Going to GoChang - land of the Dolmen Rocks

July 18th-20th, 2023

Roadtrip! We got out of the city for a couple days and drove down to GoChang, which is where my brother-in-law's (HK) mother lives. It's a quiet sweet town about 3 hours south of Seoul. The drive was nice and easy (well, easy for me, because Scot was driving!) but the language barrier came up just a couple of times. The tolls were the major issue. They have their version of a fastpass where most people just have a device in their car that automatically charges the toll. Our rental company said they could bill us, but we wanted to try to just pay cash. First toll, easy, I saw the lane we needed to get to to pay in cash (my elementary Korean kicked in) and rolled through to pay. Second toll was a little more challenging, because we didn't know what was going on. Korea tracks your car (I think by license plate?) and you pay when you LEAVE the toll highway. When we exited at GoChang, we paid and it was all good. Phew!

We stayed in a "pension," which is like Korea's version of a condo-tel - a sort of basic Airbnb. In Korea, they usually have a bed for 2 people and then any additional people get to experience the traditional "sleep on the ground on mats." The first Airbnb in Seoul had this set up with two twin beds and then mats for everyone one else. This pension was no different - 2 twin beds (for me and Scot) and then mats for the kids. . . they were not thrilled but made it work for the 2 nights we were there.

We spent a lot of quality time with HK's mom, but we also went to the Dolmen site, where they have the highest amount of Dolmen and a museum. Dolmen are megalithic monuments of the Korean Bronze Age. Most are tombs but some were used as altars. Dolmen can be found in other regions of the world, but this region around GoChang has the highest concentration of dolmen and has been designated as a World Heritage Site.