Jinwi Park Bike Ride

We brought our bikes with us to Korea, and I have been itching to dust them off and take a ride.  I heard from a friend that there is a bike trail super close to the Doolittle Gate.  After scouting out the trail, we decided to take a Saturday family trip to the bike trail and park at the end of the trail.  

While we were venturing on our ride, we passed by the most gorgeous field of cosmo flowers.  The flowers were everywhere and the most amazing shades of pink.  We parked our bikes to take a walk in the cosmos and take some pictures.  M&M was so scared to walk into the field because she was worried she would step on a snake.

After passing the cosmo field we rode around the corner and came to the Jinwi Park.  The Park had a small circle rail bike trail with a few four seater rail bikes making circles around the park.  We want to come back and ride the rail bikes during the evening time.  It looks like there are lights and light tunnels all around the tracks.

The park was littered with fun metal statues.  These statues and structures were larger then life-size.  Some even looked like transformers.  Kevin and the kids had fun exploring the statues and seeing the intricate details.  This is definitely one of those random Korea moments.

We found a spot in the shade to park our bikes and lay out our picnic blanket and have a great picnic lunch.  It's been a while since we have used our picnic blanket, like, a few years.  When we laid it out, I had to laugh because it was way too small for our family now.  I think the last time I used it, we didn't have Monster and the three girls were little.  Note to self- buy a bigger picnic blanket.

There was a huge field at the park so the kids took about an hour and ran around trying to fly kites.  Our kids didn't have much success getting their kites airborne, but they sure had fun running around and chasing each other.

Jinwi park is located on a river.  It made the ride more refreshing as we would get little gusts of cool air on our bike ride.  We found another super cute photo stop along the river of a frame that said 'I love you' in English and Korean.  This has got to be my new favorite selfie spot.

We took the trail back towards home.  It is a beautiful trail that follows the river.  The path is nice and flat.  It was fun breathing in fresh air and enjoying the occasional races and the fields that we passed.

On the ride to the park, the kids saw a little walkway across the river and asked if we could stop on the way home and explore and jump rocks.  We stopped as promised and took a walk across the rocks.

Don't let the beauty of the river and the rocks fool you.  It stunk so so so bad.  We only made it about half way across the rocks before all the kids were almost green in the face from the horrific fish and stagnant water smell.

After our bike ride, we decided to cool off at Heavenly Bread with a super yummy treat.  Waffles in Korea are consider a dessert.  We got the fruit and ice cream waffle to share.  All the kids loved the treat, especially little Monster.

Hamigot Village Haemaji Plaza: Sunrise Square

Our last stop on our Columbus weekend adventures was at the eastern most tip of South Korea- Hamigot Village Haemaji Plaza.  This stop was all for Kevin.  Ever since he saw the very first video of the Korean national anthem and the picture of the hand coming out of the ocean, he was wanted to see it.  Every time we would see the national anthem video before the start of a movie on base, he would always say, "I want to go there!".  To get to the Plaza, it was about an hour out of our way, but we knew we wouldn't ever be this close again, so we decided to just do it, and go.

When we got to the Haemaji Plaza we were surprised to find that there are two hand sculptures, one on land and one in the sea.  We had no idea that there were two.  After doing a little googling, we found out that the hands are called the Sangsaeng's Hands and they were made to give the message that all people can only live together by helping gone another.  It represent the coexistence of Korea and are meant as a memorial in the spirit of reconciliation and celebrating a new millennium.

The reason it is called the sunrise square is because since it is the eastern most tip of South Korea, it is the earliest sunrise in all of Korea.  We came around sunset, so there wasn't a sun for us to see, but we did love seeing the famous hand in person and it was an added bonus surprise to see two hands.

The Plaza has a lot of other things for tourists to see and do.  There was a lighthouse, a dock, restaurants, a gift shop and a super weird hill.

The hill was our Korean randomness for this stop.  However, like all Korean randomness, it was fun. The kids had fun running up the hill and rolling down.  Kevin and I jumped and were able to look as if flying.  The hill did give a good view of the ocean and the entire plaza, though.  Perhaps that is the purpose of the hill?  Who knows.

Gyeongju: The "Museum Without Walls"

On Monday, we decided as a family to drive up to Gyeongju.  We invited everyone to join us, but they all had soccer games and other commitments that took them back home, so we left after breakfast and drove about an hour northeast to Gyeongju.

I heard about Gyeongju from my friend Cristin (who I went to Vietnam with).  She loved the city and said it was a really neat place. Gyeongju is known as the "museum without walls".  The entire city is made up of these huge burial mounds of royals.  The city itself was the capital of the Silla dynasty that lasted about 1,000 years.  There are so many extensive historical remains in the city; it has the most tombs, temples, pagodas, and ruins then any other place in South Korea. It's one of the few cities that still has the look and feel of Korea before the Japanese invasion.

The first thing we did when we got to Gyeongju was go to a bike shop and rent some bikes for the day.  The city is so large and there is so much to see, but there isn't anywhere to park.  So, the best way to get our family around without having to walk a million miles was to rent some bikes.  It was only 5,000 won to rent a bike for 3 hours, so we found the perfect bikes and took off.

Our first stop was at the Cheomseongdae Observatory.  This is the oldest existing astronomical observatory in Asia.  There was a picket fence about 20 feet from the observatory, so we couldn't get close or see much.  But it makes sense, something that old would probably fall apart if people could walk in it.

We enjoyed riding around the paths, squeaking our horns to get pedestrians to move, and cycling by mounds after mounds of tombs.  The weather was sunny, but not too hot.  Since we had the wind from the rush of our bikes, none of the kids complained once.  We enjoyed our afternoon around the spectacular outdoor museum.

After riding around for almost 2 hours, we parked our bikes and enjoyed the Korean randomness.  In the middle of one of the paths were some sculptures and picture spots.  We were able to transform into grasshoppers and butterflies.

And Korea picture spots wouldn't be complete without a huge heart.  We were able to show our love of Gyeongju sitting in a heart and showing our little Korean finger hearts with our thumb and pointer finger.

We got back on our bikes and made our way to the Silla Great Bell.  I learned that this bell is a reproduction of the King Seongdeok Divine Bell, also known as the Emile Bell.  The Divine Bell is 1,200 years old and is said to have the deepest and richest sound and can be hear 40 miles away.  For the safety of the bell, it isn't rung anymore, so the Silla Bell was made to recreate the Divine bell and it's rich sound.  We weren't able to see the real Divine Bell while in the area, so we settled for it's double.

We made our way back to the bike rental shop and were so grateful for the fun, educational and historical day spent in Gyeongju.  If time permits, we defiantly want to go back, because there was so much we didn't get to see.

Jinju Lantern Festival

The Jinju Namgang Yudeung Festival is a spectacular site to behold.  The beautifully made lanterns are lit as wishes for world peace and fortune for mankind.  There were lanterns on land and lanterns in the river.  When I first heard of this festival I was picturing a scene from Disney's Tangled where floating lanterns are lit and float into the sky filling it with sparkling lights.  I was very much wrong.  The lanterns in Korea are made from a silk-like material that is stretched over a wire frame, then painted.  The beautifully detailed larger then life lanterns were awe inspiring and so fun to see.

Our first stop at the festival was the Music Fountain area where lanterns littered the entire area.  This was an extremely kid-friendly area, since the lanterns were made to resemble famous cartoon characters.  Monster especially loved all the "Good Guys!" as he ran around pointing out Batman, Spiderman, Ironman and more.

All of the kids loved the life size dinosaur that was made and shaped to look as if it was eating them.

M&M and Little A especially loved the unicorn.  Not only was the unicorn life size and beautiful, but the artist made it so kids could sit on the unicorn, ride it (it had springs on the feet), and take a picture.  

Another super neat lantern was the dinosaur slide.  Some amazing artist made a lantern slide that was shaped as a dinosaur and then made the tail into a slide.  All the kids had a blast sliding down the dinosaur lantern slide.

Since the festival was in such a large area, the city created floating bridges to make it easier and faster to get across the river to see all the exhibits.  We paid 5,000 won a person to get unlimited access to all the bridges.  We crossed the bridge and made our way over to the Chokseoklu, Jinjuseong castle.  The entire grounds of the Chokseoklu was covered in so many lanterns.  There was an entire area that looked like a village that was made of all lanterns.  My favorite was a small pavilion that was a lantern.  I seriously thought it was real until I walked right up to it and knocked on it.  There were even lantern trees that were in the lantern village.  It was something pretty neat.

We spent a good amount of time seeing all the lanterns around the Chokseoklu.  We noticed that the sun was beginning to set, so we wanted to hurry to the other side of the river to see the Desire Lantern tunnel.

After we crossed the bridge, we came to an endless lantern tunnel filled with gorgeous red and blue lanterns.

As we walked into the tunnel, all the lanterns came on and we found ourselves surrounded by a red glow of lights.  I learned that these lanterns contain wishes, dreams and desires of all the people from the area.  They write their stories on the lanterns then hang them up.  It was neat being in a tunnel of wishes and dreams.  It was almost as if the lanterns were whispering to us.

When we exited the tunnel, we noticed that some of the lanterns were lit up nice and bright.  It was fun to look across the river and see the Chokeoklu brightly shining.

We spent the last hour oohing and awing over the lanterns that were lit up.  Seeing the silk-like material all painted during the daylight was pretty neat, but seeing it with lights under to illuminate the lantern was something else entirely different and magical.  I loved every second of it.

As the light from the sky kept disappearing and darkness started creeping in, I was sad to hear the announcement that the typhoon had knocked out a lot of the light sources and many of the lanterns would not be working tonight.  By the time we left about 1/3 of the lanterns were lit up.  It was a little saddening to come all this way and not see all the lanterns in their glory, but what we were able to see was pretty amazing.

Another reason the festival was wonderful is because we had amazing friends to share it with.  I am so glad we had the Budenbenders, Livaudais and the Schwartz to celebrate the festival with us.

As we were crossing the street to wait in line for the bus, Corianne texted and said more lights just got fixed.  I begged Kevin if we could run back and see them.  He wasn't too happy about walking all the way back just to look at 'something we already saw', as he put it, but he was sweet enough to indulge me and and walk back so I could see the lights.  It was fun seeing such vibrant colors in the darkness.  It reminded me of a quote by Robert D. Hales, "Light and darkness cannot occupy the same space at the same time.  Light dispels darkness.  When light is present, darkness is vanquished and must depart.  More importantly, darkness cannot conquer light unless the light is diminished or departs."  I just wanted to see all the light that took over the darkness.  It was beautiful and worth the walk back.