Amanda Takes Off...

Yesterday I took a day trip to some islands, Gangwha-do and Seongmo-do, in the northern part of South Korea in the West Sea. Michael's friend Leslie is visiting for several weeks, and they invited me to go with them. We were less than 15 miles from North Korea for much of the trip.

We visited a Buddhist temple, Bomun-sa, on the island of Seongmo-do. The temple site is dedicated to the Goddess of Mercy. The site was very pretty, surrounded by juniper trees and set in the mountains. We climbed more than 400 steps to get to a bas-relief sculpture/carving called Eyebrow-rock Buddha. We also went to the beach where we peered across the water to North Korea.

We then visited the Goryeo palace site on the island of Seongmo-do. The palace was quite small but had some interesting history, as it was used as a place of exile twice by the royal family when Korea was under the control of the Mongols and Manchus. Most of it didn't look like it had been restored recently, which I liked.

Photos can be found in the gallery; here is one of my favorites.

When we got back to Seoul, we chowed on some great Indian food and Michael graciously offered to let me crash at his place.

Today we went to two foreign food markets and I grabbed two boxes of unknown-name Mac and Cheese. I don't normally do fake-cheese Mac and Cheese, but for 900 won each, I couldn't pass them up. I also bought 2 lbs of pepperjack cheese for 10,000 won. Ouch. At least now I know where to find some foreign markets...