Samcheok: Rocks, parks, and caves

As small as Korea is, it has some magnificent things to see. After experiencing Seoraksan and all it's beauty, it was hard to imagine what more Korea could offer. Then I went to Samcheok and explored the caves.

Samcheok is also on the east coast of Korea and required another road trip. This time it was not just Jared and myself but two of my co-workers also went along. We left Friday after work and made it to Donghae, a town right next to Samcheok, in about 2 1/2 hours. We didn't have hotel reservations but thankfully in Korea it's quite easy to get a room. We found a nice place and settled in for the night. We didn't get up ridiculously early Saturday morning like we did in Seoraksan but we still were up and at 'em by about 10am. We had a lot to do!

We started the day visiting some famous rock, we weren't entirely sure why the rock was famous but nonetheless we stopped, took some pictures and moved on. Our next stop was a park that was dedicated to a Korean who won the Marathon in the 1992 Olympics. Jared had found this once on-line and put it on the itinerary just for me, how sweet!

The next stop was one of the reasons for the trip to Samcheok. It was the penis park. Now before you say, "excuse me, a penis park?" there is a reason and story behind the park. To make a long story short....

Long ago in a coastal village there was a beautiful girl who used to gather seaweed. In teh distance there was a rock called Aebawi where seaweed grew. One day the girl was taken out to the rock by a man, the man had a pack to marry her, he promised to return to the rock to pick her up after she collected seaweed and he went back to the village. The girl waited for the man but wild waves prevented him from going out and getting her. That night, a terrible storm came and drowned the ill-fated girl. From that time on, the fishing turned bad in the village and rumors started among the villagers that it was due to the dead girl's bitter soul. The people of the village decided to offer carved wooden phallics as a sacrifice in the village to the bitter soul of the unmarried girl. Mysteriously, after that, teh village again enjoyed good fishing. The ceremony where wooden phallics are offered is still held today on the first full moon of the lunar year.

So before you judge, what we visited has historical meaning! Nevertheless, it was both hilarious and disgusting at the same time. And we were all way too immature for that park!!

After we cleansed ourselves of the penis park, we headed to the caves, the real adventure of the weekend! It was about a 20 min drive to the mountains from the park. We parked the car, and made found where to buy tickets. We opted for the cheapest tickets, $4, and made our way up to the mountain. As we were climbing to the top we realized why our tickets were only $4, it was because we had to CLIMB straight up in order to get to the caves! We could have paid more and taken a cable car to the top but I guess the hike was good for us. After the 20 min hike we made it to the top and started our journey into the caves. Words can not describe how amazing those caves were! It was like we were in a cathedral of rock! It was so high and it went on forever! It took us about an hour to walk through the whole thing. There were different types of stone and different shapes the stone had taken from the years of water running through it. They are also known to be the biggest of their kind in all of Asia. They were absolutely gorgeous and some place I will never forget!

After we hiked backed down the mountain, we made our way back to the hotel for a shower and to rest before dinner. We headed out to dinner around 7 o'clock. The great thing about Korea is that you can just walk outside, wherever you are, and find a place to eat within 30 yards of where you are. And that is exactly what we did. We found a great Korean restaurant and had a wonderful Korean meal with the locals. The other great thing about Korea is that even though we are foreigners and we don't really know the language, people are usually very nice and friendly. Throughout dinner we had 3 bottle so beers and a few soju shots bought for us. We also had a table share their rice cakes with us. It was a great night with great food and maybe a bit too much to drink.

Even with the amount of alcohol we consumed Saturday night, Jared and I were up at 6am Sunday morning to go on a bike ride. Even though it was early, it wasn't that hard to get out of bed the next morning. It was a beautiful day and I was excited to see the area on a bike. We were off and running (cycling) by 7:15. We headed away from the city to the valleys and mountains that Donghae had to offer. It was so great to be biking on little country roads and out of the business that is Seoul and Bundang. We were in the valley for about 20 mins, then we started our climb up another mountain (I'm beginning to pick up on the fact that Jared doesn't like to do things the easy way.) It took about 45 mins or so to climb this mountain and it was really cool to get to the top and look down on the valley we were just biking through. And even though the uphill is tough, the downhill makes it all worth it!! This downhill was the most fun I've had going down on a bike. I think it's because I'm starting to get more comfortable with the speeds you get up to doing down hill. After the downhill, we peddled through some more quiet valleys and then headed back to the main road and back to the hotel. We made it back by about 11am, just as the girls were getting up! We showered, got packed, and checked out just before noon. We were going to spend some time at the beach before we headed back but by the time we got lunch we were all ready to hit the road.

Traffic heading home was awful and it's a good thing we decided to leave a bit early. It took us about 5 hours to get home, when it should have taken about 3-3 1/2. Such is life in Korea. I wasn't going to let the traffic ruin another great weekend!