Buyeo Day Trip

Restaurant in Buyeo

Shawn and Pastor Kim

Shawn Dion and Pastor Lee

Baekje Royal Tombs

Pastor Lee, friend and Melisa outside Baekje Royal Tombs

Melisa and Dion at the Pavilion

We are attending a church which is a 5 minute walk from our apartment in Omsa. Recently we discovered we live in the suburb of Omsa which makes things easier when telling people where we live. However the Church is a Korean Presbyterian Church and there is a long story of how we ended up there. The main point is the Church family are inviting and friendly and we met a Korean man who speaks english very well after living in America for 11 years, and he interprets the service and everything else. Pastor Kim is the main Pastor and Pastor Lee is the second Pastor.

The 2 Pastors wanted to take us out and show us around the province. Last weekend they took us to Buyeo which is a 30 minute drive from Omsa and also where the last capital of the Baekje Kingdom was in AD 660. So there is a lot of history there. They took us to a restaurant which is popular with tourists and is always busy. You can see in the picture if you click on it, the amount of side dishes the meals can have. Dion tried stingray which he thought was interesting.

After that we went to the National Museum of Buyeo which was nice and cool with air conditioning as the temperature outside felt like it was in the late 30s. The main treasure on display was an incense burner from the Baekje Period along with other things from that time.

We thought we were going to sightsee from the car but we ended up going to Busosan Park and in the heat of the afternoon hiking up hill for an hour and reaching a temple where thankfully there was a spring we could get water from. Above the temple was a pavilion which was built in memory of 3000 court ladies who jumped to their deaths in the river below. They preferred to die rather than be slaves when the Baekje Army was defeated in AD 660. The legend says there were 3000 young women but no one is too sure how many women died. That is the pavilion where Dion and I are sitting in. The view was beautiful but the story wasnt too nice.

After drinking from the wonderful water at the temple we walked down to get a ferry boat on the river. It was very hot and we were hoping we wouldnt have to hike back the way we had come. We were in luck the ferry boat dropped us off at a car park where Pastor Kim was waiting with cool drinks and watermelon under a huge shady tree. The taste of the watermelon was so refreshing and juicy and the sight of the car was also very welcoming.

The last stop was at the Baekje Royal Tombs which was more walking but this time no up hill.

There were 7 tombs but unfortunately we couldnt enter them. They made a mock tomb into an Exhibition Hall which was interesting. It was a cool place because of the long history dating back to AD 538.

It was a long day but we were grateful to be taken around by Pastor Kim and Lee. Shawn was there for the first half to interpret and then we communicated through body language and

broken english all in all it was a good day.