Wednesday, July 12, 2023
Another early start on this day as we had a full agenda. The first stop of the day was Yakcheonsa Buddhist Temple which is pretty close to our hotel. This was the fifth temple we have visited. There was a buddhist monk doing prayers at this temple. Super interesting. We were able to take pictures of the inside of this temple. Not sure why some allow pictures and others don't. Anyway, most of the pictures were took were from the 2nd floor, so we didn't disturb the prayers.
Second stop of the day was at a location where we dyed traditional scarfs. We couldn't all dye scarfs at the same time, so we split into two groups. This led to a guys vs gals competition. The gals won easily, but the fix was in. The gals went first and took all of the time. So, the guys received little direction and were rushed. I call foul! Still fun though. It was another hot day. They brought us a delicious tangerine drink while we waited for our turn.
For lunch we stopped at a restaurant that served Shabu Shabu which is a Japanese hotpot dish. The dish is made at the table. It consists of thinly sliced meat (pork in our case) and vegetables boiled in water and served with dipping sauces. Towards the end of the meal they brought out ramen noodles which were added to the now flavored water/broth. For the GF folks, the owner made what she called rice porridge. This didn't sound like it was going to be very good, but was awesome. I would describe it as seasoned wet white rice. I'm not doing it justice in my description. Despite being very full, we ate it all!
Next up the beach! We only had a few hours to enjoy the beach, but we made the most of our time. There were many surfers at this location. We didn't have time to give it a try...next time I guess.
Next a quick stop of that the World Cup stadium. This is where the professional soccer team, Jeju United, plays. There were quite a few soccer fans in the tour group. Luckily the pro shop was open and we were able to get some Jeju United souvenirs.
Last stop of the day was at a local market to pick up some food for supper. Unfortunately, Max was feeling awful (we've had an illness going through the group). He had a fever and was really tired, so we found a local coffee/smoothie shop with air conditioning and rested while the rest of the tour group did their thing. The tour guides were nice enough to pick us up some Gimbap (Korean seaweed, vegetable, rice rolls) for our supper.
When we got back to the hotel we just camped out in the room and tried to get Max feeling better. Many of the members of the tour group went out and captured the sunset at our hotel. We've included a few of their beautiful pictures.
Harvest season is between October and March.
The level of detail is amazing.
