Adventures of a Family in Seoul: The Ganghwa islands

Three weeks after our arrival in Korea, they assigned us an apartment in the Campus of the University. The campus of the university is a big park without giant blocks at the base of the Gwanak-San mountain. Ah, finally a suitable place to settle in Seoul.

The traffic, the noise, the polluted spring air, full of Asian dust, the big prefabricated tower blocks in Seoul can be unbearable for newcomers. This is a photo from above. The typical "korean architecture" is on the right-back ...

We had to wait few more days, so we decided to escape from Seoul for a couple of days, just one night, to the islands in the west of the city: the Ganghwa Islands!

We expected something like the Eolian Islands, a lot of nature, wonderful landscapes. Instead, arrived at the bus terminal on the island we found always the same simil-plattenbau... Marlen found a guy with a little rabbit, but we had to run away to catch the bus, Marlen started screaming...

Ok, not an easy start... but we stayed positive and followed the Lonely Planet, which suggested "by far the best place where to stay": a little village called Oepo-Ri. Emm.. this was the best...

That was the best pop-art on the village... a Seagull (a duck?) made of wood

Anyway for the first time we found a nice Love Hotel where to stay (yes! in Korea often there is no alternative to a Love Hotel, but that's the topic of another post). It had a very original walls and even a nice view! In the end not a bad place.

Apparently Oepo-Ri is a great destination for groups having great meals based on fish. We arrived immediately after one of such groups...

The day after we did not expect anything. We feared that there was nothing interesting on the islands. Still we decided to follow a loose indication on the guide, about a remote Buddhist temple on the nearby island. Just arrived with a ferry on the other side Marlen found a great surprise. The men with the Rabbit was there again! Marlen was super super happy, and we realised that this was going to be a great day!

We had to climb the temple. A fantastic place. There were some people there, but all koreans, no foreigners except us. On one side there were hundred of statues of Buddhas.

All different! Amazing...

And each one with a different personality...

We discovered later that this is a famous temple in Korea. It is called Bomunsa (Boo Moon Saa). You can stay here overnight, and even book your stay through internet (if you read korean!)

In fact Bomunsa is a complex of temples. Marlen got some biscuits from the monks, which diverted her from her spiritual path

a giant Buddha was lying inside one of the buildings

in another one there is a permently ongoing buddhist chant

At a certain point we noticed that it was possible again to climb up the mountain. Dorothea went quickly up the stairs

And I took Marlen on my arm, and went up,

and up...

...and uuup!

Finally I arrived, exhausted, like it should be on a holy path...

there was a huge wonderful giant Buddha carved in the stone, looking toward the ocean

We discovered later that many people for the new year climb to the top and wait the sunrise. Apparently they give TV show filming them from an helicopter, but I did not find any evidence of that.

On the top we started to understand Korea: wonderful and well hidden secrets are everywhere, it is just a matter of searching them.

It was time to go back. We took the ferry again,

and in the few hours left we were just in time to discover that on Ganghwa there were in fact some of the largest Korean Dolmen (which make 40% of the Dolmen in the entire world)!