Adventures in South Korea!: Road Trip!

Some sweet jams sold at a truck stop

Clearly, from the pose that the number 19
on top is making, she has a great voice!

Amazing

Not a bazooka.
Somehow, this contraption roasts chestnuts...

Mister Potato Crisps!

This truck stop had the most extensive collection
of vitamin/health drinks we've ever seen.

In Korea, the driver has to put a giant
picture of himself on the back of his truck!
It's awesome.

Heading into Gwangju...

We got in around lunch time, so we headed for an area known as "Duck Street" to have a delicious, meaty duck lunch. Almost every restaurant on the street served duck. Most were duck soup restaurants, but we wanted duck BBQ.

This was the one we chose

Waiting for the delicious feast to come...

We ordered what everyone around us had, but when it came, it was more than 50% fat. It was terrible. We spent a lot of time pulling the fat away, but the meat wasn't even good. It was really sad.

We followed the disappointing round of BBQ, with a disappointing round of duck soup. It tasted just as gross as it looked. We were so let down. Korean duck usually tastes like a cross between bacon and Honey Baked Ham, which is amazing, but the crap we were given at this place was terrible.

Screw you, Duck Street!

After the sad lunch, we got back into the car and typed the Gwangju Modern Art Museum into the GPS. Korea has a really special ability to ruin things, and this modern art museum shared the same grounds as the folk museum, so we didn't have high expectations. We didn't expect it to be a modern art museum at all. Surprisingly, Korea came through and it was actually a pretty awesome museum.

Well done, Korea, you didn't screw things up!

Self-timer shots on the way in

The museum was even in a modern space...

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After we went through the museum,
we went to the cafe for snacks and refreshments.

While we waited for our tea, coffee and rice cakes, we watched all the Koreans write messages on paper leaves and add them to the tree.

So, Andrew did one.

On the left: walnuts wrapped in dried persimmon
On the right: assorted rice cakes

All that art inspired Andrew to get a little artsy...

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After we were done at the museum, we loaded back into the Avante and went in search of lodgings for the evening. We drove past quite a few, but finally settled on Motel Windmill.

Who doesn't think Roman architecture when they think of windmills?

The hallways and doors were much 'classier' than Dream Motel

When we were checking in, the man asked if we wanted a square bed or a round bed. Of course, we went with the round!

The command center

A nice red light above the bed

We found this in the parking lot.
Not sure what it is, but our best guess is
that Archer is someone's super sexy toy.

The entire parking lot of Motel Windmill was a giant circus tent

An awesome Guess one-piece

Motel Windmill was only a few blocks away from the major shopping and eating area in Gwangju.

After shopping up an appetite, we stumbled across a familiar and delicious restaurant called Crazy Pepper. We had discovered it in Daegu, and were delighted to find that it was a chain.

For dinner, we had a cast iron skillet/wok of chicken, octopus, cabbage, onions and garlic stems in an extremely spicy sauce. This wasn't what we ordered, but we were not upset. It was delicious!

On our walk back to the motel, we saw the
most amazing spandex catsuit EVER made!

The next morning, we noticed that our room was on the display.
(That always makes you feel like a high roller!)

For breakfast, we wondered back into the shopping and eating area to find what was open on a Sunday morning.

Candid shots of Judy

After breakfast, we headed to the 5.18 National Cemetery. We were hoping it was going to be an awesome cemetery like the ones in Europe, but this wasn't actually a cemetery at all. It was just a memorial for all the students that lost their lives during the Gwangju Democratic Uprising Incident of 1980. Although not the cemetery we were hoping for, it was still pretty cool.