Chuseok 2016

Chuseok 추석, is Korean Thanksgiving. Usually there are three days of celebrations. If Chuseok lands on a weekday, children and adults don't have to go to work ~ usually. Of course, there are people who still work on this day. People spend time with their families. They eat a lot of food and consume something called songpyeon (송편), which is a delicious rice cake. There are various rice cakes in Korea. Songpyeon are generally sweet with a sweet filling like honey. There are other fillings like chestnuts and soy beans like the ones below.

Actually, they're similar to the Japanese dessert mochi. However, I don't think as soft or as sweet. 

Like last year (read about it here), I spent my Chuseok with David and our friend Nash. I went to a city called Sokcho (속초) which is on the North East coast. It's not too far from the Korean border either. Therefore, you can play Pokémon Go! You can't play the game in any other city due to map privacy. I was so excited! I'm a huge Pokemon fan. I've even considered getting a Gameboy just to play again. 

The bus from Gangneung isn't too long. It's about an hour. The bus station is pretty close to the downtown area. David and I decided to stay closer to Seorak mountain (Seoraksan, 설악산). We stayed in a hotel called Hangang Park Motel. It's what you would expect from a Korean motel. It was spacious with a clean bathroom.

On the first day, we went to an abandoned ski resort just outside of Sokcho city. It took about 30 minutes to get there by taxi. There's something about abandoned places! It's creepy but cool too. I'm always surprised that they don't knock these places down.

It was pretty expensive to get there as none of us drive in Korea. It was around 70,000 for the round trip. There were three of us so it wasn't too bad. Read about the abandoned resort here. 

We then decided to mooch around Sokcho city. We walked pretty far that day. There was a big fish market we wanted to go to which took us a while to find. Read about that here. For the rest of the evening,we ended up in a drinking place which turned out to be a noraebang, so karaoke. I guess we were just so tired that we didn't want to go find a different place. We did have to sing...sober.

The second day was the biggy! Breakfast was delicious! Mountain bibimbap! Oh it was delicious, I love mountain vegetables. From the hotel, it was a 20 minute walk to the entrance of Seoraksan national park. It was heaving with people. The park is pretty big. It was easier to get the cable car than hike a huge mountain. Read about it here. 

I was so scared man. The cable car is pretty high. It felt different to the cable car in Gumosan! It was faster and I'm sure higher. Anyways, at the top, it was all glass, so you got a good view. Which also meant I was scared. I couldn't move so just sat and waited for the boys to explore. Luckily you had to get the cable car back down again, so we didn't have to walk down. 

We were first in line and they make you cue up in front of the car. But on the right side there is the glass where you can see down. I didn't have a panic attack...-.-.

When we got down we ate jeon. Seafood jeon and potato jeon. To be honest, I've had better! It was so greasy.

That night David and I stayed around the mountain and hotel. We ate bulgogi and it was pretty good!

The third day, David and I went back to Seoraksan and climbed to Ulsanbawi Rock. Read about it here. Well David did. I only made it to the base of the stairs. It was too scary. It was about a 4 hour hike up and down. It was fun, I enjoyed it. I enjoyed my chicken skewer more though.

Later after a few hours rest at the hotel, we met up with David's friend from back in 2010 when he was in Gumi. We spent the evening at the beach chilling. 

On the last day, we mooched around Sokcho city before catching the bus. There was a cool traditional boat we rode on called the Gaetbae. Read about it here.

It was fun and super cheap. It got us to the downtown area of Sokcho. We explored the market again and ate some delicious food then caught the bus back home to Gangneung. 

Chuseok this year was more fun. Last year was a bit weird ~ I guess it was difficult spending vacation someone you didn't really know anymore. 

To next year! 

Kelly