Seoul to Gangneung - from this…
to this…
to this…
and finally after 3 hours, to this…
We travelled by bus through the most atrocious weather, over to the eastside of S. Korea to Gangneung, a coastal city with the ‘scent of pine and coffee permeating throughout’. The dazzling East Sea and lush pine forests are Gangneung's gifts to its visitors.
Our hotel was no cosy, family-run setup, this was Butlins on steroids, this was mega. An ocean liner with three towers - ocean view, forest view and lake view - which we had. We couldn’t see a lake, but the mountains were lovely.
Room with a Lake View
I thought there must be a baby boom happening - so many buggies and prams but no, they were for the dogs. They even sat at the table for breakfast. wearing necklaces, tutus, dresses and pjs.
The sea is way too cold to swim in. The infinity pool is too expensive to swim in. However, a walk on the beach exfoliated your feet perfectly - the grains of sand are huge. The pine forest runs for miles adjacent to the sandy beach. Gun look-out posts and a military camp line the route, reminding you how close North Korea is from here.
This is a weekend getaway place for Seoul residents, it was mental, the weekdays however were almost tranquil. It is a fast-food, seafood, coffee haven. The whole venue appears to be set up for children, we felt very old.
We popped into the local art gallery see what turned out to be a digital immersive experience based on nature’s elements, not much art but ideal for those important selfie opportunities.
When we got outside everything looked hyper real in the sunshine. I love the concept of ‘Ma’ in Japanese culture where Ma is the time and space life needs to breathe. The trees here adopt that philosophy and are a common sight in Korea.
We decided to hire a car to escape. Our first destination was Jumunjin, a fishing village up the coast, known for its strange rock formation. Unexpectedly, the first thing we saw were two Korean teachers making a podcast on the rocks. What a pleasure it was to watch them dance and speak to them after.
The fishing village still has many of the traditional styled homes which are slowly becoming dwarfed by the new developments.
Our second outing was a 2 hour drive up and over a couple of mountains to an Art Mine - an art gallery housed in an old industrial mine - it was closed despite the internet saying it was open.
Instead, we headed off to a train-track cycle route but we were too late to use it. Bug Land next-door with its oversized plastic bugs didn’t appeal, so we headed to a nearby waterfall as indicated by the signpost but we couldn’t find it, so we drove home.
Nice mountains and interesting farming views though.
St. Johns - our ocean liner ‘home’