23 Side Dishes and a Main Course

Annyong! It is Monday morning here in Korea and We have been recuperating from our full day of activities yesterday. It is considered a Korean holiday today so my husband gets to stay home with Bear and I for a change. I would like to begin by talking about all the amazing things we got to see and do complements of David’s work colleague, Mr. Harris and his wife. We feel greatly blessed to have been so well taken care of.

The day began for us at 5:30 in the morning. We met David’s boss Mr. Turnblad in the lobby to head on over to Seoul Station. From there we took the subway over to Yongsan station where we were greeted by Mr. Harris and his lovely smiling wife. So in true Korean fashion, Mr. Harris paid for all of our days expenses and even provided our first class KTX tickets to Jeonju Province, which by the way is a very nice bullet train. Cruising at around 180 mph, we arrived at our destination some 2 hours later.

The weather was very nice when we stepped out of the train station and we actually had about three hours of clear sky until it began to rain again. The first of our many activities was a nice, steep, uphill hike to a temple located halfway up the mountain. The hike itself was a challenge  merely due to the constant and relentless uphill walk but the view was worth it all! When we had finally reached the temple we got to see the whole magnificent view of God’s amazing creation. It actually reminded us of back home in the Appalachian mountains.

After taking some nice pictures and enjoying the fresh air we explored the newly renovated temple grounds. At that time a Buddhist funeral was taking place so we could hear a lot of praying and chanting. The interesting part of the temple was actually the housing. On the outside it appeared to be your typical simplistic temple homes but upon second look you could see a very nice modernized kitchen, full access to electricity and satellite TV dishes located outside. We had a little bit of a laugh at those, I guess even the monks like to watch TV. Anyhow, by that time we were pretty sweaty and hungry so our generous hosts sat us down for a nice snack. They had prepared a delicious apple, peach, grape, tomato and rice cake  snack. Even I enjoyed that!

After a bit of a rest we headed back down the mountain a second trail in the woods. This trail led us to a very unique tree called the lovers tree. It was an old tree that had a branch that was fused to the tree next to it. We of coursed loved the sign that accompanied the location.

Finally we went to explore a second temple site and partake in a short break at the local stream. The second temple we visited however was a lot larger than the first. The shrines to Buddha were on a much larger scale and people from all over would come to bow down and pray before the idols. From a Christians point of view it was cool to see the craftsmanship but a little uncomfortable to watch so many people laid out before a gold statue three stories high.

The second half of our day was filled with a lot of eating and a lot more walking. Before heading to our second location we stopped at a local Korean restaurant to enjoy some local Korean food. While David and everyone else partook of baked anchovies, kimchi, scaled and NOT de-boned fish, as well as several side dishes of various odd looking vegetables with chili paste, I enjoyed my nice bowl of white rice. Yes I know that I probably should have tried to eat at least some of the food, but that poor fish was just staring me in the face so I stared at my rice bowl instead! At this point in time it had begun a torrential down pour with copious amounts of lightening and thunder. So after taking out our rain gear and umbrellas we got in a taxis and left for a traditional folk town called the slow city…or Hanok village.

Here we walked around taking in all of the traditional Korean style housing and small shops and restaurants. We learned about the amazing things that the Koreans had accomplished with paper….Korean paper that is, and visited a historical palace in the area. After all that walking the rain had subsided and we stopped at this nice café to enjoy afternoon tea and refreshments. If you look at our pictures you will see David eating a giant bowl of ice cream. Well apparently Koreans have their own way for preparing ice cream here. It is a giant bowl of shaved ice, lots of different fruits, red beans…yes I said beans, and some cherry ice cream with a cherry on top. I had a few bites while everyone else downed two separate orders of it, so I suppose it is quite good.

Next we resumed our walking, found some more historical building and 10 minutes later it was time another meal! This time dinner took place at a family restaurant. Now you know what that means; Korean style food. This time they presented us with 23 side dishes, rice water to drink and of course the main dish which consisted of rice, chili paste, sprouts, vegetable and an uncooked egg yoke  in the middle. Thankfully some of the dishes weren’t as intimidating as before so I ventured out and had a bit of the sweet potato in a sweet syrup, dried radish in chili paste, egg puff soufflé and bean sprout soup. By this time it was past seven and time to debark for our journey home.

We had a wonderful time with Mr. and Mrs. Harris and met some very nice people along the way. Upon arriving the Jeonju a very enthusiastic man at the train station welcomed us to his city and ran to retrieve tourist maps for us in English. Another Korean local sitting next to David on the train ride home gave him his business card and invited him to call him for lunch sometime.  So that was the completion of our big day out and to say the least we were exhausted upon our return home. This morning I can easily say that my legs are still worn out! We definitely enjoyed ourselves though and hope you also enjoy the many picture we took.  Have a very blessed Sunday and remember to meditate upon God’s glorious creation as much as you can, we most certainly have been!