Baekdamsa Temple

We woke up in Baekdamsa ready for our big walk. Rachel's Dad was able to point the walk out to us no problems, after we phoned Rachel and asked her to explain what we wanted. We just turned right out of his drive and kept going!

But first we wanted breakfast, and found some at a restaurant just down the road. Bill and I are not quite acclimatised to kimchi soup for breakfast just yet, but we did our best, and there was rice as well, and then the owner/waitress brought out a free plate of fried eggs! So, pretty well fortified in the end, we headed off on our 7km walk up into the mountains.

It was absolutely gorgeous! We followed the path of a little frozen river almost all the way, winding around quite high up above the river, with snow covered, forested hillsides above us.

There were a surprising number of other people going up and down, not enough to make it crowded, but we could always see someone else. Some quite young children and a few quite elderly people too, and lots of Koreans with backpacks and collapsible walking poles.

It took us about an hour and a quarter. The path/road was covered in snow all the way, and quite slippery in spots, but in spite of a few slips and scrambles we only had one casualty (me of course, bum first on the road!)

The Temple was completely isolated in a valley, with the river running past it. From there you can do several other walks up into the National Park. They do "Temple Stays" there, where you can stay at the temple and learn Buddhist things, and just contemplate life (and I guess you could use it as a base for further walks). It was very quiet and peaceful. The river bed was full of little stone cairns - I don't know what they were for for, but some sort of prayer thing I guess. There were a few monks flitting about, and we had a very expensive cup of tea in a lovely little teahouse/gift shop.

We mistimed our walk down a bit and had to gallop along so as not to miss the bus, but as it turned out we were in plenty of time. Galbi at Jonny's Dad's restaurant again and then some Poker, and we were all in bed tired out!

Today Bill and I have been to the Korean Folk Village. It was a lovely sunny day, and seemed quite balmy after the mountains (although still thermals, jackets, woolly hats and gloves). The village was very interesting, and we had fun. We wandered around the old traditional homes, and tried some pancakes and meat stew. We watched performances of horsemanship, seesawing, and tightrope-walking, with several classes on school trips.

We also had a go at some traditional sports, sledding on the ice on flat wooden bases with metal runners underneath (the pros stood up, but Bill and I sat crosslegged like the kids), and playing with wooden spinning tops on the ice which you made to go by whipping them with srips of fabric attached to the end of a stick. There were less traditional sports too - we had a couple of goes with all the school kids at sledging full speed down a slope on plastic sledges, everyone in the starting gates and then "go" when the whistle blows!

There was an amusement park too, but the rides were pretty much for young kids. The one that looked the best, the water flume, was iced up for the winter. We had a go on the dodgems (just the thing you have to do in Asia, aye girls?), but the haunted house took the prize for best Asian flop!

Tomorrow we plan to go into Seoul and look about there, and we have booked for a trip to the DMZ on Wednesday.