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| south korea |
| donghae, samcheok, jeongdongjin |
| One of the first weekend outings I made in Korea was to the city of Donghae, just 45 minutes south of Gangneung city. It was the middle of November and starting to get cold, and due to a bad hangover I didn't arrive until late in the afternoon. I went mainly to see the caves there, touted as the only caves located in the downtown area of a city in Korea. That they were, located just across the street from office buildings, are the Cheongokdonggul Caves. They are about 4-5 hundred million years old and deep within a limestone hill. |
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| The ceilings were low as you can see in the picture on the far left. On the far right is a picture of what is supposed to be a 500-year old Buddhist mediating. Korean caves are filled with these "natural mysteries," everything from meditating monks to dragons turned to stone and images of the Virgin Mary. |
| Donghae is also known for its beautiful beaches. I managed to find my way through a maze of barbed wire fences onto this one. Just outside the gate was this typical Korean minbak or homestay. |
| Samcheok |
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| I took a trip to Samcheok in September 2004 with Soutthida, Tom and Christa to see the Hwangseongul cave. Apparently, the best cave in Asia and visited by over 1 million people a year. The limestone cave goes about 6.2 km into the earth, of which 1.6 km are accessible by visitors. There are also supposed to be many unique rock and cave formations found nowhere else in the world within. We arrived fairly early in the day and soon discovered that it would be almost a one and a half hour wait for the bus (the caves are located about 40 minutes drive from downtown Samcheok). We waited and waited and waited and eventually gave up. We grabbed a taxi and paid the 25000 won or so fare after realizing the bus would never arrive. |
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| Once arriving, it was another 30 minute hike about 2 kms uphill to the mouth of the cave. It had started raining, but was still fairly warm. The mist was rising over the mountains in the distance and made for a beautiful setting. |
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| The entrance to the cave and the view from there. |
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| A small waterfall inside and some interesting limestone formations. |
| After crossing a "Lovers Bridge" we came to the "Bridge of Hell." It was a rope bridge over a huge cavern adorned with plastic skeletons and skulls. Just after crossing this bridge you come to the "Bridge of Confessions" where you are supposed to toss your sins over the edge down a deep gorge. |
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| Christa snapped this photo of me impersonating one of the Korean totems meant to ward off evil spritis. |
| When we got back down to the entrance gate and we waited another twenty minutes or so for a bus that would never arrive. Christa ended up calling us a taxi. We had to pay double the fare, for him to come and pick us up out in the boonies. I fashioned a sign, in Korean, asking for a ride back to town, but nobody paid any attention to it. It was a long day, most of it spent travelling, but the caves were definitely worth the trip. |
| Donghae |
| Jeongdongjin |
| One of the last field trips with my Kindergarten class was to the small town of Jeongdongjin, just a 15 minute train ride from Gangneung city. Of course, everybody waited patiently like good little students at the railway station and didn't run around like monkeys. |
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| Jeongdongjin is famous because sometime in or around 2002 a North Korean spy submarine ran aground here. The surviving crewmembers abandoned ship and escaped into the mountains surrounding the beach. Later, South Korean soldiers found their bodies in the woods, where they had commited suicide by shooting themselves in the head. They did this so that they wouldn't be interrogated and maybe be forced to reveal military secrets. One crewmember was never accounted for and it's believed that he is either still in South Korea or has managed to get back aross the DMZ to North Korea. |
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| Now there are two photos of me looking stupid in a helmet on this page (see the very top). It was cramped in the sub and hard to believe how anyone could live and work in such a small space. |