The Daegwallyeong Sheep Farm
Korea is so funny sometimes. You travel just a couple hours away from Seoul (or less) and soon stumble across some special sight or nature that takes you into a completely different world. Whether it’s hills of green tea fields, deep caves that go on forever, rocky cliff beaches, bamboo forests, or in the case of today….a sheep farm that looks as though it is set in the hills of Scotland, Korea still amazes me.
I am a big fan of the Official Korean Tourism Guide website , and had stumbled across some information about this sheep farm a couple hours west of Seoul. The photos caught my interest, and I decided I had to go visit just to see if it really was that beautiful! After having lived here for a year and a half, I still have slip-ups getting around. The website said that the bus station to go to is Heonggye, but in Korean it reads quite different. So I had some difficulty getting a ticket, finally went to an internet cafe near the big bus terminal and found out how it was written in Korean and realized I had been pronouncing it totally wrong.
(future note for those of you who decide to visit, it is pronounced Hwayng-gyae, not Heonggye)
Half of the reason I enjoy visiting places around Korea is simply the bus ride itself. The sheep farm is located in Gangwangdo, which is a really mountainous province. I was reading today on the bus ride over there, that an ancient Chinese philosopher once said of Korea, “If you could somehow squash the entire country flat, it would be as big as China.” That may be ’stretching’ it a bit too far…but it does indeed have some beautiful mountains.
Well, 2 and a half hours later I arrived in Heonggye (see proper pronunciation above). Take a
taxi to the farm from the bus terminal, it will cost you about 10 minutes and 7,000 won. I was actually quite worried because I had read online that the farm would close if the weather wasn’t permitting, and it looked like it was about to rain any minute. They were open though (9am-6pm in the summer, 9am-5pm in the winter) and for just about 2 bucks entry fee I was hiking my way up the green hills, surrounded by a sea of Koreans. I was the only foreigner there, didn’t see a single other one today!
I am exaggerating the hike, it really wasn’t so bad. Evidently they care for over 200 sheep here on the farm. Pretty soon I could hear them “Baaa”-ing (so cute, I laughed when I first heard them) and started spotting them everywhere. At first you walk by their stables where some are hanging out and eating hay. You can buy a little basket of hay and feed them yourself if you want….the Koreans were taking full advantage of this opportunity for a photo shoot. Young couples taking turns feeding and snapping shots of each other with their cell phones, families with the little kids throwing hay at the sheep and yelling “Yangi, meoggeo!!” [Sheep, eat it!] (yeah my Korean is getting better, haha.)
A bit further up and you have to stop and turn around to admire the view! Just amazing green mountains everywhere, the rain was about to come so you could smell it in the air, but it was also much cooler for being July. I snapped some photos of course, which felt REALLY good.
I have been so busy with my promotion, working on projects, and studying Korean that I have hardly had any time to be creative and work on my photography skills lately. This Saturday I set aside specifically to enjoy myself and be out in nature. Who knew that a trip to Scotland was just a couple hours away? I hope to go back and explore the area more again, possibly in the winter since they have a big ski resort nearby too.
