We all sleep until 7.30 to get some well deserved rest. We make an oatmeal breakfast in our guest house, pack our bags and play in the garden before we leave for our next stop in South Korea.
Our fist stop is Dosan Seowan, a 450 year old Confucius Temple built in memory of the famous Korean Confucian scholar Yi Hwang. He began construction of the facility in 1549 to offer instruction in the classics. The building is a Unesco world heritage site but as it is a Monday and the site is fairly remote, it is not busy. We enjoy the hike along the lake shore to the complex. Cleo can even sit in a buggy that you can take at the ticket counter for the (short) walk to the temple.
The complex consists of dozens of wooden buildings, some housing for the students, two library buildings on wooden poles to keep the scrolls dry and a lecture hall for the teaching. Cleo picks up two purple flowers which we are told are poisonous so she washes her hands and will hopefully leave the flowers alone from now on.
Our next stop is another Unesco world heritage site, Hahoe folk village. The village was built during the Joseon era in the 15th century by the Ryu clan who still live there to this day. This makes this open air museum stand out from most others as almost all buildings are still inhabited and there are almost no tourist shops or catering facilities in the village. We take the shuttle bus from the parking lot and walk around all the national treasures and other significant buildings. We see many big blue butterflies and enjoy all the pink and purple flowers and the white blossoms of the apple trees. We take the shuttle bus back to the parking where we alsovisit the Hahoe Mask museum.
Every year there is a mask festival in the town and this museum shows of all the famous masks from the region, but also from the rest of Korea and other cultures around the world. It also has several stamps in it to stamp your cards with, but the children decide to stamp their hands instead. We skip lunch here as all the restaurants around the parking offer the same menu for the same price, which is too expensive in our view (€20 per person). So we get in the car, it’s another 2 hours to our next guest house and stop at the first highway rest station. The rest stations offer good catering options for much more agreeable prices, so Tim has Udon noodles with fried tofu and Olga enjoys a spicy Ramen soup. (€5 pp)
Cleo has taken on the navigation role and guides us to our traditional Hanok Guesthouse. In reality it is a recent building but in the traditional wooden Hanok style, complete with sleeping mats and floor heating. But the thing that makes it an instant win for Cleo is the huge trampoline, so we leave Cleo bouncing as we unpack the car and settle in. We head straight into town to find a restaurant to all our likings. We are staying in Gyeongju, the ancient capital of the Silla Kingdom from the 7th to the 9th century. It’s getting dark but we can still spot the dozens of royal burial tombs. Olga spots a clothing store which has sale and buys two new outfits, Cleo spots a store selling hair pins and also gets two. After this restaurant search turned into a shopping spree, Tim quickly finds a Korean restaurant and we eat hot pot with extra tofu and vegetables.
It’s a really nice atmosphere in the neighbourhood, so we stroll around looking for some banana’s for breakfast, but buy a cookie instead, as many people stood in line there so it must be good (it was nice!). It’s already 19:30 and our days are long and packed, so we really must head home now to put the children on their sleeping mat – they love sleeping together on a mat – do some hand laundry, photo back up and blog writing. We also brought some books, but we rarely find time to read.
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