Day 4

First night in Jeonju (see Guide to Jeonj) was without incident. Had breakfsat in small, but interesting and friendly cafe around corner fron hotel before getting taxi to bus station. Had terrible problems finding the tourist office and when we did find it the lady did not speak any English.  Met a French couple who were also after similar information. After some to-ing and fro-ing we found the correct bus to take us to the Maisan Provincial Park 'Horse ears mountain'  see photos below for explanation) which was about 45 min from Jeonju.  (See the Park web site for more information about this beautiful park.

The bus took us to a place called Jinan, where we had to catch another local bus to the park entrance.  We had to wait for 40 min but could not find ayone who could speak English - however managed to get on right bus.  It was the first time  Liz had felt really self-conscious about being a foreigner, when a whole bus terminal of people just sat and stared in bemusement at the dishevelled and confused British traveller.

Elwyn with horses ears in back ground- we walked up to the gap between and down the other side

At the park we could not understand the map,s so we followed a group of Korean visitors who seemed to adopt us quite easily.

Liz on steps leading to the gap between the horses ears- oops apostrophe

However,  they did not know where they were going and led us into a jungle of trees and bushes. Eventually, their leader shouted 'Do not worry. I have found the real road. Follow me!' . This road took us to some steps that seemed never ending climbing upwards and we eventually found ourselves in between the two horsess ears. This was some climb and we were really high up.  We were now close to finishing all our water and we were both soaked from head to foot in sweat.  (Note - this was because of very high humidity and the ever increasing threat of another tropical storm!) Our leader again took us under his wing and led us  down the other side of the mountain to a beautiful Buddist temple- see photos.

Liz standing in amongst the temple comples

Liz at shrine on far side of horse's ears with our new korean best friends in left of picture

Liz no longer in shrine but drinking rice liquor - by mistake

Desperate for a cold drink, Elwyn explored the cooled drinks cabinet in a local shop.  Despite his frequent attempts to convince me he thought the green bottle was 'juice', it did, in fact, turn out to be some sort of potent Korean vodka distilled from rice wine.  Helped us recover from the mountain treking though!

Great view of lake below the horse's ears- on way to car park after leaving shrine and drunk half of the green  bottle

 We did not now want to walk back up the horses ears and so carried on down hil,l but of course we were heading for the wrong car park. Never mind, our friends and leader used his Samsung mobile phone to find out the time of a direct bus to Jeonju. However, we had to wait 2h and so settled down to drink coke with dash of what was 20% rice  distilled wine. This lifted our spirits and helped dry our clothes. American Korean lady who is teaching English in Jeonju and she gave us valuable information that got us home safely.  Now back in hotel, had shower and will head out for our first meal of the day (7 pm) for Jeonju's special cuisine of bibumbap.

Had terrible time trying to explain to taxi driver where we wanted to go to eat. At one time I had the taxi driver, hotel receptionist and 6 fellow guests discussing something related to the map I was holding- after 15 min the taxi driver seemed to understand but by time we got to the restaurant, it was closed.  We did find anothe close and eat bibumbap- the essence of this meal is that you throw all into a hot bowl and stir vigorously for 5min. Not as good as the previous nights meal - see picture below.

Liz about to tuck in. NB we did not eat the dried fish in RHS bowl