We Have Visitors

Friends from the US coming to visit gave us a perfect opportunity to travel to some new places and return to some of our favorites in Korea so far. 

The highlight of the trip, and a new place for us, was a visit to Chuncheon, a city about 120 miles east and a bit north of Songdo.  Amazingly, even though it is out in a beautiful rural area of mountains and river, one can travel to it by subway from Songdo for about $3–the cost of a Washington, DC, Metro ride.

The pictures above were taken along a climb up Samaksan mountain, about 30 minutes from the center of the city, which is sizable (Korean cities are dense streets of apartment buildings and shops nestled in mountains.)

The climb up Samaksan was a terrific adventure.  I think if the climb had been categorized, it would have been labeled “difficult.”  In fact, it might have been, but in Korean so we did not know!  We were not prepared for having to climb up steep vertical rocks using hands and legs, searching for little rock ledges to pull ourselves up.  Sometimes, where the rock face was smooth, there were metal braces stapled into the rock.

We not only wanted to make it to the top, we knew we had to, because there appeared to be a more gentle way down along another trail we could access only at the top.  We did not want to go down the steep rocks we had just climbed up. Fortunately, the trail down was, as it appeared on the map, more gentle.  And it rewarded with quiet forests and some striking gorges, waterfalls, bridges, and a Buddhist monk in a mountainside temple chanting over a loudspeaker.

At the bottom of the trail was another reward, a little collection of restaurants built into the mountainside.  We ate outside and, though the food was good, it was surely made even better by the several hours of hiking.  The woman who cooked and served the food seemed certain that Robert was not being properly honored by his family with the first bites of what was delivered to the table, and kept moving food toward him or bringing him more kimchi!

We capped off our day with some excellent barbecue at a restaurant just across from our hotel.

The next day’s activity in Chuncheon was a trip on pedal-powered rail cars along a now unused rail line.  The trip gave great views of the Chuncheon river valley, and, because this is Korea, the tunnels featured various special effects: a bubble machine in one, LED star and floor lights in the next, and a blaring K-Pop driven light show in the third.  There was a mild rain for most of time–not enough to be uncomfortable, but enough to make breaking on our little train car pretty difficult.  We slammed into the car in front of us a number of times.  Fortunately, that car had our kids.

On the way home, we traveled through a train station, Ganchon, associated with marriage proposals. Apparently, the entire area is branded as “Romantic Chuncheon.”  A nearby location was featured in a popular early 2000s romantic K-Drama Winter Sonata and has become a big tourist destination since then.  In addition, I think the area has been a popular place for young college students to travel to from Seoul, and form relationships.   Hence this particular train station had a stairway with “Yes” and “No” painted on it .

The steps up give a choice.  On a platform just below that stairway there is a sign with an image of a man making a proposal and a button labeled “Yes.”  There’s no “No” button.  The Korean on the top of the sign says  “Tell me your love” (I think!)

We also visited with our friends more familiar places in Songdo and Incheon, including Songdo’s Central park.  We rented a boat and spent some time on the little canal that goes through the park. Our boat had a weak electric motor for puttering around.  Rachel demurred and instead had a great time rowing in a kayak.

We said goodbye to our friends with a classic Korean dinner the night before they left.

Friends and family: we hope to see you in Korea soon too!