This past weekend was Buddha's birthday in Korea, which is basically the Buddhist equivalent of Easter. Choi suggested going to Boseong and Damyang, which were two places in Korea I really wanted to visit, so I naturally said YES! It was a power 2 day 1 night trip with lots of traveling but I'm really happy I got to experience these two towns.
After a 5-hour bus ride to Daejeon to meet Choi (normally takes 2!) and another hour and a half of driving, we finally arrived in Damyang, a city famous for bamboo.
First we went to Damyang Juknokwon (담양 죽녹원), a famous bamboo forest park where $3 lets you roam around along the trails and take as many pictures of the beautiful trees as your heart desires.
There were panda statues around in some areas. Many Korean parents were taking a ton of pictures of their kids with them. Of course, I waited in line too!
After leaving the bamboo park, we drove about 10 minutes to a famous sequoia road and walked around a bit. A lot of Korean movies, dramas, and music videos are filmed in this area. So much real, clean air. My lungs were very happy!
Damyang is famous for daetongbap and ddeokgalbi. I was obsessed with getting a chance to eat real daetongbap in Damyang after we studied it in my Korean class. Choi was more into ddeokgalbi so we ordered both. Daetongbap is rice and nuts steamed in bamboo. The bamboo cup can only be steamed one time so people who eat this food get to take their cup with them as a souvenir.
Daetongbap - bottom left.
So happy to finally be eating daetongbap. Ddeokgalbi in bottom right.
After a late dinner we hopped back into the car and drove another 2 hours to make it to Boseong.
We stayed at
Golmangtae, a unique pension/bed&breakfast in Boseong where the rooms are made out of loess and look a bit like mushrooms.
The next day after checking out of our pension, we headed straight to the green tea fields. We were feeling peckish and decided to get the famous green tea ice cream right away.
The ice cream was better than anything I've found in Seoul but nothing beats the world-famous Hokkaido ice cream in Japan. Nonetheless, it was extremely delicious for only $1!
Then we started the trek up the tea fields. So refreshing and it wasn't too crammed with tourists.
The ocean in the background. The tea fields are right on the southern tip of the Korean peninsula.
There were vendors selling a lot of green tea products, the standard Korean street food, and even cute succulents. I bought green tea chocolate to share at work and Korean class this week, green tea incense for myself, green tea rice wine to drink with some girl friends, and postcards to send some special people back home.
On our way out of Boseong, we stopped at Yulpo Beach for a little rest and relaxation. A lot of the times in Korea the beaches are absolutely packed but there were hardly any people when we left. We sat for about 30 minutes just watching the water, not quite ready to leave all this quiet countryside behind.
Choi insisted on eating Beolgyeo cockles while we were in the area. Apparently its the Korean equivalent of going to Italy and not getting gelato, or something. There were hundreds of people waiting outside these restaurants at 3 in the afternoon. All the seafood restaurants are in the same area and are often featured on Korean travel shows. I was skeptical but it turned out to be quite good. Earlier in the day I posted a picture on Facebook of a cafe I thought my mom would love and thought it would be nice if she could have been there to experience it but sitting down at this restaurant made me think she would absolutely hate this, haha.
Cockles - edible bivalve clams.
After our big lunch we grabbed coffee to go and headed back to Daejeon, where I took a bus back to Seoul. It was a busy weekend but I experienced yet another cool part of Korea!
A map of where we went.
Seoul ---- Damyang --- Boseong
