Maisan & Jeonju: Our First Adventure, PART 2

After our Maisan hike, we headed over to Jeonju.  We had spent so much time hiking, that we didn't have a ton of time to spend there, but that's okay; I will be happy to come back!  Jeonju is somehwere we had visited the last time we lived here, but honestly, I feel like some of these place you cannot spend enough time in.

While there is plenty to see and do in Jeonju, the main attraction is definitely the Hanok Village.  This is where we spent our time.  This village is a throwback to the Joseon Dynasty with traditional Korean houses (called hanok houses), Gyeonggijeon Shrine where King Taejo is enshrined, along with cultural activities, presentations, and traditional foods.  Inside the Hanok Village they now they rent these golf cart type tuk-tuks that you can drive around the closed streets.  When we come back, we are definitely doing that!

Our first stop was lunch.  We were starving at this point.  Because we were in Jeonju, we had to get bibimbap.  Most of the famous Korean foods have an origin in a specific city.  Jeonju is known for its bibimbap.  Many people believe it originated with the Joseon Dynasty as their royal cuisine and then was passed down to commoners.  Whatever they history, it is delicious!  

It is made from various fresh vegetables (bean sprouts, cucumbers, mushrooms, radish, carrots, etc.) along with kimchi, rice, red pepper paste, beef, and my personal favorite -- an egg.  Beyond being delicious, it is simply beautiful.  I almost feel bad mixing it all together before eating it.

After lunch we walked around and enjoyed feeling like we stepped back in time.  

My personal favorite is the couples who come to Jeonju.  They rent the traditional Korean clothes (hanbok) and walk around in them for the day.  It is so fun!  These are just a few of the cute couples walking around.

Jeonju is also famous for their homemade choco pies.  Choco pies (similar to moon pies in the USA) are an incredibly popular treat, and PNB Bakery supposedly was one of the initial choco pie vendors.  PNB Bakery is the oldest bakery in Jeonju.  They opened in 1951 and started making Choco Pies several years later.  Their pies are still homemade and they are DELICIOUS!  Definitely worth trying if you are ever in Jeonju.  

We finally headed home after a fun filled day of hiking and eating.  I had to post one final picture of our drive home though.  This is one of the tunnels we drove through to get home.  It had rainbows projected through the entire tunnel.  Even driving home is fun!

Maisan & Jeonju: Our First Adventure, PART 1

 After being stuck in quarantine on the military base for 14 days, we couldn't wait to venture out into countryside.  Our first weekend we spent exploring Mt. Maisan & Jeonju's Hanok Village.

First, I have to say how much I have missed living overseas.  I love that I can drive 2 hours away and have a completely unique cultural experience.  There is always so much to look forward to!  The hardest part about living here is going to be making the decision about what to see when the weekend rolls around.  

Mt. Maisan

This is Mt. Maisan.  I stole this picture off the VisitKorea website because it was a little too cloudy to get a good picture myself.  Maisan means "horse ear mountain" which is a perfect description of these two mountains.  There is a main hiking trail that leads from the north side of the mountains to the south, passing through the crevice of the two mountains.  In the middle the trail branches out to the peak of one of the mountains, and to a cave on the other.  We parked on the south side of the trail so we could hike through the Tapsa Temple, one of the main reasons people visit Maisan.

Toward the beginning of the trail is this cute little pond with swan paddle boats for rent.  There were lots of families coming up to enjoy this part of the park.  

The hiking trail was beautiful!  I had to stop myself from taking a million pictures.  It was a little bit overcast and rainy, but it was still really pretty.

Here was our first real view of one of the Maisan peaks as we were getting ready to enter the Tapsa Temple area.  

The Tapsa Buddhist temple is nestled into this fun little crevice along the hiking trail.  

The Tapsa Temple is famous for its man made stone pagodas.  This is Yee Gapyong.  This statue was built to commemorate the work he did in this area.  

He came to this area around 1885 to meditate.  He lived here alone for 30 years, and during this time, he built over 100 stone pagodas by hand.  About 80 of these still remain today.  They are impressive to look at!  It is amazing to think about him lifting and moving all of these rocks.

We hiked on past Tapsa to the next Buddhist temple, Eunsusa.  

They were selling ice cream cones there for 2,000 won, so we stopped for one.  It was getting hot, so the ice cream was a welcome treat.  From there we kept hiking in between the two mountains.  That meant a LOT of stairs.

We finally reached the turn offs to the two different mountains.

We hiked up to the Hwanumgul Cave first...even more stairs!  After being in quarantine for 14 days and not moving much, this little excursion was a shock to our legs.  What we didn't realize was that we would be able to see the entrance to this cave from the other peak.  You will see this in some of the later pictures.  According to legend there are medicinal waters inside the cave that can cure infertility.  Luckily, we are done having children, so we didn't feel the need to try to drink anything.

This is the view from the cave of the female peak that we climb next.   

The hike up this peak was incredibly fun!  It started with simple stairs, but then quickly turned into slight rock climbing.  The pictures don't do the incline justice.  There were ropes along the way to hold onto though, so it wasn't dangerous at all. 

The views as we hiked were incredible. 

We were happy to finally reach the summit.  

This is the view looking back at the previous peak with the cave.  You can see it off in the distance.

We have a great translating app that we can use on signs like this one above that tells the story of the cave.  Most of the translations are pretty good.  This one, however, was quite funny!  I won't type all of it, but it started with..."A large rock appeared in the dream of a couple eager to have a very burnt old child, and a fire that rose steadily in between...."  We laughed.  I wish I could understand Korean better and didn't have to rely on translation apps.

This area is known for its ginseng, so on the way back to the car, we stopped from some fried ginseng.  I'm not sure what I expected it to taste like, but it was really good!  This just proves the theory that anything fried is delicious.

Our next stop for the day was Jeonju and the old style hanok village there.  That blogpost is coming soon!

HOME! (AKA: The Days Inn of Asan)

 We absolutely LOVE our little Korean house.  

Last time we lived here, we were stationed in Seoul.  Being one of the largest cities in the world, having a stand alone house was definitely NOT an option.  But this time, we are stationed about 50km south of Seoul near Pyeongtaek.

This is definitely considered the country side.  When you tell people you live near Pyeongtaek, most Koreans don't even know where that is.  This was nothing but rice fields and farm land until the Korean government gave this land to the US military about 15 years ago.  

The military installation we were stationed at last time we lived here, Yongsan, used to be in the country too -- many, many years ago -- after the Korean war.  Now it is prime real estate right in the center of Seoul.  The Korean government wanted the land back to turn into a park, kind of like Central Park in New York City.  So they moved the US military south to Pyeongtaek.  Back to the country.  

What is fascinating about it though, is Pyeongtaek is growing like crazy.  Samsung has already started moving factories here.  High rises are popping up all over.  I am guessing it won't be long before this military installation is prime real estate again.

It's fun for us to experience the countryside this time.  It will definitely be a change from our Seoul experience.  

Our house is located near Asan, another town people ask, "Where is that?"  What I love about this location is that we have city out the front entrance to our neighborhood and country out the back.  

It is absolutely PERFECT!

Here is a youtube link to our house.  I mostly recorded this for myself, so it's a little long and boring, but I thought it might be fun for everyone to see.  It is unbelievable to me that we have a four bedroom house here with a little bit of lawn outside.  We asked our realtor how the grass gets mowed.  He said they have a company that comes and mows it, but only four times a year!  He laughed.  He said Koreans don't understand why Americans plant grass.  He said Koreans would use the area to plant something useful...like corn.  They cannot understand why we would plant something just to cut it down every week.  I have to admit, they have a really good point!  Maybe we should start growing corn.

Toward the end of the video you can see a view from our upstairs balcony.  This gives you an idea of what the country side looks like.

These are the rice fields you drive through when you leave the neighborhood the back way.  You can see some of the city off in the distance in one of the pictures.

And here is the small country "town" that is out the front entrance to our neighborhood.  It's called Asan Techno Valley.  We love that we have a ton of restaurants and shopping within walking distance of our house.

We even found some of our favorite restaurants!  Yooganae is a Dak Galbi restaurant that we loved eating at in Seoul. We were thrilled to find it here!!!  I am not sure if it is a good thing or a bad thing that it is only a half mile walk from our new house.  

Dak Galbi is like a spicy chicken stir-fry with vegetables, rice, and Korean red pepper paste.  What we love about this specific restaurant is there is the option of adding cheese filled rice cakes to the dish.  It's amazing!  And almost all Korean restaurants come with all you can eat side dishes called banchan.  The banchan at Yooganae are some of my favorite. Mmmm....

After stuffing ourselves beyond belief, we went on to explore more of the town.  We found this fun little park on the outskirts with hiking trails.  

You find these little pagodas all around Korea, especially in hiking areas.  They are fun little rest stops where you can take a nap or have a little lunch.  My favorite part is that you take your shoes off before you enter them. 

The next night we headed back into the city with Emma for treats.  She was so excited to see her favorite pizza place!

We had one of these right by our house in Seoul. The kids would walk down to it all the time and get themselves some pizza.

We also went to dinner at a delicious steak place and grabbed some Korean bingsu for dessert.  Bingsu is like the Korean version of shave ice with fruit and ice cream.  (The traditional bingsu has sweet red beans on it.)  I completely forgot to take pictures.  I need to get better!

I think we are really going to love living here!  

Start making your reservations, because the Days Inn of Asan is ready for business.