bridge and through the town. 

As you can imagine, sea food is a booming industry in Yeosu. There were several piles like this scattered around town. They are leftover mussel shells. This particular pile was a good 2.5 feet tall. 

Another matter of culinary interest is the road side produce stands. If you buy your produce from a normal grocery store, chances are you got ripped off. All of these little old men and women set up trucks, carts, boxes and bins by the side of the road or on sidewalks and they sell their vegetables. I grew up in a farming community, so this wasn't an unfamiliar sight. I can tell you that the best peaches in Southeastern Indiana come from the man by the big oak tree on 101. What did intrigue me were the giant piles of garlic. There is a stand near my school in Seoul that I need to get a picture of. There are piles of garlic that look more like the giant round hay bales than they do piles of garlic. It's rather amazing. It smells rather amazing too. Most days ;)

Stay tuned for more adventures in Jeollanam-Do!