담양 | Damyang

After the incredibly deep "hikers sleep", we woke up the next day to a slightly less stuffy, but beautifully sunny Gwangju. The view from the roof of our guesthouse was lovely, and it was quite nice to be able to see a large segment of the city from only the 5th or 6th floor.

The guesthouse provided us with some simple breakfast things like milk, bread, and fresh eggs, after which we packed up, paid, and headed out for Damyang, a small county on the northeast of Gwangju's borders.

The main reason I wanted to go to Damyang was because of its famous bamboo forests, which I'd seen photos of all over the internet, as well as being home to one of the festivals I'd read about a few weeks beforehand. According to 'the Internet' (my second best friend and my proverbial Hitchhiker's Guide) you could get a bus directly to Damyang's most popular bamboo forest - Juknokwon - right from Gwangju Station.

Slightly more savvy with the scale of the city this time, we hopped on a bus (second time lucky, busy weekend life) to the station and waited at the bus stop, which looked a lot more simple than the ones we're used to back in Incheon:

It looked a little bit sketchy, but considering someone had gone to all the effort to hand write the signs in several languages and stick them up, we had some faith and waited. Eventually, as promised, the bus arrived...

totally packed.

But this is South Korea, and so after a lot of shouting from the driver and pushing from the passengers, we squeezed on, standing in the front area where you usually pay, and praying for a distinct lack of the characteristic "emergency brake" pulsing that a lot of bus drivers here seem so fond of :p

The next problem was that we didn't have the right money (no T Money available and no 1000원 notes?!) so we were worried we'd be booted off at the next stop but this isn't Seoul, so apparently different customs apply. After a bit of stumbling in Korean we worked out that he'd be making a slightly longer stop in Damyang at which point we can quickly dash off the bus, get change for our 만원 and finally pay him.

Despite the crush we were too thankful to worry even with my thumb mysteriously bleeding (?!), managed to get change at Damyang's tiny bus station, and hop back on to go the last 20 minutes to Juknokwon.

광주 | Gwangju

May 1st was the start of one of South Korea's rare long weekends, so we decided to go on an adventure. Usually we'd take advantage of the extra travel time and hop on a plane somewhere (only Japan so far but we're wanting to diversify a little). Unfortunately, we weren't too sure on the specific dates and by the time we were, prices had hiked a little, and most things were booked up because who can blame the overworked staff of SK wanting to get away from it all as soon as possible?

I'd made a list of upcoming festivals I really wanted to visit in the coming weeks, and this one coincided with a couple of things in Gwangju and the surrounding area. We'd been told to check out that area, as well as it appearing on quite a few "great places to go in SK that AREN'T SEOUL" (things I keep looking for, because as wonderful as Seoul is, at the end of the day a city is a city.)

Also, why bother living in Korea if every chance you get, you leg it abroad somewhere?

Anyway, we got up early and hopped on the subway to Yongsan, where we could catch a train to Gwangju with ease. Aside from our brief trip to Justin's town back at Christmas time, we'd never really gotten the train anywhere and it was a little bit scary to say the least.

It was easy to buy a ticket though, and despite it being pretty busy we managed to get some unassigned tickets for the very next train. I think this was actually the most confusing and eventful part of the 3~4 hour journey, as we didn't really understand the conditions of carriage. We took it the same way as it goes at home, for safety: if you're unreserved, you can sit anywhere but have to vacate your seat as soon as the person who reserved it turns up.

63 Building and the area trashed a bit by the Avengers

Sadly, what with it being so busy, a few stops through the suburbs saw us hop around from seat to seat until finally the carriage was full less than 30 minutes into our journey. We took our chances with the corridors, like many other people, and basically tried to stay our of anyone's way and hop away quickly any time we came to a station (all of the doors not on the platform side were, wisely, already taken.)

So in that respect, I really would recommend booking or buying your tickets in advance if you're going anywhere at a peak time, beacuse it was kind of uncomfortable and felt like those days as a teenager thinking there's a 50:50 chance you're on the wrong train/travelling with the wrong ticket and pretending to be asleep to avoid finding out that you're the 50% that needs to get off right now.

Most days though, I'd say you're fine winging it on the day if you're the kind of person that's okay with such a footloose, floozy lifestyle ;)

Gigantic churches looking really out of place in tiny towns.

Everything is so green! I missed it!