After my term @GCCEI was over, it was another chance to go on a long family trip to visit many historic cities including Jeonju, more known for its Bibimbap, Namhae recreational forest and sacred Buddist temple, Boriam, Ulsan Daewangam Auto Camping site and Gyeongju, the city of a Millenium. Above starred destinations are the places that we visited which extends over 1,000km.
Jeonju Hanok village was the first destinations for our family trip. It’s more known for its famous Bibimbab, which is a mixed vegetable, meat and rice in a hot stone bowl. It wasn’t originally one the destination but we added this city at the last min after we found out that our beloved LA home church pastor, Jongyong Lee was visiting a local church for his testimonial worship service. A close friend visiting Korea from LA also drove all the way from Ulsan to Jeonju to surprise the pastor and meet with our family. Respectively, both family drove over 3 hours to see each other as strangers in Jeonju city as extended family far from each other’s.
After spending a night at Hanok AirBnB house, next day we met at the Jeonju Hanok village for breakfast and quick walk around the town, exploring the historic sites including Donghak Peasant Revolution memorial hall. It has turned into somewhat touristic area but still Hanok remnants created an unique environment.
Next destination was Namhae Pyunbaek Recreational Forest, which is in the second largest island after Jeju in Korea. We were fortunate to rent a cabin in such a preserved nature full of healing. Namhae was quite an exotic island and the German Village added such flavor with German style buildings and food.
But the real reason for visiting Namhae island is to check out Boriam, one of the three sacred Buddhist temple in Korea. It is on the top of the Geumsan Mountain and my Mohenic SUV had to rev up the 4×4 engine to climb up the 22 degree uphill with full load of camping equipment in the trunk.
Boriam hermitage had an amazing view overlooking the south sea and it was the very place where the founder of Joseon dynasty, Seonggye Yi came to pray. After adding my prayer for my new startup, it also became an inspirational place for me. It must have took him a month to travel from Hanyang (now Seoul) to climb up to this mountain with his followers riding horse instead of 4×4 SUV. For a moment, I put myself on his shoes and prayed for a bigger vision and dream that I can possible have.
As I mentioned above, we brought the full set of camping equipment for auto camping in Ulsan Daewangam park (video here) which was opened very recently. Camping in Korea is not like the one in US and it can be described as “Camping with WiFi”. It’s very convenient and accessible to the local businesses so you can basically purchase anything from the local stores without preparing from home.
One of the funny episodes is when we had seafood BBQ with live clams which our friend has bought from the local fish market, We were having too much meat BBQ so seafood BBQ was quite refreshing and really delicious. But still we couldn’t handle it anymore so we named one of the king clams a lucky clam after we released him in the sea wishing him not to be caught again.
Auto camping in Korea is so convenient and fun, yet can experience different flavors of each town in Korea. Daewangam Park was a great destination for convenient auto camping at a walking distance to seaside park. It was really close to local mall where they had coffee shops and restaurants in case you’d become tired of eating BBQ from your tent. At night, I could hear the waves from the nearby sea as a lullaby since the camping site was located right in front of the sea.
Our last city was Gyeongju, the city of a Millenium and we stayed at Sanjuk Hanok Village, which had a grand opening a few months ago and been introduced on TV program. Starting our Gyeongju tour from her icon, Cheomsungdae in the evening to take some photos, we fully enjoyed our visit to see many historic sites including Cheomsungdae, an astronomical observatory, Donggung Palace & Wolgi pond, Bulguksa temple and Seokguram grotto.
We also went to Gyeongju National Museum and saw the Bell of King Seongdeok, also known as the Emile Bell. It has a cruel legend that the child was thrown to the metal to produce a sound according to a monk’s dream but later the scientist has found no evidence of human bone’s substance in the bell. What is more fascinating of this bell is that it weighs 18.9 ton and the current technology cannot cast a alloy shaft that can hold the bell into the 9cm hole.
At the antique store, one of the old chest caught my eyes and I asked the owner what it was. He told me that it was a “Money (Copper Coin) Chest where the tyrant would store his cash at home. Nowadays it is a symbol of wealth and good luck among the people who are starting a new business wishing the box would be full. The story and the underlying meaning struck me so I decided to buy the chest and bring it home as a symbol of success.
Another small antique table was a small gift to my wife and to celebrate our successful family trip with a bottle of BoksoonDoga, an premium Makkeolli rice wine in the Hyangsanyo ceramic bowls. It was a priceless time with my family to visit many Korean traditional cities and I hope to add more stories as we jump on the next trip to explore Korea more.
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