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Benedicts in Turkey: Troy and Çanakkale

November 1, 2015

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After spending the night in Bergama, we drove 3.5 hours north to Troia and the ruins of Troy. (Did you know Troy is in Turkey? I thought it was in Greece!) For a time it was believed the city mentioned in Homer’s Iliad was fictional, but a British man discovered the ruins in 1863.

It was raining that morning, so it was rather miserable to be outside. We sat inside of the “replica” Trojan horse for a while to avoid the rain. Had we had a tour guide and if the weather had been clear, I might have enjoyed this stop more. We hurried through the site and I didn’t read many signs.

Theater:

This area was significant because it showed four layers of civilization:

The view from Hisarlık across the plain of Ilium to the Aegean Sea:

After Troy, we took a ferry boat across the straights to the European side of Turkey. The car ferry cost only 30TL! I was impressed by that. We saved a significant amount of travel time by taking the ferry. (We were on our way to Istanbul.)

It was nearing dark and the weather was still rainy. David really wanted to see the site of the Battle of Gallipoli (aka the Battle of Çanakkale). We drove along the water in Gallipoli Peninsula Historical National Park to the Çanakkale Martyrs’ Memorial.

The battle took place April 1915 – January 2016. The Ottoman victory was a defining moment for the country. Eight years later, the Republic of Turkey was established.

The Water Diviner movie starring Russell Crowe came out last year and gives an interesting perspective of and shortly after the war. I recently finished reading Birds Without Wings by Louis de Bernières. The novel is another great period piece.

The memorial structure stands 41.7 meters tall. Here’s Ben standing at the base of it for scale:

It was sobering to see the graves and names of fallen soldiers. It is estimated over 100,000 men died during the Gallipoli Campaign including Turkish, British, French, New Zealander, and Australian soldiers.

After the sun set, we made our way to Gallipoli Konukevi. We were very impressed by this guesthouse! The small apartments were modern and spacious. Their breakfast was wonderful as well.

Benedicts in Turkey: Pergamum

October 26, 2015

Leah

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After Ephesus, we drove to ancient ruins of Pergamum (aka Pergamon) set in modern day Bergama. We considered taking the cable car up to the acropolis, but instead drove up the hill. Pergamum is one of the Seven Churches of Revelation and is mentioned in Revelation 2:12–17. Today, the location is a UNESCO World Heritage site.

It was David’s and my first time visiting the hilltop fortress. The extent of the ruins are not nearly as impressive as Ephesus or Laodicea, but I’m glad we got to see the theater. The theater of Pergamum was built in the 3rd century BC directly into the side of a hill. It could seat 10,000 people and was the steepest theater in the ancient world.

Pergamum was a prosperous city. It was a political center and had the second largest library in the ancient world. It also had the Asklepion hospital and health spa. The city was especially known for its pagan worship with temples dedicated to the Roman Emperor Trajan, Athena, Dionysus, Demeter, and Zeus. Christians here faced a lot of persecution. Antipas was martyred for his faithfulness to Christ.

The foundation of a temple:

I didn’t walk down to the bottom of the theater, but the boys and Mom did:

After we finished exploring the site, we headed to Efsane Hotel for the night. Bergama was a smaller city and it felt more conservative than others we’ve visited. Dad was still on the mend from his stomach bug and turned in early, but the rest of us had dinner at a Domino’s Pizza.

Benedicts in Turkey: Ephesus

October 22, 2015

Leah

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I’m nearing the end of recapping our two week tour of Turkey! Looking through all of these photos is making me homesick. I want to drop everything and head to the Turkish coast.

After Pamukkale and Hierapolis, we drove to Kuşadası and spent the night at Sergent Hotel. It was a great hotel with a fantastic view of the beach. They were so helpful and accommodating.

Unfortunately, Dad had been battling a stomach bug for a few days, and ended up going to the hospital the next morning for antibiotics and fluids. David and Mom took him while the boys and I walked the boardwalk, peeked into the shops, and stuck our feet in the Aegean. The Turkish coast is paradise. I mean, look at all these blues:

After a few hours, they came back from the hospital. Dad was feeling a little better and we drove 18km north to Ephesus.

Ephesus was a major port of commerce in the ancient Roman world. Over the years, the waters receded so it no longer sits directly on the coast. The city was famed for its Temple of Artemis, one of the Seven Wonders. The apostle Paul spent time in Ephesus and had a heart for the believers there (Acts 18, 19, 20). It is also one of the seven churches of Revelation (Revelation 2).

Ephesus was one the first places David and I visited when we first moved to Turkey. We enjoyed showing the family the ruins, library, terrace houses (completely worth the extra entrance fee!), and theater. I can’t believe how blue the skies were this day!

Ephesus kitty with Nike Athena:

Hercules Gate:

Family photo inside the Theater of Ephesus. It can hold 25,000 people and has perfect acoustics.

After a few more Magnum bars, we drove three hours north to see our third of the Seven Churches of Revelation.

Seoraksan National Park

October 17, 2015

Leah

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We spent an afternoon of our weekend in Sokcho at Seoraksan National Park. We did some unexpected hiking and climbed to new heights.

Seoraksan National Park (설악산국립공원) is a tentative UNESCO World Heritage site. It was easy to get to the park entrance from Sokcho; we took the 7–1 bus to the end of the line. (For anyone visiting from Seoul, T-Money cards do not work on Sokcho buses. Bus fare costs ₩1,200 per person.) Park entrance cost ₩7,000 per person. The entrance gate was crowded with people visiting over the Chuseok holiday.

The bronze Jwabul Buddha Statue sits near the entrance at over 14 meters high:

The park was beautiful. The weather still felt like summer, so it was a perfect day for a hike. First, we bought tickets for the cable cars. We scheduled our tickets for the 5:00 pm ride. (Tickets cost ₩10,000 per person. Buy ahead – they do sell out!) We vaguely heard about and decided to take the Ulsanbawi (울산바위) trail. It was around 4 kilometers long, and we figured that’d be a good distance to cover and make it back in time for the cable car.

Our hike started out easy. We wandered by pretty mountain views and Buddhist temples:

We saw a lot of Koreans in hiking gear, which we thought was silly. The beginning of the path was paved and flat. There were even bathrooms along the way. After a while, the trail changed to a rocky path and our ascent really began. We understood the walking sticks after that.

In the distance, we saw the granite peaks of our destination. And then it hit me. We were hiking all the way to the TOP of Ulsanbawi. Afterwards, we found out it has an elevation of 867 m.

The Gyejoam Temple (게조암) is a good halfway marker. There were some food vendors there, but we just topped off our water bottles from a spring. Also near temple is Heundeulbawi, the “rocking rock.” No matter how hard people push it, it can never be knocked over. If you have enough force, the rock does shift a bit:

Then, we hit the stairs. The 800+ stairs that are strapped to the mountain and take you up the top. This one was of the steepest climbs I’d ever done. It didn’t help that we hadn’t eaten anything but half a muffin. Thankfully, we had some granola bars and nuts.

After about 2.5 hours (the last hour was torture), we FINALLY made it! We were surprised to find a small souvenir shop at the top. There were men selling Korean iced tea for ₩5,000. At that point, it could have cost three times that price and I would have paid it. It was the best iced tea I’d ever tasted. It was a hard climb, but the views at the top – wow!

The climb back down the mountain took only 1.5 hours. We were booking it to make it in time for our cable car ride. Funny enough, we ran into some people who worked at the school we worked at in Turkey. Our time hadn’t overlapped, but we heard about them living in Korea from mutual friends. It’s crazy we had to hike a mountain in order to meet them!

I don’t know how accurate it is, but my phone said we climbed 140 stories to get to the top. Here are the death stairs:

After we finished the trail, we had some time to spare. We climbed down to the stream and soaked our feet in the cold running water. It felt SO GOOD! A Korean man saw us, thought we were funny, and had to get a photo with us. (Us probably meaning David and his red beard.)

We (finally) got some lunch at one of the many restaurants near the entrance. And then we took the cable car up to the Gwongeumseong peak (elevation 670 m). There was a cafe at the top and we snacked on hotteok and enjoyed the view.

It’s probably for the best that we didn’t do much research on the trail before we got to the park. If you do the hike, don’t be like us and eat a meal beforehand. There are several other trails in the park that we didn’t have time to do including one that takes you to a waterfall.

I’m not sure if we’ll be able to, but I’d love to make it back to Seoraksan to see the fall colors!

Chuseok in Sokcho

October 8, 2015

Leah

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We took our first trip outside of Seoul! We traveled 200 km east to a coastal city called Sokcho (속초).

Korea celebrated their harvest festival called Chuseok (추석) the last weekend of September. (The dates change from year to year based on the lunar calendar.) We heard people describe it as the Korean Thanksgiving. They also said it’s a bigger holiday than Christmas. People typically travel to their hometowns to spend time with family. Traditional customs include rituals to honor ancestors, but not everyone practices those.

We were a little nervous. It was our first trip in Korea and one on our own. We purchased bus tickets the week before at Express Bus Terminal. The lady at the counter spoke fairly good English, and David confirmed the departure times two or three times with her. We didn’t even think to double check the tickets themselves and when we handed them to the man to board the bus, we realized she had given us tickets for 3:00 pm instead of 7:00 pm. We headed back to the counter and hoped we could get another bus that night. Fortunately — and I don’t know if this was because of the holiday or not — buses were leaving every 10 minutes and we got on the next one. I was amazed! I was so worried they would be sold out. (We ended up changing our tickets again on our return trip to get back earlier. The process was easy and they didn’t charge us anything extra.) It took us around 3 hours to get there and it would have taken less had it not been for the holiday traffic. The return trip was 4.5 hours.

Sokcho is a smaller city of around 90,000 people. Everything moved a little slower and the people were more tan (like me!). The area where we stayed was quiet. This may have been because of Chuseok and/or it being past beach season. The city is situated around the bay and the mountains and felt a lot smaller than it looked on the map. We loved the fresh sea air and gorgeous views!

It was a great little getaway. We rented an electric motorcycle for $10 and road around the Expo Tower, saw the Tree of Hearts sculpture, stuck our feet in the water, and explored the market areas. We also hiked in Seoraksan National Park… I’ll do a post on that later! Our last day, we stopped by the Abai (North Korean Expat) Village for lunch.

David’s now shot a gun in three countries! America, Georgia, and Korea:

Being on the coast, we saw seafood and hatcheries everywhere:

The Donghae (meaning the East Sea… aka the Sea of Japan):

We saw a few foreigners swimming, but we just stuck our feet in:

Like we saw in Turkey, Koreans sun dry a lot of food:

When you have stuff to dry, might as well string them all together. Socks, eggplant, and squid:

A hand drawn ferry to the Abai Village:

Where we stayed:
City Seoul Motel. We booked our reservation through AirBnB. It was very clean and in a good location. It was right around the corner from the Sokcho Foodtown. It took us about 20 minutes to walk to the beach area, but from what we heard from friends, cost about half the price of the hotels closer to the water.

Where we ate:
• Matsu – a cozy Italian restaurant tucked away near the national park. We met up with some friends from the school who had eaten here before. A plate of pasta cost around $15 and included a free appetizer, salad, and dessert! I had a delicious seafood alfredo dish. I don’t know if there’s a great way to get to the restaurant by public transportation. It’s close to the entrance of the hill that goes up to Seoraksan National Park.
• Flat White – this was a gem of a coffee shop! We had breakfast here two mornings. The shop has its own roastery inside.

Sokcho was a great location for our first Korea trip! I highly recommend it. I’ll share more about Seoraksan National Park soon.

Any recommendations for our next excursion in Korea?

Benedicts in Turkey: Pamukkale & Hierapolis

October 3, 2015

Leah

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We changed into our swimsuits at Laodicea and drove 12km north to Pamukkale. (David and I walked up the limestone travertines back in October not once, but twice!)

Pamukkale means “cotton castle” in Turkish and is a UNESCO World Heritage site. Entrance costs 25TL or is free with the Müzekart. The boys loved sitting in the hot springs, damming up the canal with their bodies, then letting the mineral water rush down to the boy at the bottom.

At the top of the hill were the ruins of the ancient city of Hierapolis (Colossians 4:13). We got to the site a little later in the day and didn’t have a lot of time to walk around before the sun started to set.

We did walk up to the theater. Hierapolis suffered several earthquakes, but this theater was reconstructed with 98% of the original pieces!

We had two more of the seven churches of Revelation on the schedule for the next day. After gözleme for dinner, we drove 180km west to the coast and stayed the night at Sergent Hotel in Kuşadası.