Seongnyugul - Korean Caves in Gyeongsangbuk-do

Sara and I bought a car!  A 2001 Kia Carens with just over a 100,000 miles.  We've nicknamed it Jean Grey, or the Phoenix, because it's grey and because there are some hints that it was wrecked and burned pretty badly.  It drives well, but it was probably engulfed in flames at some point in its life.  We only paid two-thousand, so we're happy as long as we don't end up in a fiery inferno.  I'll write a post about buying a car in Korea, but the short version of the story is it's really easy.  Do you have money?  You can buy a car and drive it away that day.  It probably helps if you know something about cars, but they're really happy to sell you one no matter your understanding of Korean or cars. 

We bought a car so we could road trip.  We love having our scooter, but we just can't get very far and by the time we do, we're worn out from dodging buses and trying to stay upright in the wind.  Our first weekend as proud owners of the Phoenix we drove north looking for something new, looking for that feeling of travelling that we haven't had in so long.  It turns out Korea's a really great place to travel if you have transportation.  There's a ton of cool stuff just waiting to be seen, if you can get to it.  Because it was raining on Saturday the first thing we did was head for a cave just outside of Uljin.  Indoor, touristy, a perfect first choice for our trip.  

This part of Korea is just hills and mountains and valleys everywhere, which naturally leads to some caves.  Seongnyugul Caves are touted as the first caves opened to tourists.  While the walk through only takes about twenty minutes, it's a cool opportunity to get underground and see some stalactites and stalagmites.  The path inside the caves is an easy walk, though with a couple sets of stairs and a couple of places where crouching/crawling becomes necessary.  There's not a lot of adventuring once inside, as the path is set by metal barriers, but it's a good way to spend a rainy afternoon.  And if you get hungry, there's a small group of restaurants just outside the entrance of the caves.  We stopped and had katsu and bibimbap.  As always, here's 10 pictures and some foolish comments. 

The ticket office is surrounded by a little pond.  The metal barriers outside suggest this place can get really busy and have some really long lines.

We were really lucky because there were very few people here.  A bus full of people did show up as we were leaving, but mostly we were by ourselves in the caves.

Like many places in Korea safety has been thought of but then usually ignored.  We saw lots of people carrying helmets, but we were some of the only ones actually wearing them.  I did hit my head five or six times inside, so I was happy to be helmeted.

This is a five second exposure where I'm standing really really still.  It was dark in these caves.

Another long exposure.

Parts of the cave were filled with water and reflected the walls perfectly so it looked like the cave went down forever.

She looks good in that helmet.

We used the torch on my phone to light our faces.

I definitely hit my head down here.

I took a thousand pictures this weekend, this is one of my favorites.