This Monday, June 6th, we celebrated Memorial Day in Korea, and therefore those of us native English teachers in public schools enjoyed a three day weekend. Three friends and I planned a little trip to Gangneung (강릉), the largest city on the east coast, and it was absolutely exactly what I needed. A perfectly relaxing and fun weekend.
We decided to stay in Seoul Friday night, once again at Mr. Kim’s Myungdong Hostel. Fun times, fun people all around. I think I may or may not have been invited to a yet-to-be-scheduled wedding…?
Saturday morning we departed from the Dongseoul express bus terminal for Gangneung, a projected 2.5 hour ride. (I’ve since discovered there’s an express bus from Uijeongbu to Gangneung, so maybe I’ll try that should I plan another trip to Gangneung. It’s sure to cut down travel time and I wouldn’t have to go into Seoul first.) The ride actually took about 3.5 hours, and we pulled into Gangneung terminal around lunchtime. While we waited for our ride to our accommodations, we (what else?) enjoyed a cold beer outside of Family Mart across from the bus terminal (yes, it is very normal to enjoy adult beverages at tables outside of convenience stores here).
Our transport, Im Ho Seong, the owner of our pension, arrived in his vehicle complete with Tweety and Sylvester seat covers.
It was impossible to find pensions online by searching in English– thank God for Google Translate and my barely-there hangul skills. I found a few listings online of pensions apparently near the beach with photos I liked. A Korean friend (the girlfriend of a good Pocheon friend of mine) had reserved our room at the pension and negotiated a discount AND free transport to/from the bus terminal. For all four of us, we paid 80,000KRW total for two nights (less than $80USD). Ho Seong spoke a little bit of English, enough to be able to have simple conversations and get good advice about some area attractions.
Pensions here in Korea are similar to bed and breakfasts in other countries and usually consist of a home with rooms you can rent for the night (or several nights). Many of the beachside hotels and resorts cost an arm and a leg (or at least more than I feel like paying), and I hadn’t yet stayed in a pension. We stayed at Gyeongpo Dae Pension (경포대 펜션), which is located about 10 minutes (walking) from the beach and right in front of Gyeongpo Lake. This is where we stayed, and had a great time!
Our room had a kitchenette inside and enough bedding for the four of us to sleep on the floor. Here are our “beds.” Over the past months, I have adjusted to sleeping on firm/hard surfaces. I think we all slept pretty well here.
And here’s Gyeongpo Lake right in front. 4.35 km around. Great running/walking/biking trail.
After we settled into our home for the next few days, Ho Seong offered to drive us to the Danoje Festival, along the river in downtown Gangneung. Danoje is the most important festival of the year in Gangneung and kept us busy for the rest of the afternoon and early evening.
At the festival, we came across some dancing Soju bottles. I seriously never knew three dancing bottles could be so entertaining/captivating, but I’m pretty sure we watched them (along with a crowd of others) for a good 15 minutes or so.
Then we caught an excerpt of this show,
a couple members of our group had their hair rinsed with iris water (believed to keep away evil spirits),
and we saw this guy making noodles.
We pass some HUGE chunks of meat (I should have included a human being in this photo so you have an idea of how big this was… some of the pigs we saw roasting were bigger than us.)
and enjoyed some traditional music.
We caught a taxi to the beach where we relaxed for a little while, walked back to our pension, and made new friends with a bunch of 20/23 year old Korean girls. We shared soju and wine, snacks, and they amazed us with all of these crazy cheers they have for each other. Although some of them claimed “no English”, we communicated with each other enough to have a really fun time with each other.
Hannah and I were up early Sunday morning to run around the lake– a great start to our day. We walked down to a cute cafe near the beach and had coffee drinks.
We wanted to have some tofu soup in the nearby Tofu Village, so we walked along Gyeongpo and Gangmun beaches and found our way to Todam Sundubu for some of the best tofu soup we’ve ever had: 순두부전골.
We explored a traditional home in a nearby park,
Back to the beach we went, of course
where we stayed for the next several hours, picking up snacks and drinks, soaking up all the sun we’ve been missing during the long winter months.
I attended 7:30pm Mass at Chodangdong Cathedral (a $3 taxi ride from the beach), one of the most unique Catholic churches I’ve been in, aside from the underwater castle one Oliver showed me in Austria a few years ago. Afterwards I chatted with the priest who speaks English very well and was a pastor in Oakland, California for four years.
While I was at Mass, the other girls picked up dinner fixings at E-Mart, lots of veggies for grilling, salad and samgyeopsal! We had a great dinner out on our veranda and made some new friends with some Korean people in their 50s/60s that are elementary school friends and got together that night at the pension.
Monday morning, after a walk around the lake, a coffee to go, and a ride in a bicycle/cart built for four, we took tons of pictures in this beautiful garden just near the pension,
saw some people riding TINY scooters,
and got a ride back to the bus terminal for the journey home. There was more traffic on the way home, so the ride took a little over 4 hours to Dongseoul.
What a full, fun, relaxing, amazing, great, fun, funny weekend!
fiat lux 