We left on Tuesday night (4th of May) and by Wednesday afternoon we were in Namwon (overnight stop in Daegu). We went there since we just heard it was kind of pretty. It kind of was. Lots of old buildings and a few crumbling forts here and there. Also, there is a tiny theme park there creatively called Namwon Land which is home to about 6 rides. There used to be at more but there are some very condemned looking, rusty, old rides overgrown with vines dotted in amongst the rides still in operation. So we put on our parachutes and went for a spin on the ferris wheel.
The next day we made the trip to one of our key points of interest for the weekend - the tiny town of Sunchang. Yeah, don't worry, not many people have heard of it, since not much happens there. In fact, the only thing of any interest that does happen there is the gradual fermentation of soy sauce, soybean paste and spicy red pepper paste called gochujang. The village is well known within red pepper paste loving circles, so we just had to visit, and it felt just like going wine tasting in any wine region in Australia - all the local merchandise was on display and free for tasting at every establishment in town. We ended up buying some fermented spicy garlic that you could just about eat like popcorn it was so good, as well as some impenetrably viscous soy sauce siphoned straight (unfiltered!) from the large earthen jar that it was quietly fermenting in out in the backyard of the shop we were in at the time. For anyone who likes experiencing the subtle differences in foods, sampling 100 different kinds of it in a day is the best way to go about it. I think i can feel my arteries crusting up from all the salt in that stuff though...so after eating enough fermented goods to almost be classified as non-vegetarian sauerkraut, we pressed north from Sunchang to the city of Jeonju. We were originally thinking of making Jeonju just a stopover on the way to Seoul for our big finale, but then we found out that there was an international film festival on at the time, so we stuck around for a couple of nights.
Jeonju is one funky little town by the way, there is a street called 'Street Desirable for Walking' either because it has 11 cinemas on it (yeah, uh overkill?) or maybe because it is so overrun with pedestrians who don't actually give way to traffic that cars may as well just not bother. We caught a few international flicks, one being a particularly cool sci-fi Japanese short movie called 'To' made by the director of Appleseed, which is a decent flick in my opinion. Oh, and we even picked up a souvenir for our apartment before we left town...
we set a course for Seoul where we stayed for the night before boarding our DMZ Tour Group! Oh yeah, that's right, that day we came as close to North Korea as I can probably ever be bothered coming. We saw heaps of barbed wire. We were told not to take heaps of photos. We saw heaps of distant hills that we part of the 4km wide demilitarised zone separating north and south Korea. We saw the kind of famous train station that would connect the south to the north, were it not for the bunch of barbed wire and soldiers all over the border crossing. The idea is that WHEN unification happens, Korean cityrail (or whatever its called) will be ready. In my opinion the most interesting part of the day was when Kate and I got the chance to descend into 'tunnel 3' - which is a tunnel supposedly dug by north which starts in the north and apparently was intended to make it all the way to Seoul to stage a full scale war. The south Koreans accidentally came across it, blocked it off and have arranged a tourist friendly tunnel that leads down to where it was blocked off so that tourists can see firsthand the 'deceptive nature of the north' (good to see that these southerners don't buy into the propaganda battle). FYI - there are 4 known tunnels (known to the south anyway) but there could easily be more according to the local museum. 
All in all, the DMZ tour seemed a bit like taking a tour around the perimeter of a maximum security prison. we couldn't really see what was happening on the inside, and photos were totally restricted. The only message we kept getting was that the north is evil and will do anything to subvert southern unification efforts. I don't know much of anything about the political climate in this part of the world (or any other part come to think of it) but the outlook doesn't really sound very optimistic as far as the info we were force fed would have us believe. Oh, and thanks to the recent developments regarding the north apparently sinking the southern battleship... well we aren't too sure what to expect here anymore. We take consolation in the undisputed fact that things take a very long time to happen whenever they involve important people making decisions. Plenty of time to build a bomb shelter in my opinion.as for what we have been doing since then, it's probably a bit much for one post. Kate will fill everyone in on the rest later this week (that's the plan at least)
Till then!
//Brendan
P.S. - just to finish, here is a video my co-teacher took at the Sports Day for my school, during an activity where all the kids have to pelt a basket on a mast order to break it open like a pinata. The thing is, the things the kids are throwing are bean bags, and the sap holding the mast is ME... yeah, that's why I'm wearing the big funny hat. btw - the students are split into two teams, each with a pinata to kill, and my team won. yeah, thanks to my superior mast gripping skills. ;)
No comments:
Post a Comment