We spent our four day weekend at the Sun Cruise Resort on Jeongdongjin beach on the East Sea, or Sea of Japan, depending on which side of the sea you live on. November in the northern part of the ROK is not the best time to have a beachside vacation, but it was still fun. Windy, but fun. The hotel was the reason I wanted to go. I saw it on Korean tv and thought it looked pretty neat, so I found it online. As you can see from the picture, it's modeled to look like a cruise ship, though the rooms were considerably larger than what you'd get on a ship. I can't go on a real cruise because the thought of being cramped and enclosed with so many people who will, at some point, talk to and/or touch me is unbearable. The blue lights in the middle top are in a Korean/American style restaurant, and the other blue lights on the top right are from the Sky Lounge, a revolving observation room where they serve coffee, drinks, and dessert. It made me slightly woozy to sit in there spinning while eating! Our room was very nice and incredibly spacious (palatial for a Korean hotel!) and had a spectacular view of the beach and the mountains.
In the bottom right/center you can see an observation point jutting out; it has a glass floor, though I'm not really sure why. There's nothing to see underneath except the side of the hill.
In the center of the picture above you can see the (dead) grassy area. This is part of the hotel grounds and is a sculpture park. There is also a totem park with numerous Korean style totems that they say were transported from Andong several years ago. There is actually a ticket booth at the main entrance of the hotel grounds where you must buy tickets to see these things and enter the hotel for its' observation deck and the above mentioned observation deck if you are not a hotel guest.
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| Taken in the evening dusk. You can barely make out the ever present mountains in the background. |
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| Totem park |
We didn't do a whole lot on this trip; there's not much around here to do. We went to Unification Park, not the only one so named in Korea, during one afternoon. They have a retired Ameri...I mean Korean naval vessel you can tour with displays on the history of the Korean navy. The ship actually is American; it was built in America in 1945 and donated to the ROK in 1972. In the same area is a DPRK spy submarine that sunk just off the nearby coast in 1996. There is also a manned guard tower at this site where they continue to watch for DPRK vessels and you can sometimes see ROK navy ships on the horizon. The guard towers are also present all along the shore line. This place is obviously close to the DMZ. Just down the road is a museum we did not go in, and an outdoor ROK army and air force display. All of those are part of Unification Park. Once again, all the aircraft were American made, at least according to my husband. Since it is his area of expertise, I'll trust him on that.
The wooden boat above was built by about a dozen North Koreans who used it to flee to South Korea. (I can't remember all the dates.) |
| Air Force exhibit with flags of the countries who had part in the war. |
Jeongdongjin is also very proud of its hourglass. It is a one year hourglass. It is supposed to have 8 tons of special sand that drop at a steady, regulated pace and surrounded by argon gas to keep humidity out. Kind of neat.
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| night view |
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| Cute little bridge nearby. You can see half the town here! Small place. |
I must interject here one thing I especially love about Korea; how safe it really is. I walked around taking these night pictures at 10 o'clock at night alone. I would never feel safe in the States doing that, but never once did I or have I ever felt unsafe alone at night in Korea.
Another little story about our trip: almost all the restaurants in town were raw fish servers. We went in one to eat and the only thing on the menu not raw was jeonbokjuk, abalone porridge, which I like, and the girls ate some also, but my husband refused to even try. He did eventually find some fried chicken to eat, which they served with popcorn. Another restaurant we ate at in a neighboring town had no English or picture menus, and the waitress spoke no English. I can read Hanguel, though I can't translate much, and know the word for rice, which is 밥 bap, and was able to order for myself and the girls. Since my husband is so picky, he was out of luck. He had to make a pig noise for the waitress to order pork. It was and still is hilarious to me, not to him. Fortunately for him, coke is a universal word.
Another stop was Hassla Art World, a sculpture park really. It was beautiful scenery with the mountains, ocean view and fall colors.
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| Hassla hotel/restaurant in background. |
Art made from poo. Really? Who accepts this? Am I supposed to admire this because someone supposedly "in the know" says so? If I pee on it does it add to the attraction? Sheep; they all say baaa.
There was one small problem with our hotel: the 20 minutes before sunrise wake-up bell. Every morning they ring a bell in each room to wake you so you can view the sunrise over the East Sea. The Koreans apparently believe strongly in sun rise good luck; when we were in Jeju-do you were supposed to climb Ilchulbong to see the sun rise for good luck. Personally, I think it's good luck to still be asleep when the sun rises, but whatever. One morning my husband so sweetly got up and took some sunrise pictures for me.
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| "He's got the whole world in His hands..." |
It was a nice, relaxing get away, with time spent on the windswept beach each day and night, once with our own fireworks!
