After a not entirely quiet night in our love motel (we learned today that motels are synonym to affairs in Korea), we decide to cut our stay a night short. Tim found a good deal on a room with an ocean view in the Ramada, so we’ll move there today. Not only did the sex vibes freak us out but Jinju also is not that big to spend a whole day.
We go out at 8.00 and join the Koreans for their Sunday breakfast, which is spicy noodle soup with a raw egg, Cleo eats two large shrimps and Zeno eats the shrimp heads, including eyes, which is surprising for an otherwise picky eater.
We head to the Jinju fortress at 9, but as we queue for a ticket, a senior tour group passes us and starts ordering tickets. Tim moves past them and asks for a ticket but the lady behind the ticket desk doesn’t respond. He repeats his request a couple of times but she keeps on selling tickets to Koreans passing us. Fed up with this behaviour, Tim leaves the line and simply walks inside. This triggers a response from various people who tell Tim to buy a ticket, he responds that he tried but nobody wants to sell him a ticket. In typical Korean fashion they just repeat that he should buy a ticket without engaging in a conversation. So he tells them to bugger off and just walks inside.
Olga doesn’t dare to follow Tim and steps back in line, but the tour group is expanding exponentially, and it takes very long before she can buy two tickets. Jinju seems not to be our town.
We visit the castle, trying to ignore all people of the tour group, while we normally have a lot of interaction with all Koreans that adore our blond children. The castle itself offers a nice walk, including over some castle walls, and we can visit some pavilions and temples. There is also a museum about the Asian war and the Japanese invasion of 1592.
After 1,5 hours we’re finished and happy to leave Jinju. We walk back to our motel, put our bags in our car and drive to Yeosu, an island of the south coast of Korea. We eat lunch at the highway restaurant again. It never disappoints.
In Yeosu, we first visit the Hamel museum. Hendrick Hamel is a symbol of the Dutch-Korean relationship, so it feels like a must to us. In 1653, while sailing to Japan, Hamel and his crew were shipwrecked on Jeju Island of Joseon (now Korea). Because of Joseon’s isolationist policies, they were refused permission to leave the country. Hamel ended up spending thirteen years in Joseon, until he escaped to a Dutch trading mission on Dejima Island, Japan in 1666. There, he wrote the earliest first-hand account of a Westerner in Korea, “Hamel’s Journal and a Description of the Kingdom of Korea, 1653–1666” which was subsequently published in the Netherlands in 1668.
Next is the turtle ship that is rebuild in Yeosu’s harbour, it was used by Admiral Yi against the Japanese navy and has a roof with spikes.
As it’s 15H, we head to our hotel. We promised Cleo a swimming pool session and want to be early to avoid the biggest crowds. We have a nice room with a stunning view and no beds but Tatami mats instead.
As the swimming pool only opens at 16, we redeem first our voucher for the hotel zipline that came with our booking. It leaves from the 24th floor of the hotel and ends in the ocean. There’s no discussion which family member would take the adrenaline shot. Tim asks Olga to take a 360 shot during her ride, but Olga preferred to hold tight to the line. Luckily Tim managed to take some pictures and a video while taking care of two children on the 24th floor and being scared of heights.
Unfortunately, we have to pay 12 euros to enter the swimming pool, but we cannot break our promise to Cleo of course. A swimming cap is compulsory, so Olga winds a towel around her head and the two girls have a lot of fun in the pool. They are back far after dinner time, so we go straight to the car to take out some vegetarian gimbap (Korean sushi) which we eat in our hotel room with ocean view.
While Cleo, Zeno and Olga have a dance night with the rabbit-stop-dance and the transportation-dance, Tim takes some night shots of Yeosu.
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