Thursday, October 9, 2014

The East Sea

After visiting the Royal Tomb of King Sejong the Great, we continued eastward in the heavy traffic.


Later in the evening we stopped at a market place to buy some fried chicken and hotteok.  


There were lots of places selling fried chicken. We chose to stop at the busiest shop and try some of their free samples. It was good, so we joined the queue to buy some. 



Fresh made hotteok (tastes a lot like a doughnut). 


Finally, after being on the road for hours, we arrived about 7pm.


Yum, can't wait to eat! 


After dinner we decided to set some fireworks off at the beach. In Australia fireworks are illegal (without a licence) so lighting my own fireworks was a novelty for me. They were between 2000won ($2) and 4000won ($4) each. 


I chose one of each the convenience store had on offer...


And we headed down to the beach to light them up!



Mwahahahaha


My first firework. We decided to start with the cheapest and work our way up.


It was OK, but a little disappointing. 


My second firework. This one was filled with 30 firework shots. It shot each one about 15m into the air.



It was a little disappointing. 


The third one was a little better, though you wouldn't know it from the photos. 


The final and most expensive one (cost 4000won). It was similar to the second firework, but instead of containing 30 shots, it only had 15. 


Wow, much better. 


Afterwards, we walked along the beach. 


A ferry out on the water put on a fireworks show.  


The next morning we started the long journey back to Suwon. 


On the way back to Suwon, we stopped off at another beach which was better than the one we visited last night, but still not particularly good when compared to what we have in Australia.  


My mother-in-law was excited though. 




We took Haru (their dog) for a walk along the beach.  





We then started heading west and climbed the mountain range once again. At the top, we stopped at a lookout. 






Wind turbine near PyeongChang, the city where the 2018 winter olympics will be held. We stopped here to visit a sheep farm, something that is a novelty for Koreans. Having grown up on a farm in Australia I wasn't terribly excited, but I seized the opportunity to stretch my legs. 


It was crazy busy. The farm must make an absolute fortune. At 4000won ($4) per person for entry, they would have been rolling in money. There was a steady stream of people coming. If I had to guess, I would say they took $20,000 in that one day alone!


If you want, you can cash in your ticket for some hay and feed the sheep.  


We decided to climb the mountain to get a view of the farm and the valley. 


Over in the distance on the right is the city of PyeongChang where the 2018 winter Olympics will be held. 


In the distance, you can faintly make out the ski jump ramp. 


Photo at the top of the hill. After taking this photo I spotted someone's wallet in the lush green grass on the other side of the fence. We picked it up, checked it for a business card, and managed to get in touch with a very thankful Korean.  



Last photo before it started raining.


The eastern coast of Korea is one of the nicer places to visit in Korea, just steer clear of it on public holidays and vacation periods as the traffic is horrible. There is definitely a lot of construction going on in the region in preparation for the PyeongChang winter Olympics, so hopefully that will help ease traffic congestion in the future. 

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