We spent our first month in Korea getting all settled in and didn't get our car until we'd been here for six weeks. We were pretty anxious to get out and see the country by that time.
Armed with a full tank of gas and a Korean road atlas (no English--everything was printed in Hangul) we set out for the East Coast of Korea. What the heck, it was only 90 miles away, and all we had to do was drive east, right? Three hours later and 30 miles in the wrong direction, we finally recognized some road signs. The road atlas was not as accurate as we had hoped. We finally picked up the right road just outside of Kyongchu and followed it straight to the beach.
We stayed long enough to touch the water then decided it would be better to head for home while it was still daylight. We vowed we would return...someday.
The photos
below were taken and generously given to us by our great friend Frank Gatta.
And we did. Months later, in the middle of summer, we had a long weekend and went back to visit. This time we found a hotel right on the beach and spent a couple of nights. We had dinner the first night at the hotel. That was interesting. Raw fish, sea urchins, sea cucumbers, and pancakes. The next night we found an Italian restaurant.
There were many temples, ruins, and even an underwater royal tomb in the Gampo area. We had plenty to do while we were there. All we had to do was drive a mile or two in any direction until we saw a brown sign marking a tourist attraction. Mostly we enjoyed the relaxing sound of the waves crashing against the rocks and watching the cargo ships float by.
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