Ra, WD40 and some jellyfish

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Yesterday morning, Gwen and I set off for the Jasujeong Cave, a former amethyst mine turned kitchy tourist attraction a la Rock City, Korean style. We'd heard about the cave via this blog entry, which described it as the weirdest place in Korea. I think that the weirdness factor was lowered for us somewhat by having been forewarned to the sheer oddness of the cave, especially since the cave's website mentions nothing about aliens or Egyptians, but it was still pretty bizarre. Yes, I said aliens and Egyptians. In this case, I think pictures speak louder than words. (I should mention that even though there are very few pictures of people below, the cave was packed - it's apparently quite a popular tourist attraction in the Ulsan area. We'd expected it to be nearly empty!)

The first big hall of the cave was quite pretty.


I took several shots.


Then we moved on the the weird Egyptian hall.


And posed in front of Egyptian Boob Woman


There were even two weird (and one assumes, fake)
mummy replicas.


Gwen posed with some cavemen.


I like this shot of people approaching the Alien Exhibit.


The Alien Exhibit was definitely the strangest part of the cave.


There were a couple of small Buddhist shrines in the cave.


And several statues of naked women.


The halls were neat, although obviously manmade.
(Of course, it's a former mine, not a natural cave)


There was a diarama of primitive miners


And modern miners too.


And some paintings of funny looking dinosaurs

After leaving the deliciously cool cave and re-emerging in the over 95F heat and dripping humidity, we climbed into Gwen's car and set off in search of a nearby waterfall. According to signs, it was only a few kilometers from the cave. Unfortunately, we didn't find the waterfall. Instead, we found ourselves in a terrible traffic jam up on the side of what should have been a lonely old mountain. Instead, it seemed that nearly everyone from the nearby town of Ulsan had come to said mountain for the purpose of picnicking alongside a very shallow and rocky river (possibly connected in some way to the waterfall we never found). Eventually, we got quite fed up with the absurd traffic, and decided to get the hell out of the Ulsan area. We got back on the IC (the Korean freeway system) and headed north towards Gyeong Ju (Kyong Ju). Along the way, I was finally able to take a picture of the monstrous WD40 billboard that I first noticed on my last trip here back in 2004.

Traffic on the mountain

The masses in the river

WD40 billboard

We stopped briefly in Gyeong Ju (where I took a pretty shot of a gorgeous green rice field) and chatted with Samson. (He was involved with an English Language Camp there for the weekend; Gwen and I were quite glad that we were not!) Anyhow, we decided to head off in the direction of Pohang, in quest of some decent beaches. The main road from Gyeong Ju to Pohang is the 7. We were on the 7, headed north out of Gyeong Ju, when we began to notice odd red X marks on the "north to Pohang" signs. We found this quite confusing, especially since Gwen has gone north to Pohang on the 7 numerous times. So, we continued to ignore the signs... until we came to a spot where the 7 was blocked with barricades. There weren't any signs or anything explaining the closure, so who the hell knows. Anyhow, we ended up having to take a much longer (although quite scenic) route to Pohang. We didn't find any decent beaches on the way too Pohang, so we ended up simply stopping in the city, dining on Galbi and crashing in the first motel we found. We ended up staying up pretty late, drinking beers and chatting, and as such didn't really get an early start the next morning.

Rice fields outside of Gyeong Ju

You can tell from this shot that the red X
was made by red tape...

This smoking cherub was outside of our hotel

We went to Chilpo Beach, just a little north of Pohang. The weather was beautiful, even if miserably hot and humid, and the beach was sandy and pretty, with a beautiful rock outcropping on one end, and it was packed with people. Everyone (including us) set up tents, in order to stay out of the sun. After setting up our tent, we headed for the water. The water was a little colder than I would have liked (not as warm and wonderful as Jekyll Island!), but it would have been tolerable had it not been teeming with jellyfish! This didn't seem to stop the Koreans from swimming, but Gwen and I were really freaked out by the things. One of them was at least two and a half feet in diameter! I kid you not. Many of the jellyfish had washed up on shore, although plenty more were still floating in the water. We swam a very little (during the course of which something stung me, mildly, on my ankle), and then decided that we'd beached enough, and headed back home to Daegu.

Our view from the tent

Me, on the beach

Everyone else on the beach

Rock outcropping, north end of the beach

This man had an adorable little dog.
It made me miss Elphie (or Sally, as they're calling her)

Jellyfish!

Many of the jellyfish looked like large lumps of silicon.

Even more jellyfish!!

The road home through the hilly Korean countryside