Damyang, Namwon, Gurye, Sunchon

Day 2--we head down to breakfast. Ok, here is a dirty little secret about this trip so far—I have not had to eat Korean breakfast. In Seoul we ate at the hotel; eggs, pastries, fruit. But this morning we are greeted by the omnipresent banchan. And then they bring us Ooguhji baekban (cabbage soup? I don't know). This, I believe, is why Koreans are such fiery people—they begin their day with spicy hot soup and kimchee! My heart drops when I see no coffee around either, so I do slip away to the coffee shop and grab a coffee.

When I return to the table, I dig into the meal. It is not so bad, just not what I consider breakfast food.

After breakfast, we are off!

First stop, a bamboo forest. Us and about 45 school buses that is. As we walk in we see a little cart selling hoetteok. Or as I refer to it, the best thing I ever ate. It is a fried pancake made with bamboo flour mixed with  brown sugar that melts into caramel as it cooks. It is folded up and put into cups. We set off to tour the forest munching our pancakes.

With this snack, I hereby forgive Korea for breakfast

  

We walk along and as we pass the little groups of school children (about 6 or 7 year olds), they are hilariously staring and pointing at me. I hear one little boy point at me and tell his friend "weyguk imneedah!" ("It is a foreigner!") I also hear lots of whispered "meeguk!"s ("American!") They don't get many foreigners down this way. 

After the forest we continue on down to Namwon, and to a garden/park dedicated to the famous story of two lovers. It is again, just very pretty and we walk around and take pictures.

Lunch is very similar to what we have been eating, and we keep on moving. This schedule is serious. We continue to Sunchon, where they have an Eco museum and marsh land. It looks like something you would see in Florida, actually. We take a boat around the marsh, and then they have all of these paths though the marsh that we meander around. It is quite lovely. And exhausting. 

Walking around the marsh

Just when I think maybe we are done for the day, we hit our last scheduled stop for the day, a folk village. It begins to drizzle but we get out of the van and trudge around the village. It is quiet and I am tired, but we see it through. 

We head into dinner and I am too tired to remember to take a picture. By the time we get to the hotel around 8pm, we are a van of walking zombies, too tired to care that there is no a/c in the hotel. Or artwork on the walls. It is a bare bones room.