This weekend, I went to Japan with a couple of my friends. We left Busan on Saturday morning and returned on Sunday night. Although the stay was short, we packed in a lot.
We left Busan at 9:15 am and landed in Fukuoka at 10:05. (It seems so strange that I can get to another country in less than an hour.) After a bus, a subway, and a 2 hour high-speed train ride, we made it to our destination...Beppu - the hot spring capital of Japan! First stop...sand baths!! For this experience, we visited the oldest onsen (bathhouse) in the area - Takegawara Onsen. In a nutshell, take off your clothes, put on a robe, let the ladies bury you in the sand, cook for about 15 minutes, wash off the sand, then take a bath. It was great!
Next, we checked into the hostel. This was a nice place that was centrally located in Beppu.
The rest of the evening included some shopping, dinner, and playing pachiko. I'm not exactly sure what we had for dinner as we were at some-type of traditional Japanese restaurant. I didn't care for the phlegm-looking appetizer and one of the kabobs, but the rest of it was pretty good. After dinner, and a couple drinks, we went to the casino to play pachinko. Basically, you try to get the balls to hit some type of a target and you can earn more balls. When you're finished, turn in the balls for cash. Though given an instruction sheet in "English", I still have no idea what I was doing. I lost my marbles quickly (LOL), but Ellen made about $40!! Woohoo!!
Day number 2 took us to "The Hells", sushi for lunch, and one last trip to the onsen. The Hells are the 9 hot springs that Beppu is famous for. We only had time to visit 6 of them.
We hopped back on the train to Fukuoka, then back to Korea. Here are a few other pictures from the trip.
Every now and again, I have to work a 2:00-10:00pm shift. Although these are not not my favorite hours to work, it does allow me an opportunity to get out and go walking in the morning. Today I took the bus to the Taewha River then walked along the river (then a tributary) to get back to my house. It was another beautiful spring day.
I decided to take advantage of this beautiful spring day by taking a walk through Ulsan Grand Park. The park covers 900 acres of land and provides opportunities for hiking, biking, walking, golfing, family outings, learning and cultural experiences. It's pretty amazing. Here are some pictures from the day.
This weekend we joined Adventure Korea for a trip to Gyeongju. On day one, we rented bicycles and rode all over the city. The plan was to ride among all the beautiful cherry blossoms, but unfortunately they weren’t quite ready to bloom. During the day, we saw Bomun Lake, enjoyed a delicious Korean lunch, saw several tombs, and visited the famous Gyeongju Observatory. At the observatory, there was some type of festival going on, so we were able to participate in a tea ceremony. After looking around, we were back on the bikes to get to our meeting spot. Just one flat tire to deal with on the way. :-P
After 7 hours of biking and touring, we returned to the hostel before dinner. The outside was absolutely beautiful as it resembled a palace. The inside was traditional Korean style which means you were given a mat and you slept on the floor. Not my favorite. We walked to a local place for dinner. We enjoyed some Korean food and had some dongdongju-korean rice wine…okay, so it was 3 troughs of dongdongju. We laughed our way back to the hostel, stopping to play in a playground, and then headed to bed.
On Sunday, the day started with an attempt to find a coffee shop. No luck. :-( I don’t understand why coffee places open so late in Korea. Seems to be a trend anywhere we go. Anyways, after breakfast, my friends headed to Seokgulam Grotto. I skipped the short hike as I had been there before and I’m still nursing a sprained ankle. After the grotto, we all went to Bulguksa Temple. I had come here in the fall but it had a different look in the spring. Although the cherry blossoms were not in full bloom, there were a few here & there and several other flowers. Very nice. After the temple, we had lunch at an all-you-can-eat Korean buffet then headed for home. As we went back to the bus station in the downtown area, we saw that many of the trees had bloomed since yesterday…doh…one day late. Oh well.
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