Day 8. Jeonju to Yeosu via Suncheon and Wetlands. 11 April 2024

A long night downloading my camera cards and writing blog last night. Up early to see if it was worth a pre-breaky look at Hanok Village- it was overcast so no good light. A couple of quick shots from hotel.

RF – At Lotte Hotel there was no Fourth floor it was ‘dot’ as thr floor numbers counted down. Here at Lahan its four which is represented by an F. So Susie reckons that La Murphy’s law that she is on the Fd floor. Birthday hug and breaky with Suzie at 8:00. Breaky filled a hole but the benchmark has been set at Lotte Hotel.

9:00 met Susie to wander the village. A lovely surprise birthday pressie – a set of Qantas PJ’s which I LOVE ❤️ and a little Qantas pack with socks and body lotion – all delightfully wrapped in a hand sketched by Susie, hotel hair dryer bag. What a treat. Thanks heaps to Susie. So thoughtful.

Jeonju Hanok Village first thing in the morning without people. The sun did come out which was helpful.

I did some homework last night about viewing points so we headed up to Omokdae Historic site and gardens for viewing over the village.

We also saw a 600 year old Ginko tree. Really enjoyed the early walk around before meeting Alex at 10:45 for our road trip.

Interesting sites along the way – mountains either side and so much agriculture- and hothouses alongside freeway.

RF – 90% of tourists don’t leave Seoul!

Cities – we passed lots along the way Gurye (gooray)is where we turned off. This is a smaller town and we could actually pull over to look at some of the market gardens. The cherry blossoms have pretty much finished but you could see how stunning it would have been. Tunnels through mountains are regular and the heavily treed hillsides are like something out of a book.

Driving through the Korean countryside today was wonderful.

We explained to Alex that we didn’t need long fancy lunches just something light and quick.

So lunch at local Hansik. Basically an older woman who owns this land runs a Korean all you can eat buffet for 10000KRW (about $11)

Tried lots. Really liked this black/brown goo called jajang.

Myeon is noodle. jajang is usually served with noodles, but not here. It was nice mixed with rice and noodles from the shrimp and anchovy soup.

The other things I really liked were:

Brown rice with beans

Pancakes

Chilli soup.

Egg – little boiled egg.

Chicken dish.

And we tried Makgeolli (muckholi) which is basically an alcoholic drink made from fermented rice. Not bad.

This lady makes a killing from Korean tourists for a week or so during Cherry Blossom season and again in Autumn.

Then onto the road again alongside a river. Seomjinjang River wide and shallow and not used for anything according to Alex. It was a beautiful drive to Suncheon city. We drove into rain.

We came across one lot of roadworks with the funniest thing. As we approach there were two blokes waving their flouro torches to slow down. As we got closer this is what we saw.

Suncheon had massive apartment building blocks. The wetland we are visiting are nearby. However the exit we were supposed to take was no longer there. Not sure what we are in for with these Suncheonnan wetlands as they are right in town. We then drove on further to another entrance. Which was quite a distance. Alex says it is where fresh and saltwater meets.

We arrived and got the waterproof jackets out. Thankfully the preparation scared the rain away.

The wetlands where we anticipated a range of waterbirds didn’t deliver on that front.

However I certainly had fun chasing pictures of the various crabs and mudskippers with the big lens I carried for the birds. Until the battery ran low (and I’d stupidly left backpack WITH battery in the van.)

We did see some tiny Reed Warblers? or iPhone identified them as a Vinous Throated Parrotbill which looks right. Anyway very tiny, very fast and flitting. First and only water bird we saw was a crane of some description -which Apple identified as Grey Heron.

Some of the views into the mountains with trees and the odd cherry blossom were beautiful.

Suncheonman Wetland is one of the world’s top five coastal wetlands, stretching along a 3km river with mudflats and reed beds. The reed colonies serve as wintering and breeding grounds for various birds such as Hooded Cranes. The tidal flats are home to diverse species including Mudskippers and several crab species. It’s an ecological tourist destination the wetlands play a role in keeping the environment clean.

After a good couple of hours chasing anything that moved with our cameras, we piled back into the van and drove to Yeosu – our home for the night.

Alex dropped us off at a restaurant on the waterfront called Hamel. We enjoyed a delicious Italian sparkling red wine and a cheese platter on the rooftop bar with views across the water and the lights of Yeosu.

Dinner was fried chicken and rice Beer (slightly better than beer) nearby as we didn’t want to cook our own Korean BBQ. We almost ended nup with an huge plate of seafood and other weird stuff but thankfully they were able to take it away – as we’d ordered badly.

A short walk to find a taxi and home to hotel Shilla Stay – seems quite new and lots of young people around.

Washing and showering and some time on blog. Very tired tonight so it will be a rough blog post in the morning I’m thinking as I write this in preparation