Weary Wednesday

We decided to rebook our hotel for another night in Yeosu, partly so we didn't have to carry our bags around with us until we got to the next city and we still had a lot to see. We went searching for coffee again, having scoped out some places the night before. One of them had said it was open at 9am, and when we checked it at 9:20 it was dead silent. We did find a hof and coffee place (hof is like bar food), but I could barely pronounce the menu, and I didn't see "kopi" anywhere, so we jsut tried to order coffee. It came black about 10 minutes later (mind you there was one other person in the place). I asked for milk, but didn't understand what she responded with. So we were brought a whole cup of steamed milk. Luckily she didn't charge us for it (milk on the menu was a whopping W3,200 per cup), but it was barely considered coffee

(Side note: if you ever decide to visit Korea and love your morning cup of coffee, don't be fooled by the fact that there are Starbucks here and they serve coffee at bars. A lot of places will serve "kopi", which is really just instant coffee. And yes, there are Starbucks, but be prepared to pay about $3 more per cup for anything you order. The grocery stores really only sell the instant stuff, though they also sell coffee makers. And the places that do sell "real" coffee rarely open before 10am. All in all, be prepared for a less than invigorating cup.)

And because the place we went to was really a bar and not a coffee house, we decided to go to Lotteria for breakfast (It's the Korean version of McDonalds. They have shrimp burgers with avacado sauce, as well as squid rings and a kimchi burger. They also have chicken wings and french fries.). It's just as well, because we did a lot of climbing on Wednesday, and I wouldn't have made it on a pastry breakfast. 

We caught a bus to the island of Dolsando. In both of our guide books, it looked like a small island just a little larger than the one we had walked around the night before. In actuality, it's the ninth largest island in the country, and it took almost an hour to get to the other side via the bus. At the southern tip of the island is a monastery and hermitage called Hyang-iram or Hyangil-am. It's a steep trek up the side of a mountain to get to the hermitage, but there's some amazing architecture there.

 

The temple is situated at the edge of part of a cliff. One building even has 75 stone turtles around it, each with a W10 coin on it's back:

The inside of the temples were covered with lotus images and delicate wood carvings. I wish I knew more about Budhist symbolism.

After looking around at the temple and catching our breath, we made the very steep climb up to the top of Geumosan (323m). We made it to the top of the peak in about half an hour, with a 360 view of the island that was misty and beautiful.

Apparently James and I were the only ones who were in the mood for climbing, and we spent a good 45 minutes by ourselves at the top of the island.

We took another path back down, which was really more of a suggestion of a place to walk amoung the rocks.

We made it back to the hotel after I tried the local kimchi (and needed to buy a bottle of water afterwards. The guide said their gatkimchi has a mustard taste and even if you don't usually like kimchi you might like the mildish ones here. They were wrong.) We found a samgypsal place in town (strips of pork put on a lowered skillet in the table),

that James had been craving, and then wandered around Yeosu for a bit before heading to bed.

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).