Traveling to Daejeon via Gongju, Tour Day 1, WTRD 6 of 49

Today's Itinerary:

Day 2 9/9( Sat): Seoul - Gongju - Daejeon (B,L,D) After breakfast, meet your tour guide in the hotel lobby. Leave for Gongju, the ancient capital of Baekje Kingdom. Experience a tea ceremony with a Buddhist monk at Magoksa Temple, a representative temple surrounded by a mountains and rivers in Chungcheongnam-do Province. Next, visit the Tomb of Muryeong King, known for its wall painting drawn on the number six tomb. Then continue to Gongsanseong Fortress, a mountain castle which was established during the Baekje Period. After dinner, check in at your hotel and spend the rest of the day at your leisure. Accommodation: Daejeon Interciti Hotel or Similar (5-Star)

Today, we start our tour around the South Korean Peninsula.  Our tour guide's name is Mark, and our driver for just today is Mr. Lee.  We are traveling in a Hyhundai Mini Bus with lots of room for the five of us.  Our fellow travelers include Victoria from Illinois, Ole from Denmark, and Gary from Canada.  It is a three hour drive from Seoul to our first destination of Gongju.

Our bus travels quickly in the southbound carpool lane of five.  It is foggy as we leave Seoul passing through commercial and residential areas into more open areas where there are greenhouses and light industry.  Most of the land around the freeway is developed. 

When we exit the freeway, we take a road through the lush countryide, through farm fields, greenhouses, rivers, and wooded hillsides up to the the Temple Magoska in Chungcheongnam-do Province.  The original temple was built about 1100 CE, but has been restored and rebuilt during periods when the Japanese wanted to rule over Korea and because time takes its toll. Today is no exception, the work goes on.

Replication of traditional mud and brick construction

We pass through the gates from the secular world.  First is protected by guards,  second gate by Kings of North, East, West and  South who stomp on the demons that try to enter.  

Demon is being crushed and killed by King's Boot

The traditional pagoda architecture with carved wood work and paintings are impressive. 

We learn that this sight will become a World Heritage site in the near future.  Unlike the silent temple we visited yesterday there is a monk chanting and beating a single drum through a loud speaker system in the lower temple. There are few people bowing in the lower temple. 

In the upper temple, the monk is sitting on the floor beating methodically on a drum.  The only other person besides a monk and our group is a single woman who is a volunteer assistant.

Lotus Flower Lanterns with Donation Pledges Hang From Ceiling

Only symbolic bag of rice on this sideboard.

After our visitation of the temple, we are hosted by a monk to a tea ceremony, conversation, and the making of a wood bead bracelet.

Our monk wears grey, and the reason because it is in the middle, center of the white black spectrum.  According to the monk and our guide, it is balanced strength.

This was a very enjoyable and calming experience.  We leave refreshed, ready for lunch, and the rest of the day's adventures.

Rice with side dishes to add to the rice - Loved the Lotus Root & Mashed Pumpkin

We are in the heat of the day.  It is humid.  An air-conditioned room and a soft bed is appealing, but no our adventure picks up steam.  We have entered Gongjui. Early in first century CE the Korean Peninsula had three Kingdoms, Goguryeao, Silla, and Baekje.  We are Gongjui and the ancient kingdom of Baekje.  Between 18 CE when the kingdom was founded and the fall of the Baekji Kingdom in 660 CE. During the golden era of this kingdom between 501-523, a wise and handsome king ruled, King Mureyong.

bust of what has been imagined as his likeness, is a compilation of facial features from 10 people from his birth place.  He was extremely tall, close to seven feet and shoe size comparable to contemporary basketball players.  His crown has intricate side-wings, made of gold.

Unlike many of the royal tombs in this province, that were ransacked by invaders,  King Mureyong and his Queen's tomb was undiscovered until 1971 when it was accidentally found while fixing drainage in the area to the other tombs.  Some 4,600 artifacts were excavated from the tomb.  The National Gongju National Museum is now home to these artifacts.  The organic materials in the tomb including coffin and remains had deteriorated and almost perished, but the metals remained in tact.

Looking into tomb: Memorial tablets, auspicious animal, Kings coffin on the right, Queens on the Left.

Kings golden wing crown pieces

Artifacts inside the tomb, positions as they were found.  Foot rest to the left, head rest tot he right.

From the Museum, we move on to the burial grounds where the tomb was found.  There is a museum here as well that replicates the interior of the tombs, as the actual tombs are closed for preservation purposes.

But before we start the climb up to the tombs, we join the audience for a dramatic production of a Romeo and Juliette type love story, but not with the sad ending.  It is more of a comedy.  Russ is selected to play the part of a decoy.

At the end of the performance, everyone is happy with the outcome, and a celebration follows.

When the performance was over we investigated the replicated tomb:

Mark explains the numeric patterning in the tomb's brick structure.

Lotus flower motif indicates Buddhism Belief

We climb to the mountain top and view the sites of the tombs.

The tombs are the rounded mounds looking down the mountainside.  We descend from the mountain just in time to climb another mountain into the Gongsanseong Fortress that overlooks the Gongeumgang River that runs through the province.    The Fortress is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The Baekje were fine archers and this was their main means of protection.  We try our hand at archery.  The kingdom would have fallen much sooner had we been the archers.

Mark demonstrates

Russ takes aim

I manage one hit in the yellow.

 

































I could say that this family coming down from the top of the fortress wall were appalled at our archery attempt, but in fact big brother grabs little brother's hand and moves him away from an excavation tractor that has just fired up.

Because of the size and proximity of the river to the sea, the Baekje were mighty sailors.  Looking down from atop the mountain, the protectors of the province could spot enemy invaders easily.  On September 22, there is a lantern festival on the river.  Some of the props for this festival are being readied for the festival.

100,000 people live in Gongju, today.

We ended our day with a Korean BBQ, Pork Belly with side dishes.  The wait server/chef makes sure that the pork is well done.

To say that we were tired after this day is an understatement.  We were exhausted, but happily filled with new and novel experience.

All is Well With the Worrall Travel Rs in Daejeon, Korea.

Essential Seoul, WTRD 5 of 49, September 8, 2017

This morning, we awoke at 4:00 am.  It's getting better!  By tomorrow morning, we hope to sleep until at least 6:00.  From 4:00 until 9:00 we had a leisurely morning until our tour guide Ms Hana and driver picked us up for the Essential Seoul Tour.  There were three of us on the tour, Russ, me, and a Polish-Now New Zealand woman, Ewa.

Buddhist Temple

Our first stop was the largest Buddhist Temple in Seoul, Jogye Temple, The buildings and grounds were beautiful and well kept. 

 The Golden Buddhas presided over a temple  filled with women (one man) sitting silently on mats reading prayers or contemplations.

Women in grey smocks carried in food donations on their heads for the monks and were busy organizing the food and laying it along large side bars on both sides of the temple.

After seeing this temple and many others from around Southeast Asia, we decided if we were going to be monks, it would be from this well organized temple.  In many of the other countries, monks are required to beg for food and faithful donate to them either by leaving offerings in the temple or handouts as the monks pass through town.  This temple looked very well stocked.

Population

Our guide told us that 50% of Korean population is Catholic, Christian, or Buddhists.  The other 50% are not religious.  South Korea's population is approximately 50,000,000 million people.  Ten million people live in Seoul, but on any given day, there are usually 25,000,000 million people (working commuters, tourists, dignitaries) in Seoul.  Land is a premium, apartments are small and expensive, and they are packed with people.

Main Palace - Changing of the Guard

Changdeokgung Palace 

Built in 1405 by King Taejong, Changdeokgung Palace was designed to blend harmoniously with the natural environment. While much of the complex was destroyed by fire in the Japanese invasion in 1592, it was rebuilt in 1609 and has since been restored to its original splendor. The main palace of Gyeongbokgung was also destroyed in 1593, and for 300 years beginning in 1609, Changdeokgung served as the seat of power while Gyeongbokgung was being rebuilt. It served as the seat of royalty again in 1907 by King Sunjong, the last king of Korea.

UNESCO designated Changdeokgung Palace a World Heritage site in 1997 for its unique palace architecture. It’s the best preserved of Seoul’s five remaining Joseon palaces, with the royal family residences, public area and gardens open to visitors.  From Viator Tours

As we approached the main palace, we inquired about the men and women wearing traditional Korean clothing walking about amongst others in contemporary clothing.  Hana told us that there are many shops in Korea that rent the traditional clothing for the day.  If tourists wear the costumes, they get free admission to the Palaces.  The cost of the costume exceeds Palace admissions, but everyone loves to have themselves photographed in the palaces wearing the  traditional clothing.  Everyone wearing traditional dress whether Korean, Japanese, Europeans, young, old, all looked like they were having loads of fun preening in front of cameras.

As we passed through Gwanghwamun Gate and back in time with a tour of Gyeongbok Palace, former residence of Joseon Dynasty royalty, a group of girls wearing traditional dress were posing for photos.

I stood beside the official photographer and snapped a few photos at the end of the session when the kids were growing weary.  The girl with her hands up to her cheeks came up to me and indicated that she wanted to see the photo I took.  I showed her.  She put her hands and arms over her head to form a heart, and said in English "I love you".

Russ and I posed for a photo as well after the changing of the guards.

We spent most of the morning wandering the palace grounds, peeking into buildings and trying to imagine life in this palace.

Hana told us about the Korean written language.  

It was in this building, that the King assembled language experts to develop a new written language called Hangul.  It would not be complicated like the Chinese system nor pictographs.  It would be a phonetic based writing.  There are 24 letters in Hangul, 14 consonants and 10 vowels (unlike English where one vowel may have 2-3 sounds), each of the vowels in Hangul has one unique sound.

After our palace visit, we waited for our driver to pick us up outside one of the side gates.  There was this funny little sculpture on which children love to climb.  We got a kick out of it, although it is questionable that the symbolism of this sculpture is really meant for children.   See what you think.  I can think of a couple of cheeky political captions.

Our guide took us to a nice little restaurant in a back alley for lunch.

Our individual plates had some meat, fried egg, carrots , and greens.  We were to dump in sticky rice, mix it all together, and eat it with different garnishes and sauces.  It was very tasty.

Following lunch, we had an opportunity to try on Korean traditional clothing.  Russ wears a hat that is designated for a King.

After posing and dancing around in our costumes, we were driven to the top of one of the highest points in Seoul, Bugak Skyway atop Bugak Mountain for panoramic views of the city.  It was a hazy day, so visibility was not terrific, but it gave us a sense of how densely populated Seoul is.

The last historical visit of the day was in a section of town where 600 year old restored and privately owned homes were built, Bukchon Hanok Village, well-preserved traditional Korean buildings.

Ying, Yang Architecture

The last stop of the day was in the largest shopping area in Korea.  It was filled with stores and consumers.  Consumerism for cars, cosmetics, designer clothes, and just about everything else has to be off the charts here. There were dozens of blocks of high end stores.

Tomorrow, we start our 8 Day Tour around the Korean Peninsula.

All is Well With the Worrall Travel R's in South Korea.