November
8th, Friday
We have a day with no guide. Kind of a treat to have the day to
ourselves. Quiet time at breakfast. Kia had suggested that we could visit some
waterfalls and a botanical garden close to the hotel. We decided that would be
a good plan.
On the way to the Cheonjeyeon area (a
park like area with 3 waterfalls) we passed by a Ripley’s believe it or not
place, another teddy bear museum (with a louvre like tower), a Kpop music place (not clear what would
happen there), and several other cafes, and stores.
The two teddy bear museums we've seen close up both had this conical glass tower. I'm not sure why.
We thought that Starbucks had begun to take over the world (there were really a lot of the in South Korea). But the champion is KFC. Here's sculpture of a Heanyeo Colonel Sanders.
Cheonjeyeon seemed small at first –
wrong. There was a temple-like structure
for an overview of the place and an excellent fountain at the front. Then there was a curved bridge, the Seonimgyo
Bridge, that seemed like the epitome of Asian bridges. It was lined with lanterns and if they were
lit up at night, would be gorgeous, Once
over the bridge we had 3 waterfall options.
The first waterfall only would be “working” after a rainfall, so we
opted to see the other two. Waterfall
number 2 was down at least 75 steps (and we thought we were done with stair
climbing today-nope). It was beautiful,
cascading into a pool. We trudged back
up the steps and walked to waterfall number 3.
This walk had a wooden walkway to use.
Of course, there were steps here too.
The waterfall itself was smaller, but the pool was larger. Again, a lovely setting and worth the stair
stepping to get there.
First waterfall
We both loved this bridge.
Second waterfall
Our next stop was the Yeomiji
Botanical gardens. Botanical gardens
always trick me. I don’t think they sound so interesting until I get into one,
then I love the fact that I got in there.
We wandered around the outside gardens (a Hosta garden, a bog garden,
and a lawn garden). At this point we
thought we’d go into the Indoor garden which was located in a huge glass, Kew
Garden-like structure. The entrance of
this building had the most amazing visual I have ever seen. Hanging orchids, a waterway, and an immense
tower-like structure to the center.
Surrounding this superb entrance were 5 other gardens. Beautifully laid out, Charlie said he felt
like we should run home and start planting things and re-organizing our
garden. The gardens around the center
were 1.) a flower garden 2.) an aquatic garden 3.) a cactus garden 4.) a jungle
garden, and 5) a tropical fruits garden.
All of them were incredibly well maintained, with very happy looking
plants, and awe-struck visitors. For example
the cactus garden had huge saguaro cactuses as tall as the ceiling (20 ft?).
The tropical fruit garden had guava, mango, macadamia nuts, coffee, banana, and
papaya. They had examples of the fruits
sitting in small glass containers when there weren’t any fruits to see on the
trees. We were both really impressed.
A few gardens outside. This one was the grassy garden
Hard to show the scale of this place
After our tour we walked back to the
shops to see what might be available for lunch.
Most of the restaurants seemed to imply “too much food”. One called yellow café had a yellow container
that looked like a Winnie the Pooh honey pot.
When we got in there, they only seemed to have sweets. I think it was a honey pot. We went back to our coffee place and got a
bagel each and a latte each. Just the
ticket for over-eaters anonymous. Back to
the hotel for a rest until dinner.
Tomorrow we start our trek back to Los Angeles via Seoul,
San Francisco, the LA.
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