Advertisement
Published: October 15th 2011
Edit Blog Post
Gwangju Kunsthalle
No idea why it's German, but it's an art gallery I used a three-day holiday weekend at the beginning of October to take a trip to the city of Gwangju with 3 friends. Gwangju is about 3 hours southwest of Daegu. Originally we had wanted to go to Jin Island (Jindo), but we decided if the weather were bad we’d have little to do. We decided to go to Gwangju instead because it seemed close to the beach and near a lot of islands. We’d never been to that area of Korea, so this was our chance. We left Saturday morning and arrived in the early afternoon. We dropped our bags off at the hostel and then set off to sightsee around the city.
Gwangju is advertised as being artsy. It did seem artsier than Daegu. There is a huge art gallery (which we didn’t go to), and an ‘art street’ which had shops, some murals, and artisans selling things along the street. There was conveniently a festival going on when we were there, so we saw some interesting performances on stages set up on the street (including K-pop band MBlaq). Gwangju is a bit smaller than Daegu, population-wise, but seemed to have just as big a shopping district, and
it was definitely more crowded in the streets when walking (which made me appreciate Daegu). Saturday night we attempted to see Contagion in a movie theater, but the tickets were sold out, so we went to a DVD room (aka DVD bang) instead. It was my first time. DVD rooms are rooms that groups can rent to watch a movie on a big screen. They are often also a place for young couples (who still live with their parents) to get some “privacy” if you know what I mean. It was really comfy and nice, but it was about $6.50, which is a little expensive to watch an old movie.
Sunday was meant to be our day-trip day. Since I was the only who had done any research (surprise surprise), I presented our group with the options—Boseong green tea fields, various islands, a couple of port cities, or a bamboo forest. Boseong seemed the most practical because we could then stop somewhere else on the way back. Our hostel owner recommended for us to go to Suncheon Bay for the sunset after the tea fields.
Boseong is the most well-known region in Korea where green tea is grown.
Singing Performance
The woman is wearing traditional Korean clothes (hanbok) However, Koreans don’t really seem into green tea, and they are even less into black tea. This was one disappointment—I expected Koreans to be crazy about tea, and they’re just not. They do have a lot of other herbal teas though.
We took a bus from the Gwangju bus terminal to Boseong (about 2 hours I think) and then a taxi to the tea fields. They were nice and scenic. It was interesting to see what tea plants (or bushes) actually look like. There were lots of Koreans taking posed pictures in them. I’m not going to deny that it was pretty funny watching women in high heels hiking hundreds of steps. It was also ideal ‘couple’s outfits’ territory. One of the most enjoyable games my foreigner friends play is spotting couples who wear identical outfits, down to the shoes. Yes, it’s gag-inducing, but I think I prefer ‘couple’s clothing’ to women wearing really impractical clothes/shoes.
We ate lunch and decided to move on to this ‘Suncheon’ place. We knew nothing about it, aside from what the hostel guy told us. We stared at the map, found it, and got a bus ticket there. It took longer than
Food!
Can't remember what it was, it did not match the picture we expected, since there was a traffic jam in the middle of nowhere. We were expecting that this ‘bay’ would be near the town. We hoped we could get some beers and sit and watch the sunset, eat dinner, and head back. Nope. As we came into town on the bus we saw a sign, “Suncheon Bay-8km” the direction we had just come from. That did not bode well. We took a taxi anyway. We knew we were in the right place from the signs when we got out of the taxi, but we were in a flat wetland area surrounded by mountains. The area was really popular with Koreans, but we weren’t sure why. There was no ‘bay’ in sight. Oh well. It was scenic I guess. It was just a really long bus trip for a so-so sight. When we got back to Gwangju that night, we got our Contagion tickets and then ate dinner at a Nepalese/Indian restaurant. It was really good! I want to go back and eat there all the time. Then we went to see our movie (it was in English luckily) and went back to our hostel to crash.
Monday, we were
Kimchi Jiggae
Kimchi soup--better than it sounds. There's tofu in it too (also better than it sounds). pretty tired of traveling, so we slept in late, checked out of our hostel, and stopped at the Gwangju May 18 Massacre Memorial on the way to the bus terminal. I don’t know much about it, but apparently in 1980, the Korean government had just had a coup d’etat and wasn’t exactly allowing freedom and democracy. Students led a protest, which was eventually joined by a wide range of the population of Gwangju. Over about a week, the army tried to contain it and killed protesters in a variety of ways. The death toll is officially around 200, but some estimates are actually between 1-2,000. We got a taxi to the bus terminal, got our bus tickets, ate lunch, and came back to Daegu. The food court in the Gwangju bus terminal is pretty good. I think Gwangju would be just as good a city to live in as Daegu. Tourism-wise, it’s also similar to Daegu in that there aren’t a lot of things to see in the city. In the surrounding areas, there’s plenty to see, it’s just a lot of travel by bus. Next time I’d like to see the bamboo forest.
Life update: My life has
gone really quickly lately. I’m still trying to go to salsa dancing on Saturday nights if I’m in town. I bought a used acoustic guitar, and I’m trying to play that a bit every day. I restarted paid Korean class once a week, and I still go to other Korean class once a week. I’ve been out and about on the weekends trying to make use of the good weather. Last, most of my good friends have decided they won’t stay in Daegu next year, so I’m trying to spend time with them while they’re still here. School—we’re over half-way through the semester already, and soon we have a week of speaking tests. I have very few teaching weeks left. At the beginning of November, I have to decide whether to renew with my middle school, or if I want to move to a high school. Too much is going on!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.067s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 12; qc: 29; dbt: 0.0362s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Coach Kathy
non-member comment
nice blog, maybe the Koreans like Suncheon "Bay" a lot because there is so nothing - everywhere else is packed full of stuff...at least that is the outsider view!