So on a weekend not long ago, I went off to Gwangju with a friend of mine who I met while we were on exchange together six years ago. She's now an English teacher too but in Incheon. We took our respective buses from our cities after work on the Friday night and met up at the Gwangju U-Square Bus Terminal at around 9:30 pm before heading to our Air BnB accommodation. I'm really sad that I didn't take any photos of the place we stayed at because it was such a lovely place to stay at and since it's not travel season, we were the only ones staying there and had the three-bedroom apartment to ourselves! Such a treat.
We started out early on Saturday morning to visit the 5:18 Memorial Park, a commemoration of the May 18th Gwangju Uprising where citizens in Gwangju held a protest against the then-government. The government retaliated in a bloody and violent manner by using troops to shoot, kill and beat those in protest. What's worse, the government at the time blocked all media and any form of communication out of the city in order to suppress the news of this massacre. It wasn't until quite recently that this narrative was able to make its way out of the city and into international spotlight. Prior to this visit, I had no idea that the massacre had taken place until my friend filled me on the details on our way to the park. If you're interested in knowing the details, I suggest visiting the Wikipedia page for some really, really great reads. There was also a movie made recently about this which I haven't seen yet but intend to do so. As we walked around the park, I couldn't help but feel a sense of mourning and grief for those who had died. Most of them were high school and university students, but what impacted me the most was that there were some elementary school students who were killed as well. Being an elementary school teacher right now, this really hit close to home.
After the Memorial Park, we made our way to Damyang (담양), a small town about half an hour from Gwangju by bus. We were originally heading out to see the Bamboo Park (죽녹원) but made a slight detour to see the Metasequoia Road first. Since it was such a gorgeous autumn day (but also because we didn't want to pay for a taxi), we decided to walk from the bus terminal to the road. It took us about half an hour to walk there and along the way we passed by some really beautiful places, including this huge barley field which was completely deserted.
The Metasequoia Road was quite empty when we arrived, save for a cute couple who was taking turns blowing bubbles and taking photos of each other. The road itself is apparently 8.5 kilometres long and is lined with huge metasequoia trees, all of them so high that they block out the sun. It was a sight to behold and I imagine that when the trees turn yellow in the peak of autumn, it would be a pretty magical place.
After the Metasequoia Road, we had originally planned to take a taxi to the Bamboo Park since we didn't know how else to get there, but as we were walking out of the Road, we got extremely lucky and found a circle-line tour bus which would be heading towards the park. Even better, it was only a few dollars each and we could get on and get off at as many places as we wanted! The tour guide ahjumma was super sweet and would tell us all about the places we were passing in Korean by despite us clearly being foreigners.
The Bamboo Park was an awesome place to visit. Once you enter the park, it's wonderfully quiet and peaceful even though there are people walking around everywhere. The positioning of the bamboo trees is pretty dense and if you wander off the road and into the actual trees, it really does feel like you're in a forest somewhere. The whole of the Bamboo Park is fairly big and you could easily spend a whole day there just wandering around and seeing all there is to offer. Even though it was the weekend, there weren't as many people as I thought there would be although there were quite a few groups of loud ahjummas and ahjussis kind which we actively tried to avoid.
The highlight of the forest though, for me, was being able to try out bamboo ice-cream! I had seen it on someone else's blog somewhere and really wanted to try it out. We found it in a small cafe which also happened to be the souvenir shop, slightly hidden away by the trees. If it wasn't for my eagle-eyed companion, it may have taken us a lot longer to find this delicious treat. I didn't have any preconceptions of what bamboo was going to taste like, so I was pleasantly surprised to find out that it tasted like a more nuttier and earthier version of a matcha soft serve. The soft serve itself wasn't too icy so it made for a refreshing snack after walking so much that day.
We finished up our Damyang tour in the late afternoon and headed back to metro Gwangju for dinner. I had read that the city was famous for their 상추튀김 (sangchu twiggim - lettuce and deep fried assortments) while my friend had heard from her friend that we needed to try out the 육전 (yook jeon - fried meat pancake). We tried looking it up online to see where we could get both of these items but followed a pretty cold trail. Eventually, Instagram came to the rescue and we found a restaurant semi-nearby. Trying to find this restaurant though was an ordeal in itself. My Google maps directed us to go through some of the darkest alleyways I have ever been in and the fact that my shoes were making what seemed like deafening sounds on the pavement did not help either. Finally we got there and ordered the two dishes we had travelled so far to find.
I'm not sure if it was just because I had hyped it up so much in my mind, or if it was just the restaurant itself, but the sangchu twiggim was a bit of a let-down. The main idea is that you wrap deep-fried foods like squid and dumplings in fresh lettuce and then you have some different sauces to go with it. It could have been really good but our lettuce was slightly wilted and underwhelming. The yook jeon was pretty good though! It's basically thinly sliced pieces of meat (I'm guessing ours was beef), dipped in egg batter and then fried until golden. The complementary sauce was also quite delish and was a good salty contrast to the slightly oily jeon.
Saturday night ended with the two of us in Starbucks, enjoying our beautiful desserts we found during our foray into Chungjangro Street 충장로, a busy fashion and food district which is essentially Gwangju's answer to Seoul's Myeongdong. It had been a tiring and eventful day and we were both ready just to sit down, have a non-alcoholic drink and charge our phones (as you do when you go into a cafe in Korea).
Sunday was a fairly leisurely-paced day. Although I had originally wanted to have brunch, the lack of good (read: Instagrammable) brunch options in the city led us to the famous 송정떡갈비로 (Songjeong Tteokgalbi Alley) where we had one of the best breakfasts, heck maybe even meals, I have ever had in Korea. Tteokgalbi is a type of grilled rib patty made up of pork, beef, pears, onions and other herbs. You eat it together with an assortment of side dishes and you also normally get a bowl of pork bone soup to go along with it. Since there are so many restaurants in the Alley serving the same items, the restaurant that we chose to eat in was based solely on the fact that my favourite Korean show, Running Man, had been there and I had a fan-girl moment.
While I did enjoy eating the meat with all the fresh side dishes and even fresher lettuce, my favourite part of the meal was the amazing 비빔밥 (bibimbap) they served. It had the most delicious flavours including seaweed, copious amounts of sesame oil, red pepper paste and another sauce which I wasn't sure of. I'm pretty sure I had more than half of that bowl and let me tell you, it was a big bowl.
After breakfast, we headed to the 양림동펭귄마을 (Yangrimdong Penguin Village). The little village area is apparently named after the way in which the elders walk, which is said to have resembled the way penguins walk. I'm not sure how true that is but it was still a really cute area to visit. There are all sorts of paintings, murals and artworks within the village - all penguin related of course - and it was a lovely way to wrap up the weekend. We also found a very pretty rooftop cafe on the way to the village where we stopped by afterwards for a drink. The owner of the cafe was so sweet when she saw us (being foreigners) and spoke English to us, claiming that she had always wanted to practice her English.
All in all it was a really great weekend. There was a LOT of walking around involved, which really is the only way to truly experience a city, and a lot of good food was consumed. I don't think we got to see all of Gwangju so I would love to go back and see more.
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