Korea Travelogue: Day 5 Gwangju & Damyang

Hi everyone! Ok, I apologise for the incessant breaks in between all the entries. I'm forever using this excuse but... I've been really busy D: Busy with life in general actually HAHAHAHA - I actually went to Europe since the last travelogue entry, to Hong Kong for a family vacation and even to Indonesia for a short trip.

I digress but I hope the entries are still useful for whoever is keen to head to South Korea! The GZBs came over a few days ago and we were laughing at the vlog videos because I said really stupid stuff on camera lol. Hopefully the bff will find time to edit them into a video and that video will see the light soon :D

Our short stay in Jeonju ended with just that 1 entire day spent at the Hanok Village and then off we went to the next city - Gwangju!

Again, we bought tickets ahead of time upon arrival in Jeonju just to secure our seats on the bus and the journey took us 1h 30 mins into Gwangju. Took a cheaper bus (Kumho) and paid KRW 6,600/pax. Arrived in Gwangju safe and took a taxi to our accommodation Pedro's House from the bus terminal.

The room wasn't ready when we arrived but it wasn't a big deal because we were headed out for sightseeing straight after booking our time slot for the Gangchon Rail Park in Seoul for the following week because the website accepted Korean numbers only and we hadn't gotten our EG sim card till we departed for Incheon.

Room was very simple, a double bed and a single bed for the 3 of us and I recall booking the room with a private bathroom cos we find it a little strange to share bathrooms (Asians la! Very mafan lol) but Pedro didn't give us that room O.O

Instead we had to use the common bathroom but it wasn't a problem because we were really lucky to be the only occupants for that 2 nights and had the whole place to ourselves. Room is also very small and couldn't fit all our 3 suitcases so we ended up sprawling them open in the living room area lol oops.

Anyway, we headed back to Gwangju's bus terminal in search for lunch because our bus to Damyang for the Juknokwon Bamboo Forest (죽녹원) leaves directly in front of the bus terminal at the main road - it's bus no. 311 and it's the last or second last stop of that bus route. Here's where we had our lunch inside the bus terminal - Korean fare but very yummy! ^^

You can alight once you spot this tourist information centre!

Entrance into Juknokwon Bamboo Park 죽녹원 is KRW3,000 per adult.

The moment you enter the park you somehow gain inner peace HAHAHAHA #ikid

Was pretty surprised that the park was a filming location for quite a few dramas and variety shows. There were signs like this placed all around the main area with the bamboo trees.

The park is very shaded and cooling where the bamboo trees grow so it was a pretty nice place to chill and explore in the afternoon.

Yup bamboos and pandas are love HAHAHAHA

There's a café inside the park itself if you need to take a break. It's near the lake area and makes for a nice photo spot.

So we spent around 1 hour odd inside the park, just walking around and taking pictures and then decided to go off because our dance instructor was waiting for us at the entrance. We had made plans to meet up with him since he lives in Gwangju so he told us he would meet us at Juknokwon after we had finished exploring the place.

But first, ice cream pit stop because the weather became really warm after that!

After exiting the bamboo forest, you can make your way towards the Damyang Noodle Street by crossing this 'lake'. The noodle stores are lined along the street in a row and below nice shady trees.

Here's where we settled down to order the noodles - I don't recall the exact reason why our dance instructor chose this store but yeah lol.

We ordered 3 of the original soup base and one spicy noodles - it was very fun to sit under the trees and enjoy the noodles but we were quite full after eating a few mouthfuls :/

We ended up eating barely half of the noodles before our dance instructor decided to bring us to his family's restaurant somewhere near Damyang!

Here's the name of his family restaurant!

I love how they have such tables on this little stream for customers to sit and enjoy the scenery!

Klime 쌤's dog who had a puppy!

We kept trying to take a clear shot of the puppy but he kept running around until 쌤 just grabbed him for us to take a picture xD

His mum prepared half a chicken for us to grill and it was sooooooo delicious! So even though we were mad stuffed from the noodles we managed to eat finish all the meat because it was non-stop raving of 'damn nice!!!'.

We ended up back at U-Square after taking a bus back from Damyang and then we hopped onto a taxi to get to Chungjang-ro as recommended by Klime. He told us this is the most happening shopping area in Gwangju City and since we didn't have anything planned we decided to head there for dessert.

Ended up having cakes, drinks and ice cream before deciding to head back to Pedro's for the night.

And that ends our first night in Gwangju! Next entry will talk about how we spent our day at the Boseong Green Tea Plantation which is also one of the recommended day trips when in Gwangju.