Korea and Kyoto

[cos]

On Tuesday I'm going to Korea for two weeks, with a 2.5-day trip to Kyoto in there. Visiting estheruth who lives in the far south of Korea, and my cousin Hadas is joining me from Israel for Kyoto and about half the Korea time. May get to see japlady in Seoul as well. Korea will include Seoul, Mokpo, Jeju, and probably some other place (Gwangju maybe?). Got any tips about Kyoto or Korea, or favorite things in either place, or people you know who I might want to meet? Or people I know and don't realize are there?

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/_nicolai_/]

Climb to the top of Kyoto station to admire the architecture, enjoy the view, and find some handy midprice food places.

[jwg.livejournal.com]

Kyoto is a beautiful place; lots of places to visit; I've been there several times, but it was a while ago so I don't remember any details of where I visited.

Wear shoes that are easy to take off because and put on because you have to do it many times. (And don't forget to retrieve them as I did earlier this year when leaving a temple in Myanmar.) I remember staying in a Ryokan - switch from street shoes to supplied slippers when you enter the building. switch to bare or socked feet in your room, wear the bathroom slippers in the bathroom, and my room opened to the garden where there was set of garden slippers for visiting it.

[tisiphone.livejournal.com]

In Seoul, you need to have dinner here. See the performance if you can, but definitely have dinner. (They're extremely accommodating also - it was the only place in Korea other than the midnight ham and strawberry jelly sandwich where I wasn't accidentally prawned.)

[cos]

I was going to go there this evening, and see the performance, but it turns out they're closed on the third Monday of the month, which is today :( Tomorrow afternoon I'm flying home, so I'm too late.

[kirin]

Jealous - I've never been to Korea, and Kyoto is gorgeous.

Kyoto has basically an endless amount of temples and gardens that are all really pretty, so you may need to pace yourself. If you want to break it up with some city touristing, Osaka's not far by train.

[cos]

Osaka is where we're flying in to and back out from, so we'll have to figure out how to use that train anyway. What might confuse us, when neither of us know Japanese? I sometimes get tripped up by things like, do you pay on the train or in advance, do you need to do something to request a particular stop, are stops easy to identify, etc.

We got a place to stay all three nights in Kyoto, but the day we arrive we land in Osaka at 18:35, so if it has nightlife, and the train to Kyoto runs late, we could eat or do something in Osaka then.

[kirin]

Hmm, it's been a while... I know in Tokyo we paid for a week-long pass that covered all the trains we'd need, but I don't quite remember for sure what we did in the Kyoto/Osaka area.

In the cities and heavily touristed areas (i.e. most places in and around Kyoto), most important signs, station names, etc will be duplicated in the Latin alphabet. If you go a bit out of the way being able to sound out the syllabary alphabet(s) can be helpful, but you probably won't be any places it's necessary.

[jwg.livejournal.com]

I remember when I bought a ticket from Tokyo to Takayama I asked the agent if I'd have trouble recognizing the station. He said, look at your watch - the trains are always on time. But the signs were in Romanji also. I did have trouble once on the subway which is zoned and I was in an outlying are and the maps didn't have Romanji but I figured it out.

[catbird.livejournal.com]

I remember the trains being easy to use as a foreigner in the late 90's. People are also extremely wiling to help you find places in my experience. Don't expect good english exactly but a word or two here or there and lots of gestures will solve most of your questions.

[catbird.livejournal.com]

Kiyomizu Dera (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiyomizu-dera) is my favorite temple in Kyoto. The main street leading up to it is pretty awesome for tea goods shopping as well, if my memory serves.

[pinkrhino.livejournal.com]

Jeju is amazing! Budget for a lot of time there. Loveland is a bizarre and hilarious outdoor sex museum. Tamna Mok Sok Won is a quirky outdoor exhibit of gnarled trees that look like human figures, with stories and descriptions of what it looks like the figures are doing. Manjanggul Lava Tubes is an excellent example of underground caves formed by rivers of lava a long time ago. And of course there are tons of places to enjoy nature - Halla Mountain (Halla-san), Oedolgae rock formations, and the Yongmeori coast.

I lived in Gwangju for a year, and I can say that while it's a fine city, as a tourist you would be (probably) much better served by Jeonju: http://frugaltraveler.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/20/a-south-korean-city-full-of-food-history-and-bargains/?src=rechp (http://frugaltraveler.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/20/a-south-korean-city-full-of-food-history-and-bargains/?src=rechp). If you do go to Gwangju, try visiting the Damyang Bamboo Forest, and perhaps compare it to the bamboo forest in Kyoto.

See if there's a festival that you can attend in Korea. Even if it's on the other side of the country, you can probably get there in 5 hours or less. Korea is full of festivals, and they are often entertaining and enlightening slices of culture. I think Jinju has a lantern festival around this time for 10 days that's pretty great.

[pinkrhino.livejournal.com]

Also, I'm Anna (since I don't think I've commented here before). *wave*

[cos]

Thank you for your comment, it's super-helpful. We're catching the ferry from Mokpo to Jeju tomorrow morning, and estheruth gave us a bunch of tips, but she'd never been to Manjanggul. Once we take a cab there, do you know if it's easy to find a cab to return?

BTW, we went to Gwangju for the weekend with estheruth, and met her friend Ana. The next day, still in Gwangju, we met her friend Anna. Neither of them were you. Also when Esther mentioned Anna to Ana, she said "no, the other Anna", meaning Ana knows at least one other Anna in Gwangju. I'm noticing a pattern! :)

[pinkrhino.livejournal.com]

Yay, glad you're having a good time and seeing cool things and people!

Yes, generally cabs are easy to find. I think I took a bus coming back from Manjanggul.

Go visit a jjimjilbang (Korean bathhouse with lots of amenities) for me - they were one of my favorite parts of living in Korea :) http://pilgrimwithapassport.blogspot.com/2013/06/spa-land-koreas-best-jjimjilbang.html (http://pilgrimwithapassport.blogspot.com/2013/06/spa-land-koreas-best-jjimjilbang.html) (that's a particularly fancy one, so they won't all look quite that extravagant!)

[catamethyst.livejournal.com]

I was in Kyoto as part of an undergraduate class on Buddhism, so that's my lens. But my favorite temples were Ginkakuji (amazing dry sand garden) and ‪Ryōan-ji‬ (my favorite rock garden). I'd recommend both.

Aside from temples, Iwatayama Monkey Park is commercial but fun (at the top, you're in a cage while macaques roam freely around you), and Nara is full of domesticated deer trying to steal your food, which some people find distinctive and charming.

[whitebird.livejournal.com]

I was in Kyoto for a bit last year. We went to the Kyoto aquarium, which was a very nice aquarium, the really big central shrine that half of was being restored while we were there. We visited a restored Yamaboko float exhibit, part of the < href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamahoko">Gion Matsuri festival parade.

There is the Sagano bamboo forest in the Arashiyama area of Kyoto that looked absurdly pretty, but we weren't able to get there.

The Kyoto photos should start here. Beware, lots of fish from the aquarium. Kyoto Photos (http://smu.gs/1a8zU12)

Edited to add: Oops, put in the wrong photo link. Sorry.