Tea-time for Tuesday

We woke up uber early on Tuesday, and again had an arduous search for coffee. We had found a few places the night before, but again, most weren't open before 10, and we were on the bus for the next city by 8am. We got to Boseong (pronounced Bosawng) just before 9am, and managed to miss the 9:10 bus to the tea plantation. Since they only run once an hour, we took a cab. Apparently the only cabs in Boseong are the executive cabs. I haven't seen a meter run up that fast, even at 4am in Seoul. It was almost W10,000 to get to the plantation, about 7 minutes away. But the plantation itself was beautiful.

There were huge trees leading up to the entrance, and there was a walkway through the plants. They're more like hedges, really.

There were a few other people around the areas we were in, but for the most part, we wandered around alone.

In fact, they are hedges. They look exactly like the hedges you see in suburbia around a soccer mom's yard: low and well trimmed.

We took a side path into the woods, and found a temple-style pavillion tucked away from the main foot traffic.

We also found an area that had already been harvested, which wasn't as scenic, but still interesting.

We then had a cup of fresh tea in one of the pavillions, and had a quick lunch before heading out. There didn't seem to be much else to do in Boseong, so we took the next bus to Yeosu, which is on the southern coast, around the middle of the country.

It was early evening, so after finding a place to stay and dropping off our bags, we headed out to Odongdo island.

Along with a scenic walk across the South Sea to the island,

we found a dragon cave,

A lighthouse,

and "Musical Water Pipes" with LED lights that the kids just loved to play in.

It was a very nice evening overall, and we headed back to our hotel (passing by a mass amount of ajumas, or older Korean women, doing group yoga or something in the park).

Manic Monday

On Monday we woke up early and went in search of coffee after deciding to stay in Mokpo for another night and head for Boseong the next day. We had past a few coffee places that were open the night before, but weren't able to find one open at 9am. Most of the places we saw were open at 10am, some were noon. It still amazes me that you can own a coffee place anywhere in the world that isn't open by 7am - at the latest. Regardless, we decided to head over to Yudalsan Park, which was listed in our guidebook and we both had wanted to see. It was between us and the shore, where we wanted to take a boat out to some of the further reaching islands, so it seemed like a good idea to walk through it.

Now, when I think of a park, I think trees, grass, maybe some landscaping and places to sit and have a picnic. This is probably because that describes most of the parks I saw growing up in the flatlands of Florida. When Korea says 'park', you can almost bet that it's actually a mountain. This one happened to be about 600 meters high. This is the walkway up to the park through the city:

We missed the glass botanical gardens, mostly because when we got there it was blazing hot, and we were really just concentrating on getting up the mountain, and not what the guidebook said to look for.

We saw Madangbawi (great views and two rock carvings) and Ildeung, another peak on our way up.

We must have taken the long way around, because it took us about 3-4 hours to get to the other side to the beach. We wanted to take a boat ride out to some of the further flung islands, but the ferries only run twice a day, and we were a good 20 minute walk from the ferry terminal and only had about 3 minutes before it left. So we took a small boat tour in the bay around Yuldusan.

Then we took a bus to the Mokpo Natural History Museum. Aside from a horribly stuffed taxidermy tiger that looked like a third grade sewing project, it was actually a nice museum.

It took us forever to find a place to eat. Most places won't serve just one person -there has to be at least two people - and the first several that we tried were either too expensive, or wouldn't allow us to share a single serving of any dish (even though some of the dishes started at W30,000 each). We decided to head to bed early since we wanted to be in Boseong first thing the next day. We debated about trying to head out anyway and cancel our reservation, but having a place to keep our bags and a shower, as well as not knowing if we'd be able to find a place in Boseong, was worth staying in Mokpo another night.