Jeonju

Tim wakes up at 6.00 and does a test run of our day. Jeonju looks like a nice town and he takes some good looking photos. Back at the apartment at 7.30 we start breakfast, glad to have some oatmeal again. We put in another laundry as we don’t know when we’ll be able to do another one.

We leave at 9.00 and start our tour of the town. As Cleo had a short night sleep because of yesterdays late restaurant visit, we take the Deuter with us.

Pungnammun is next door, this is one of the remaining old city gates. Now it sits at the middle of a roundabout. Across the road is Gyeonggijeon Hall, a shrine built to house a portrait of a king which in turn attracted visitors who wanted to pay homage and a whole area was developed to house and provide for the guests.

We walk through the traditional Hanok village with all its tourist shops and restaurants towards Omakdae. There, Lee Seonggae the founder of the Joseon dynasty held a banquet to celebrate his victory over the Japanese invaders. It is on a high hill with nice views over the Hanok village. We walks eastwards toward Jaman Mural Village. Here the buildings are brightly painted with children’s characters so Cleo has a great time.

We stop at the first cafe for a drink, which was a mistake as it’s not the best location and also not the best price. But the ice tea was refreshing and we enjoyed it. We leave the mural village for a walk along the river. We visit a pavilion, a temple and  the Jeonjuhyanggyo Confucian School before we return to the Hanok village for lunch.

On our way we saw a place that sold Korean pancakes, we had them before and liked the vegetable ones. So with that in mind we return to the restaurant and set ourselves at the table. Once we use to tablet on our table to order we notice the ridiculous prices, but are too hungry to leave. We order one pancake and some cheap gimbap to fill our stomachs. The gimbap tastes horrible which is a waste, our kimchi pancake is nice but not worth the price.

We head back to our apartment to relax, and to send Olga on a quest to buy new diapers, as Zeno is using our final one, this is quite urgent. It’s only a 30 minute walk to the closest mall, which is so big that it takes Olga another hour to find the diapers and pay, so it’s late afternoon very quickly. Cleo took a nap in the meantime and Olga makes a quick lunner for the kids, to ensure they eat something filling.

As the children usually like Mexican food, we go to a Mexican place for dinner. They try some of the food and at least eat all of the fries.

Olga puts the children to sleep as Tim goes for an evening walk. Afterwards he checks our Taiwan itinerary to see how the recent earthquake has effected our plans. Sadly, we booked a stay in Hualien, which was the epicentre of the quake. Since the roads from there to our next stay are still being repaired and the main goal of our stay there, the Taroko Gorge is closed, we have to cancel. It feels bitter to cancel on people who are hard hit by this disaster but we have to alter our plans.