Back to Boseong

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I had arrived late in Gwangju the night before. We were staying in a hostel that was about a ten minute walk away from thr bus station. We had a private room at the hostel and it was small, but clean and cosy. Breakfast was included, so we headed up to the kitchen to make that, eggs, bread, plastic cheese, hash browns and hot dogs, it made a nice change from the usual hostel breakfasts of eggs, jam and bread. We headed to the bus station and used one of the machines to buy tickets. I love those machines, no need to interact with a human. I can't remember how much the ticket was, but it was less than a man won. We had a bit of a look around the bus station before boardung our bus. I don't know what the crack is, but the driver and an attendant came around to check (and take) everyone's tickets and they refunded us a little over a thousand won each. I vaguely remembered them doing this the last time I got the bus to Boseong.

The bus journey took just over an hour and we were deposited in Boseong around 11 am. We took a taxi to the pension we were staying at. The drive took about ten minutes. Even though it was early, we were in luck as our room was ready. We were staying in Golmangtae pension, the same place I had stayed at last time I visited Boseong. I really love this place, it is so nice, set up on a hill away from the main road. We dumped our stuff and headed out to go to the tea fields. We walked along the main road for about 45 minutes to reach the tea fields. We walked through the car park area to reach the entrance. But first lunch, we went to the restaurant next to the ticket office. I was gutted as they no longer did the green tea mandu, that we'd had last time. However they did do a green tea vegetable pajeon (pancake), so we ordered that, a green tea bibimbap, and green tea noodles. the pajeon was delicious and I really enjoyed it. I'm not a big fan of noodles, but I did enjoy these ones, there were a lot of veggies in the broth. I was a little disappointed with the bibimbap as it didn't have an egg in it, and I love eggs.

We bought our tickets at the booth next to the restaurant, I think it was about 3,000 won per person. We headed into the tea plantation. I had been here a few years ago, but it was still as beautiful as ever. It was spring last time I came, and now I was visiting at the end of autumn. I had read online that the leaves lose their colour in the winter. Luckily, we had arrived early enough to still see them full of colour. We wandered up through the tea field stopping to take plenty of photos. It was stunning with the red trees dotted about. It was quite misty, I think it was last time, too, but it just makes the place look better. We hiked up the hill to the viewpoint. It was pretty steep and because of the heavy rain the day before a bit slippery, so we jut went slow and steady.

There was no view when we reached the top, as the area was shrouded in fog, talk about an anti-climax. However, we sat and had a rest for a while and the sky did clear partially. We couldn't see very far into the distance, but we could see the fields below. We walked back down the hill a different way to which we came. This way is more unkempt that the main field, but I kinda like it, it looks more wild. This way was pretty slippery, so we had to be careful. After, our walk we headed to the gift shop. I had to purchase some more of the green tea powder they sell, it is just so delicious. Then we wandered over to the cafe to purchase some green tea ice cream. Since the weather wasn't too cold, we sat outside and ate our ice creams. The ice cream was so good, and I'm not even that big of fan of ice cream.

We headed out to the bus stop, which was located up on the little hill in front of the car park. We had just missed a bus by about ten minutes, so we had quite a while to wait or the next one, luckily, it wasn't raining and it wasn't too cold. The bus journey didn't take too long. The road was quite windy, we passed the second tea plantation, I would like to visit that one day in the future. The bus driver told us we were at the beach and to get off. We were on a random backstreet, so we walked down to the main road and came across the beach. The beach looked pretty bleak, the bad weather and fog didn't help at all. We took a walk along the beach. At the far end there were a lot of boats up on the sand. Some men were repairing one of them.

We had a walk around the port, there were a few blokes fishing. I saw some kind of flying fish, so I enjoyed watching that jump in and out of the water until it was out of view. Yulpo Beach has a few different walking trails, not that we had time to do any properly, but I think they would be nice to do on a warm, sunny spring day. We walked further along from the port. The footpath was covered with gorgeous murals made out of coloured stones. They were so pretty, I think every path should be like this. We came across a second, smaller beach. Personally, I liked this beach a bit more than the first one. It just seemed cuter. There was also a bit more life going on, as there were an old couple clam digging and so others pottering about.

From the beach we went to find a bus stop. When we got off the bus, there wasn't a bus stop on the other side of the street, so we walked up the street in the direction the bus had come from. We eventually found a bus stop hidden away behind the big stone marker for the village. There was no timetable in the bus stop, so we were thinking that we could be waiting for ages. However, we only had to wait for about five minutes and a bus turned up. The journey back to our pension was pretty quick, around ten minutes. Just as we were starting to walk up the hill, a woman, who was also staying at the pension, offered us a lift up the hill. That was a nice surprise! We headed to our room to find the ondol was on. Emo must have been in to turn it on, bless her.

We had about an hour before dinner, so we unpacked and unfolded all the bedding on the floor. I did shut my eyes for a few minutes. They came to tell us dinner was ready, so we headed to the dining room. It was pretty busy, we were sharing our table with the woman, who had given us a lift up the hill. The duck barbecue was ready, so we were able to dig straight in. The food was really good.The duck was cooked on the grill with spinach, sweet potato, and regular potato. Nom, nom, nom! They had changed the way they served the banchan and rice, before it was ready on the table, with a silver dish of rice per person. Now it is self serve, so we could go up and help ourselves to banchan and rice. They also told us we could go back for more and more, which we did, a good improvement! After dinner, we headed over to the cave style common room, we had a big of green tea and ate some green tea cookies and jellies. I love the cave room! We then went back to the room, the water was lovely and hot when I had my shower and then I snuggled under the duvet on the hot ondol ready for sleep.

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Photos

Bibimbap and Banchan
Heaven Restaurant

Green Tea Pajeon
Heaven Restaurant

Green Tea Noodles
Heaven Restaurant

Our Feast
Heaven Restaurant

Autumn Colours
Daehan Dawon Tea Plantation

Autumn Colours
Daehan Dawon Tea Plantation