Pyeongchang June 2012 Visit!

Hello!


The weather in S.Korea has been fairly rainy and cloudy for the past month or so. That still didn't stop Jenn and I from signing up for a tour from Adventure Korea to Pyeongchang! Pyeongchang is a city in the northern area of S.Korea, and we went up there a few weekends ago as part of a tour package that included a day at the waterpark, a rock festival, and ATV's! I highly recommend Adventure Korea if you're looking for a tour company in S.Korea that is well put together, and reliable. The only downside is that they're based in Seoul, so very rarely do they have tours that leave from Daegu. Anyway, this was one of the few that did, and we're pretty glad we went.


We left Saturday morning, and got to Pyeongchang sometime around 12:30. To clarify, we weren't exactly staying in Pyeongchang, we were staying at the Phoenix Park Sky Resort? Something like that. As soon as I got there and saw all the awesome slopes, I could just imagine how sweet it would be to go snowboarding in  that during the winter. This is the place where the 2018 Winter Olympics will be held, so I thought it was pretty cool to visit something like that!

The Slopes!

Sitting next to the Olympics sign!

We got there, and checked in to our rooms. Pretty nice, lots of space for everyone, and clean. Then, we headed to the waterpark. Yup, this resort has a waterpark. It's got to do something during the summer right? Anyway, we headed to the waterpark, and had a really good time! One thing I like about waterparks in S.Korea is the locker room. Yes, random, and a little weird. But....once you get used to all the naked dudes, its actually really nice. The showers have soap and shampoo, they have everything. They even have these little machines that you put your swimming shorts in for a quick dry. No pics unfortunately, our cameras aren't waterproof!

After the waterpark, we cleaned up and got some Dominoes for dinner. Then we headed over to the rock concert. Not...bad? Let's just say that the first performance was decent, but then we got bored and left. If you ain't got nothing nice to say...right? We went and got some ice cream around 11 or so and then just got back to the room and chilled. Good times.

Rock Concert

Sunday, we woke up, and went and took the cable car to the top of the slopes. Normally, I'm thinking these are used for skiiers and snowboarders. But anyway, at the top of the hill, there was an animal farm. Wait, what? Yes, there was an animal farm. They had a little box filled with yellow, fluffy baby chickens. And you could pick it up and scare the crap out of it. But yeah, we picked one up, and it was...interesting. I put it back because I was scared it would use the bathroom on me. 

At the top of the slopes! Can you imagine it covered in snow? ^__^

After that, we headed back to the hotel to get ready for ATVing! ATV was definitely the highlight. We went up a mountain, and then back down, and I would do it again in a heartbeat. Here are some pics!

After ATVing, we went to clean up, and then got on the bus back to Daegu. Not a bad weekend at all!

Boseong Green Tea Plantation 2012

Weather is finally getting nice enough for me and Jenn to venture outside of Daegu. A couple weekends ago, we decided to check out the Boseong Green Tea plantations! We wanted to go because we had never seen a green tea plantation before, and the pictures looked great. It was also just a chance for us to scratch our traveling itch!


Getting there (from Daegu):
- Take the express bus to Gwangju from the bus station directly to the left of the Dongdaegu Subway exit.
  We recommend buying tickets a couple days in advance (just go to the station itself for that). This takes about 4 hours with traffic. We went up on Friday night, stayed in Gwangju, and in the morning, went to Boseong.
- Once in Gwangju, from the bus terminal that you are dropped off at, take a bus from Gwangju to Boseong. These run every 30-40 minutes. This takes about an hour and a half.
- Once in Boseong, from the bus terminal that you are dropped off at, get a bus to the Boseong Green Tea plantations. This should take about 10 minutes.
- When you are dropped off, make sure you head to the left a little bit, and avoid the Green Tea Plantation that has the museum in it. It's nice, but the one to the left and up the hill a little bit offers far greater views and awesomeness. If you get lost, just follow the crowd, they know which one is better!


Once there, we wandered around the plantations, taking a lot of pictures, and just enjoying the fresh, clean air. It smelled really, really nice and was a nice change from the smoggy Daegu city air. If we had waited another month, the green tea plants would have been much greener, but all the same, we were still pretty impressed. Check out some pics!

We also got to try out a lot of green tea food! We had some green tea ja jang myun (black bean sauce noodles), green tea naemmyun (cold noodles), green tea pork katsu, and our favorites, green tea ice cream and shakes!

Green tea noodles on the left, Green Tea Pork Katsu on the right!

Fresh, Iced Green Tea. Yum!

Standing in line for Green Tea ice cream. ^_^

After buying some green tea snacks (candy, cookies, latte packs!), we headed to the beach nearby. Now, I think you can take the bus that dropped you off at the plantations straight to Yulpo beach, but we were pretty lucky. We met another tourist, who spoke Korean fluently, and called us a taxi! So we headed down the coast to Yulpo beach. It was really nice and scenic. But well, to be honest, seen one beach, seen em all.  What is worth mentioning though is that we got bored very quickly and wanted to head back to Boseong. When we couldn't find the bus stop, we thought we'd head over to the police station and ask for directions. We got more than that. The police officer actually gave us a ride...back to the Boseong bus terminal! (20-30 minute drive). We were so surprised at their kindness, and appreciative as well. After thanking him profusely, we headed back to Gwangju from Boseong.

Yulpo Beach

In Gwangju, we took in some of the sights and ate at (of all places), a T.G.I.F.! Haha. Here are some pics of Gwangju. After one more night in Gwangju, we headed back home to Daegu. Overall, really nice weekend, and I'd highly recommend Boseong to Green tea lovers, nature lovers, and photography buffs.

Statue we found while walking

An amphitheater