Somehow I forgot to take a picture of the shore rocks (probably was too distracted by all the fish under the pier I was walking on) but here's a picture of the little coast road that you walk around the pier to see the rocks. They've got some crazy stories about one rock being a father and the other his son. Apparently the son went to work to get money for medicine, but was gone so long that he couldn't take care of his father and he died. So the kid buries the father on the hillside and sits next to the grave until he dies and that's where the two rocks come from (they do look like faces). Another story is that the two are stone guardians looking out over the port for the Buddha's arrival.
After strolling around Gatbawi we headed across the street to Yibamsan (where I took that picture from) and started the hike. This is by far the most "hike-ish" place I've seen near my house, and by that I mean that there were a limited number of concrete steps and most of the trail was dirt, which was a nice change of scenery.
This was the view from the top of Yibamsan towards Mokpo.
This was pretty cool. The bottom left is a classical-style Korean house. Those two green mounds in the background are also classical-style Korean burial mounds.
The camera angle doesn't do this justice, the trail in this section was about 3 feet wide and had sheer 20 foot drops on either side of it.
Here's the museum and cultural area of Mokpo (similar to Balboa Park)
These rope systems really helped get around the mountain since half the hike was scrambling up rock faces.
After the hike I went home and got my lunch ready. Mexican inspired TOFU!!!!
Yep, ground pork taco meat, tofu, and some grilled onions!
How did you hear about the stories of the stones? The two tales are pretty interesting.
ReplyDeleteThese pictures are so pretty! I hope that when I'm in Korea we can visit. Also, your Tofu lunch looks delicious!