Peaceful Gwangju Part 1 - Intro

 For November, our second trip,

Jeehee recommanded us to go to '광주 - Gwangju - 光州'.

It is the capital of Jeollanam-do

and the sixth largest city in South Korea as well.

-Pink area is Gwangju-



Maybe Gwangju is not as famous as other cities in SK yet,

But for Koreans, throughout history,

it has been known as a symbol of abundant resources,

amazing food culture, nice weather,

and a fortress of democracy.

(If you want to know more about this,

you can refer this link : Gwangju massacre)

Gwangju is surrounded by a lot of southern cities and villages,

like, Mokpo, Suncheon, Naju, Damyang, etc.

Each of those cities has its own unique chracteristics.

For example,

Mokpo is famous for its Octupus dishes (세발낙지, 연포탕, etc)

Suncheon has the world's 5th biggest tideland.

Back to the point,

 in order to go to Gwangju from Seoul,

usually there are two ways;

taking Train or Bus.

if you want to book a train, follow this link ↓

http://www.korail.com/

(eng ver.) : http://info.korail.com/2007/eng/eng_index.jsp

but usually a train for Gwangju is expensive,

although similar time taken with bus.

so we decided to take a bus,

charged us 18,200 won for single trip, per person.

Korean bus booking website and its English version are below ↓

http://www.kobus.co.kr/

http://www.kobus.co.kr/web/eng/index.jsp

If you booked a ticket for bus,

Dong-Seoul(동서울, East Seoul) bus terminal is the place

that you can catch your bus.

Dong-Seoul bus terminal,

 is right next to Gangbyeon(강변) Subway station, Line No.2.

That's where we start our journey at 8:00 a.m. , 6th Nov, 2010.

After around 4 hours, we arrived at Gwangju bus terminal, U-Square.

We were invited by one of our brand leaders member, Eunkyung Kim

who lives in Gwangju, to have lunch together.

So we took a bus No.09 to meet her,
bus station was just right in front of U-square.
No.09 was a quite good bus for tourist.
cuz it travels across the city so that you can
get almost everywhere you want to go.

(http://local.daum.net/map/index.jsp?busrgnsrch=24
-detailed information about bus in Gwangju but in Korean T.T)

we got off at 'Munwha guangzhang(Culture square)',
there was a big urbanized fashion zone like Myongdong.
but actually it was not as crowded as Myongdong, so even because of that,
it was a nice place to enjoy shopping.

Next, we went to restaurant
called 'Mujinju(무진주)' to have lunch.
We were starving at that moment,
cuz we had nothing since 7 a.m. but it was
already 1 and half p.m....

Its main menu is 'Bossam(보쌈)'
which is a combination of steamed pork and Kimchi
so it has set menu with stone pot rice,
this rice contains lots of nutrional ingridients.




The set costs 7,500 won
slightly expensive, but seems reasonable
compared with the quality.

appetizer salad was great,
main course and other side dishes
were also fabulous as well.

after a long journey from Seoul to Gwangju,
this Bossam set was perfect re-booster for our trip :)