Korea, Day 8
In the morning, we continued back to Seoul, stopping at Daegu. The reason wasn't the city itself, but a neighboring one, Haeinsa.
Of the entire trip, I was most worried about this day. We try to plan things in advance, making up a packet with maps and directions and estimated times and things to do and see. Although many resources agreed that the best way to get to Haeinsa was via Daegu, I couldn't find a single source with both instructions for getting from Daegu to Haeinsa and a timetable. One or the other, never both in the same place.
Things turned out OK. We made it to the Seobu Intercity Bus Terminal, a.k.a. Daegu Western Bus Stop, and it was like a bus terminal in the US (I think, I haven't been to many bus terminals). People probably weren't posting explicit instructions because it was trivial - there were a bunch of different counters, each with a city name and a list of departure times; Haeinsa was one of them. It wouldn't have worked nearly as well if we wanted something that wasn't a final destination, but we were, so it was OK.
After an hour and a half bus ride and a short hike, we got to Haeinsa. There were a bunch of art installations from artists all over the world, oddly including a series of white flags with white embroidery with (mostly) English (and some pictures, including a QR code) on them. Haeinsa's claim to fame, however, is that it houses tens of thousands of wood blocks from the 13th century. That part is understandably not open to the public, but it's neat to think that such ancient literary carvings have survived so long.
Dinner was a bit of an adventure. Since the strategy of "go down some shady looking alley and pick a restaurant" had worked well earlier in the trip, we tried it again. This time, though, we didn't have a particular plan, we picked something from the tourist map. Unfortunately, the tourist map didn't have very good resolution, so it was unclear exactly where this alley was, and we were unable to find it. We eventually asked a tourist information office for help, and the nice lady there led us to a restaurant with the same name. It probably wasn't the exact place, as the map suggested it was an alley of restaurants, but close enough.
The restaurant only had two dishes, and we ordered two of each. It turned out to be some sort of blood pudding soup, and a bit spicy too, so not my favorite. Oh well, that's the peril of ordering blindly off a foreign menu. At the end of the meal, we still had no idea what the difference between them was, all of our food seemed identical.
The hotel we stayed at, unimaginatively called Hotel Taegu (note the 't' and 'd' sounds are the same letter in Korean), put us in a smoking room even though we requested nonsmoking. A quick call to the front desk resolved things, but mildly annoying that the mixup happened in the first place. Perhaps I was just grumpy because I seemed to be coming down with a cold.
Of the entire trip, I was most worried about this day. We try to plan things in advance, making up a packet with maps and directions and estimated times and things to do and see. Although many resources agreed that the best way to get to Haeinsa was via Daegu, I couldn't find a single source with both instructions for getting from Daegu to Haeinsa and a timetable. One or the other, never both in the same place.
Things turned out OK. We made it to the Seobu Intercity Bus Terminal, a.k.a. Daegu Western Bus Stop, and it was like a bus terminal in the US (I think, I haven't been to many bus terminals). People probably weren't posting explicit instructions because it was trivial - there were a bunch of different counters, each with a city name and a list of departure times; Haeinsa was one of them. It wouldn't have worked nearly as well if we wanted something that wasn't a final destination, but we were, so it was OK.
After an hour and a half bus ride and a short hike, we got to Haeinsa. There were a bunch of art installations from artists all over the world, oddly including a series of white flags with white embroidery with (mostly) English (and some pictures, including a QR code) on them. Haeinsa's claim to fame, however, is that it houses tens of thousands of wood blocks from the 13th century. That part is understandably not open to the public, but it's neat to think that such ancient literary carvings have survived so long.
Dinner was a bit of an adventure. Since the strategy of "go down some shady looking alley and pick a restaurant" had worked well earlier in the trip, we tried it again. This time, though, we didn't have a particular plan, we picked something from the tourist map. Unfortunately, the tourist map didn't have very good resolution, so it was unclear exactly where this alley was, and we were unable to find it. We eventually asked a tourist information office for help, and the nice lady there led us to a restaurant with the same name. It probably wasn't the exact place, as the map suggested it was an alley of restaurants, but close enough.
The restaurant only had two dishes, and we ordered two of each. It turned out to be some sort of blood pudding soup, and a bit spicy too, so not my favorite. Oh well, that's the peril of ordering blindly off a foreign menu. At the end of the meal, we still had no idea what the difference between them was, all of our food seemed identical.
The hotel we stayed at, unimaginatively called Hotel Taegu (note the 't' and 'd' sounds are the same letter in Korean), put us in a smoking room even though we requested nonsmoking. A quick call to the front desk resolved things, but mildly annoying that the mixup happened in the first place. Perhaps I was just grumpy because I seemed to be coming down with a cold.