As I'm guessing anyone who reads this blog already knows, I love to keep busy, but fall here in Seoul was even busier than usual. We packed a lot in this autumn but since covering it all individually would result in probably 10 short blog posts, I figured I'd consolidate it all into one post with lots of photos. So here we go!
On September 25, my friends and I booked a tour of Pocheon in the Gyeonggi province. The tour included multiple stops, including the Pocheon Art Valley, a former quarry-turned-artistic space; Herb Island, the largest botanical herb garden in Korea; Hantangang Sky Bridge; and the Sansawon traditional liquor museum.
Pocheon Art Valley
Josh, Ailbhe, Peter, me, Cáitlin, Chloë, and Mattie at the Art Valley
Pretty tunnel at the art valley
Exploring the garden at Herb Island
Herb bibimbap for lunch at Herb Island (While beautiful, I struggled with this because it was basically a bowl of dry leaves with some rice underneath. Not my favorite bibimbap by any means.)
Umbrella art at Herb Island
Posing with the umbrellas
At the Hantangang Sky Bridge
View from the bridge
Urns full of soju at the Sansawon liquor museum
Sansawon liquor museum
I stumbled across a random picture of the Pocheon Art Valley one day and that was what inspired this trip, and I'm grateful I found the picture because I'm sure you can tell that it was a great day.
MaryBeth arrived on September 28, and she was here until October 10. We did so much together that her visit has its own blog post, so feel free to check out our adventures to Jeju Island, the DMZ, and much more here. The day she left, however, happened to be a day we had off from school, so I took the opportunity to check out Changgyeonggung Palace, which is one of the smaller royal palaces and stays open so that you can see the buildings lit up at night.
Changgyeonggung Palace lit up at night
To Korea's eternal credit, many of the ancient buildings here are constantly being restored (because they have so many of them!), so Changgyeonggung is under construction right now.
I love the detail in the traditional Korean painting style
The following weekend was Peter's birthday, and his birthday activity of choice was going for a hike. I love Peter and I was looking forward to celebrating his birthday but a hike is rarely on my to-do list (especially considering he had chosen a relatively difficult one) so I went to Olympic Park, down in the southeast corner of the city, to see the fall flower blooms during the day while my friends were hiking, and then I hosted a little pregame party for Peter at my apartment that evening where we had cake and sang him happy birthday before we went out to celebrate.
Yellow Cosmos Field at Seoul Olympic Park
Selfie with the pink muhly grass in Olympic Park
My birthday was that Thursday (I am officially thirty, flirty, and thriving!) and my students sang happy birthday to me at school and gave me cards they had made, and then my friends went to pub trivia with me that night (where we came in first place, in case you were wondering).
Birthday cards from my students
Ringing in 30 by winning at pub trivia
We celebrated more on Friday with cake at my apartment and then we went out for noraebang, aka Korean karaoke, and had a ton of fun.
On Saturday, I made the trip down to Suwon, a suburb of Seoul that is famous for the Hwaseong Fortress, a UNESCO world heritage site that was constructed in the late 1700s. I went because I wanted to see the media art show that they were projecting onto one of the gates of the fortress, but the fortress itself is really, really cool. The wall has largely stayed intact and it reminds me of an extremely miniature version of what I imagine the Great Wall of China to look like. If you find yourself in Seoul with enough time for a side trip, I highly recommend (The public transportation here is absolutely incredible and Suwon is actually connected to Seoul by subway, so it only took me about an hour and 15 minutes to get to the fortress).
Suwon Hwaseong Fortress at night
Media art show projected on one of the fortress gates
The following weekend, Keir, Becca and I got up early and waited in line for an hour to get tickets to see the secret garden at Changdeokgung Palace. The secret garden is only accessible on a guided tour and we had never been to that palace before. It, too, is a UNESCO world heritage site because it's the best-preserved of the five grand palaces built by the Joseon Dynasty in Seoul, despite having been built in the 15th century. The Japanese destroyed so much during their occupation of Korea, including all of the palaces; Changdeokgung is the best-preserved and it's still only about 30% original. We were very fortunate to visit the secret garden in the fall because the foliage there was beautiful.
In the secret garden at Changdeokgung
We loved this big yellow tree :)
At Changdeokgung
After we explored Changdeokgung, we had lunch at a cafe and then I took the subway down to Seoul Forest, a park in the southeast section of the city, to see some more fall foliage. I am all about the colorful leaves!
Flowers and foliage at Seoul Forest
Pretty reflecting pool
Ginkgo trees in Seoul Forest
Just a heads up, the leaf pictures are going to keep coming
I met up with Keir and Becca again that evening for tacos, and I was home in bed by 11:30pm. I woke up the following morning to some frantic text messages asking if I was okay, because the Halloween crowd crush in Itaewon happened the night before. I had heard that Itaewon always gets crazy around Halloween, so I had always planned to avoid it. It's so tragic and I think they still don't really understand how it happened, but I can only count my lucky stars and hope that nothing like it ever happens again.
The first weekend in November, I went to Cheong Wa Dae, aka the Blue House, which was historically the home of the South Korean president, ever since the first South Korean president was elected in 1948. South Korea elected a new president in March, and he announced he was "giving [the Blue House] back to the people" and decided to live/work elsewhere in Seoul, so it's still a novelty because it's open to the public for the first time in 74 years. I was completely underwhelmed by the inside of the main building, because they didn't turn it into a recreation of what it might have looked like when the president lived/worked there; it just looks like somebody recently moved out, to the point that I was hilariously tromping through empty rooms, assembly line-style, with a few hundred Koreans. But the grounds are spectacular and gave me lots more opportunity for leaf photos!
Cheong Wa Dae, former home and office of the South Korean president, and known as the Blue House because of the blue tile roofs
The inside wasn't quite as impressive as the outside
Beautiful foliage on the Blue House grounds
On November 12, a group of us took a trip out of the city on a guided overnight trip. Stops included Jeonju, the Juknokwon Bamboo Forest in Damyang, and Naejangsan National Park. We left early Saturday morning and arrived in Jeonju around lunchtime and immediately made a beeline for bibimbap, since Jeonju is the ancestral home of bibimbap, and Jeonju-style bibimbap is still the most popular in Korea. I got a hot version with bulgogi and a raw egg on top that cooks as you stir it around in the hot rice and it was one of the best I've ever had. We also had cheesy kimchi pancakes that were so good, we ordered seconds.
I rarely take photos of my food but this one earned it
After lunch, we explored the Jeonju hanok village. A hanok is a traditional Korean house with a tiled roof, and there are hanok villages scattered all over Korea. There are several in Seoul and it's always fun to wander around one and feel like you've gone back in time. That said, the one in Jeonju is one of the largest/nicest I've seen so far.
Jeonju hanok village from above
You know I had to find some foliage to pose with
Famous ginkgo tree at the Jeonju Confucian School, which is estimated to be 420 years old
Our next stop was Juknokwon Bamboo Forest in Damyang. I had wanted to visit the bamboo forest since we got here, but it's pretty remote and I couldn't find an easy way to get there—until I stumbled across this tour, so I jumped on it when I had the chance.
Juknokwon Bamboo Forest
Becoming one with the bamboo
Posing in a bamboo hamster wheel
We spent the night in Damyang, where the tour put us all in one room and Josh and Ailbhe heroically slept on the floor (on traditional Korean mats but they hardly got any sleep), and in the morning, we hit the road again, turning north towards Seoul. Our activity for that day was visiting Naejangsan National Park. When we arrived a little before 9am, we were shocked when the tour guide told us we had until 2pm to explore, considering there wasn't a whole lot to do there, but it ended up still being a really nice day.
We took the cable car up Naejangsan and while we were obviously there past peak foliage and it was kind of a gray day, it was still a lovely view
Spooky fall woods
Josh and me in Naejangsan National Park
Posing with Uhwajeong Pavilion (In case you are wondering, I am definitely underdressed in this photo because the weather forecast said it was supposed to be in the 60s and I don't think it got above 50 LOL)
The following weekend, we celebrated Ailbhe's birthday by making our own traditional Korean paper lanterns, and had a goodbye dinner with Keir and Becca before they left for their travels in Southeast Asia.
During the last weekend in November, Ailbhe and I did a quick overnight trip down to Gyeongju. Another one of the places on my must-see list (and since, shockingly, we're running out of time!), Ailbhe and I had been talking about going for literally months and finally decided to go for it. Gyeongju was the capital of the ancient kingdom of Silla (57 BC – 935 AD), one of the three kingdoms that eventually made up modern-day Korea. Gyeongju is known as "the museum without walls" because there is so much to see in such a small area, and so much of the city has been remarkably well-preserved. Ailbhe and I took the KTX high speed train down on Friday night after school, did our sightseeing on Saturday during the day, and came back on a Saturday evening train. We saw a lot in the brief time we were there though because we booked a guided tour (naturally, since it is me, after all).
Gyeongju is the site of many ancient tombs, most of which have never been explored in order to keep them intact and to not disturb the dead. These four mounds are tombs of ancient Silla kings.
Bunhwangsa Pagoda, the oldest dated pagoda from the Silla Kingdom, on the grounds of a temple complex that was built in 634
Selfie with more royal tombs at the Daereungwon Tomb Complex
One tomb, Cheonmachong, is open to visitors. It was excavated in 1974 and this is a recreation of what they found.
Golden crown found in the tomb (32.5cm tall, which is more than a foot!)
One of the stops on our tour was the Seokguram Grotto, built around 742 and said to exemplify some of the best Buddhist sculptures in the world. Photos were not allowed and I fully admit this is a stolen photo from Google but I thought it was worth including because I thought it was breathtaking (but didn't manage to take any sneaky photos of my own).
Dabotap pagoda at Bulguksa Temple, built in 751 and famous for being unusually ornate. The architecture of the Silla Kingdom is well-known for being beautiful as well as useful, as opposed to some other architecture styles that were one or the other.
Bulguksa Temple (with the archway under the stairs reinforcing the "beautiful but useful" trend)
We were home early on Saturday night and then met up again with our other friends on Sunday to have a traditional Thanksgiving dinner at a restaurant in Itaewon. As I mentioned earlier, I don't often take photos of my food and that day was no exception, but the dinner really surpassed my expectations and I deeply enjoyed it.
This weekend and last weekend have been comparatively very quiet for me. I've spent a lot of time resting in my apartment and gearing up for my next visitor: my sister will be here this week to spend a week with me here in Seoul before we venture to Thailand together during my second annual week off from school. So I'm sure there will be a rambling blog post (or two lol) in the near future!
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