South Korea 1: The great wall of Seoul, and our first palace

Our flight left at 7:00 AM, so we had to be up before 4.  When we arrived in Seoul, we struggled to find an ATM that accepted visa ATM cards, but after we found one, we hopped onto the first bus available to bring us into town.  The drive was a little over an hour, and then we had to walk a little bit to our first hotel.  I changed my reservation from a traditional hotel to a bed and breakfast that was highly recommended, in a traditional Korean house, with a host that reportedly spoke a lot about Korean history and had detailed knowledge of the surrounding area.

We arrived roughly around 6:00.  Miles went straight to bed.  I spoke a little bit with the host, who did indeed speak about Korean history.  I went to be around 7:30.  This was a mistake, as I woke up around 2 AM and laid there until around 5:30, when I finally drifted back to sleep.  The host promised to speak to me at 8 AM, giving more in depth information.  He ended up speaking to me for about two hours, explaining about the Korean alphabet and how to place up to four parts of consonants and vowels(Up to two of each) to form a word.  He also went into detail about the history going back nearly one thousand years.  I asked questions about the local area, as well as practiced the Korean phrases I had memorized.  He corrected two of these that I had slightly wrong, so I am glad that I asked.

I was highly interested in walking part of the 18.7km wall that surrounds Seoul.  He recommended one part in particular.  We left a little before noon to walk about forty minutes to this section.  It was mostly uphill, along a wooden railing on the sidewalk of a road.  We saw quite a few insects and a few birds as well.  I did not have my closeup lens, but I did the best that I could to capture some of them.




The path finally converged with the wall, and we followed the signs until we approached the information center.  They gave us two ID cards to carry.  We put them around our necks and began walking on the wall.  The views in both directions were incredible, and aside from one tour group, we pretty much had the walk to ourselves.



At one point we reached a tree that had bullseye marks on it, with a plaque that explained that this tree had caught 15 bullets when the North Koreans once tried to come in that direction, in a plot to attack the Blue House, the South Korean White House equivalent.



The wall wound up and down, but mostly up, eventually having us hit the highest point, which I imagine was 293 meters because of the sign.  We were able to look below and see the palace that we planned on visiting.



We reached the end by about 3:00.  We walked down the hill toward the Blue House and the Gyeongbokgung Palace complex.  We had wanted to visit the Blue House, as it was one of the locations that appeared in one of our recent favorite shows, Stranger, but you had to make  reservation two weeks in advance, and I don't generally look up activities for our trips until a few days before we leave.

Guards appeared in boxes along the street approaching the Blue House

This is the Blue House, originally created by the Japanese occupying force, but later adapted by the Korean President.

The Gyeongbokgung palace grounds were large, with many birds near the dried up streams that intersected the buildings.  When we entered, we started noticing that many people had dressed up in rented traditional Korean garb, similar to what we saw happening in Kyoto last March.  We eventually came upon the two largest buildings, which were magnificent.


We exited east into a Korean Folk Museum area, but by this time we were wiped out, so walked back to our hotel.  I picked up a Pocari Sweat spots drink that I fell in love with on my trips to Japan.



I have not eaten Korean yet, and was a bit overwhelmed with the Korean food choices in the area, so chose something simple in the form of a Japanese Ramen restaurant that ended up tasting nothing like the ramen from Japan.

At night, I ended up having long conversations with the host of the hotel and another visitor, from the US, on a whole range of Korean related topics.

Asheville, NC 3: A short hike on the last day

Our flight was at 7:00 PM, so we decided to take one final, short hike.  We decided on the Craven Gap trail.  It wasn't marked with any sign, and others at the entrance were confused as well.  It was labeled online as having birds, but we only saw one or two.  Instead, it had tons of insects.  I wished I had my close up lens!  We turned back before the end of the trail so we wouldn't need to rush to eat and go to the airport.  As we were nearing the beginning of the trail, a couple alerted us that some bear cubs were up ahead.  We saw nothing.

Asheville, NC 2: Two hikes in two days

Yesterday we drove about forty five minutes to the Black Balsam Knob and Tennent Mountain hike, east and a bit south of where we have been staying, in Waynesville.  On the way there, there were many overlook stop overs.  At first we stopped at most of them, but then we realized that it would take all day if we did that, so we finished up the drive.  Parking was chaotic near the hike, as there are other hikes that begin from the same starting point.  We parked along with other cars on the side of the road.

The hike took roughly about three hours and wasn't incredibly strenuous.  It first went upward toward a mountain top and then dipped again before rising to another top, before curving around and leading to a fairly straight path back to the parking lot.  There was a decent variety to the terrain.  The hike was perfect for me because we had a great view, but there wasn't a single area where it was steep near us.



Today we traveled west and a bit north to another set of mountains, to do another hike which promised waterfalls and wildflowers.  Wildflowers were nowhere to be seen, which made the forest hike fairly pedestrian, but it was still beautiful and we had the hike to ourselves most of the time.  This is what we saw.



Back at the hotel, we hung out on the porch and spoke with another couple.  Stephanie pointed out a mosquito outside of our door.

Ashville, NC 1: The arboretum, bird watching and the drum circle

Stephanie will be unable to come on our upcoming trip to South Korea, so we decided to take a short trip to Asheville, NC to see the mountains.  Our flight was at 7:00 AM, so we had to wake up at 4:00.  We flew via Spirit Airlines which had the widest aisle that I've ever seen on a plane.  It was really nice to walk along.

When we arrived, we picked up our rental car, which turned to be a free "upgraded" manager's special.  The car is nice, but when in the first gears it sounds like a motorcycle.  First, we visited the North Carolina Arboretum.  I was expecting more flowers to be honest.  The area at the front had a handful, but walking down a few of trails we found just forests.  We walked to the azalea garden, but it was mostly not in bloom.  When we returned to the entrance, we came upon a snake.




We left for the hotel so that I could have a bit of a nap, before venturing out in the evening toward Asheville, to go to a bird watching area called the Beaver Lake Bird Sanctuary.  There was a very short path that led to the lake and then back again.  Although it was short, there were a few birds that we spotted.  It was also nice in that there were tons of small side paths that led you walk right into the forest.




Once we were almost back to the parking lot, we noticed a path that paralleled us.  We traced its entrance to the side of the parking lot, labelled the jogging path.  I wanted to see more, so we took this path.  It ended up being an hour long walk around the entire lake.  It was beautiful and we saw many more birds.

Although the picture itself isn't great, I recalled that the North Carolina state bird is the cardinal.

Shortly after we started the jogging path, we came upon a man with a guitar singing songs.

Next stop was Pritchard Park in downtown Asheville, where every Friday they have a four hour drum circle.  Many people brought their own drums from home and other people were dancing.  After watching for a while, we walked down a few of the streets, saw some street performers including a very good banjo player, looked into a chocolate shop, and then headed home for the night.