The Ramblings of Loren Christopher

A couple weekends ago I went with friends to the east coast of S. Korea, we visited a small little beach city called Samcheok.  Things were starting to warm up a bit and we were all severely in the mood for a weekend getaway trip!

The bus ride (very comfortable bus) was almost 4 hours….we left around 7am so got there in good time.  We were dropped off at a small bus station, and after a few of our feeble attempts at conversing in Korean, we found out which local transport bus would take us down along the coast.

It was so nice to see the ocean again.  I’ve always said that I need to live near the water…there’s just something about it.  I never fully realize how much I love it until I’ve been landlocked for a while and then get to see the wide open ocean again.  The bus stopped along a few coves and beaches, and we just got off at the one that we thought looked the most beautiful.

We searched around for a 민박

 (guesthouse) and found a lovely one right by the water so we checked in.  The owner was an older Korean man and was soo nice.  It was the start of the tourist season so we were the only people there, perhaps some of the first customers of the season, so he was waiting on us hand and foot to make sure we had everything we needed, hehe.

We immediately dropped off our bags and took a stroll along the beach.  Mind you, when I say it was “starting to warm up” in Korea, it was still a little chilly and the water was FREEZING so none of us went for a swim.  It was nice to walk in the sand again though, hear the waves, look out into the blue blue water.

We ventured further down the coast to a park (actually hitched a ride on a high school bus, which was hilarious).  Haeshindang Park is beautiful.  I’d been there before, but not with my big group of friends so I wanted to show them.  The water is beautiful and there’s a big rocky cove that is just stunning.  I felt like I was back on one of the Greek islands!

So, our first day was a relaxing one….we headed into town before sunset and ate at a lovely Italian restaurant called “Buona”, then had Baskin Robbins and walked around a bit.  We actually ran into a couple other foreigners who live in Samcheok so we were talking with them.  They said there are only about 30 foreigners in the entire city…seems like they all relatively know each other.  They verified that there’s not much to do there, but it is a scenic place to live.  The thought of living there for a year just did not appeal to 

me at all, haha.  I’d rather go there for a vacation any day.  Seoul has it’s crowds and long subway rides, etc, but at least you could never get bored here.

The next day we headed to Hwibangsa cave….our guesthouse owner was gracious enough to chauffeur us all the way over there for a nominal fee.  This cave is the largest limestone cave in all of Asia.  It was so big!!  It’s cool that they had bigger walkways and colored lights here and there to give it a more dramatic effect.  Definitely a must for anyone planning on visiting Samcheok.

The walk up to the cave was a little exhausting, and it was drizzly out.  But the fog and drizzle really set the mood as we were up in the mountains.

Coming back to Seoul, we felt like we got a lot out of the trip.  Sandy relaxing beaches, and then foggy mountains and a huge cave….not bad for just two days and one night.  Like I said, this was my second time visiting Samcheok, but I’ve enjoyed it so much both times that I’m not sure if it will be my last.