We wake up at 6:30 after a good night sleep. We get another Korean breakfast with fermented vegetables and soup in our hotel and pack our bags. We drive to Gochangeupseong Fortress. In front of the entrance is the old house of Pansori Master Shin Jae-Hyo, also known as the Shakespeare of Korea.
There is a lush garden inside the castle walls, where Cleo and Zeno enjoy themselves well while Tim takes the castle walls tour. The fortress has 1,684m-long walls and was built in 1453 to prepare for foreign invasions. It’s the best preserved fortress in Korea.
When we want to leave, the children are trapped by another photo shoot of enthusiastic Koreans.
Next, is the world largest concentration of dolmen around Gochang. We start with the Gochang Dolmen Museum. We are just in time for the animated 3D movie, with a dramatized story about a prehistoric village and the dolmen. The museum itself also is a nice blend of real exhibitions and virtual lay-overs. It tells the story of how the dolmen were brought to the site and how life in the village looked like. It’s crazy how these megalithic societies across the globe look so familiar.
After the museum we go on a 5km hike along the dolmen next to the museum. Zeno falls asleep in the museum’s push chair, and we end the morning with a ginger tea at the local coffee shop. Which costs as almost nothing as we got 12,000 won in gift cards to stimulate the local economy at the two museums.
Our next stop is the Buan celadon museum, Buan was one of the two Korean porcelain centres. Unfortunately, the ceramics museum is closed, so we set course to the sea and the Chaeseokgang cliffs. There are many seagulls and Zeno spends 30 minutes trying to catch one, while shouting “roekoe!”
As we drive along the coastline we are surprised to see many mudflats. More similarities with the Netherlands follow when we drive on a several huge sea dikes which link several islands and are used for land reclamation. At the end is a long sandy beach with a calm sea, Olga puts on her bikini and adds another sea to her list as she swims in the Yellow Sea. The children play in the sand as Tim flies with his drone to capture it all.
From here it’s another one-and-a-half hours drive to our airbnb. This is mostly due to the rush hour traffic which extends today’s trip a little bit too long. When we finally arrive we quickly go out and go to an Italian for some familiar food. Cleo almost finishes her plate of pasta, and Zeno is happy to eat half of Olga’s pizza, so it was a good choice. When we leave the restaurant, the heaven opens up and a torrential downpour soaks us to the bone. We take a warm shower and relax under our blankets in the apartment before we go to bed.
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