It was a long day of traveling from Buyeo to Jeonju. I took an intercity bus instead of the express which meant many stops along the way. My friend Shinwook, who teaches English literature in Jeonju, met me and drove me around the province to see the various sites.
Bibimbap was invented in this city, so we went to a well-known restaurant for a late lunch.
We then drove to Maisan "Horse Ears Mountain" Provincial Park.
At the base of one ear (the female one) is Tapsa, where a Buddhist mystic, Yi Kap-yong (not sure of the spelling), constructed 80 stone towers over the course of 30 years. They were created without cement but apparently never fall down.
At the temple, Shinwook did some extreme Korean haggling for a Gwan-eum (Korean Pronunciation) that I really liked. We headed back to Jeonju for Hanoo beef at a hanok village. I stayed in motel and we planned for the next day. He had a number of ideas then mentioned in passing Chimyeongjasan (my transliteration) which translates to something like "Deadly Mountain". It is the site where Christians were martyred. It was pouring rain; the steep paths up the mountain seemed more like streams and waterfalls.
This is where (I believe) clergy is buried.
At the top is the church and above that are the burial mounds of the martyrs. Korean history is ancient, but Christianity is very new to the region so much of what I visited is Buddhist (many many temples). Christianity in Korea, as in much of Asia, was met with a lot of resistance and persecution. Visiting this site was a pretty powerful experience. It's a bit of a mecca for Catholic Koreans. In fact, there is a Buddhist side of the mountain (with a temple) and this, the Christian side.
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