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Pyeong Chang Korea travel experience

So I just got back from Pyeong Chang. This was a good experience for me because it’s a real Korean vacation spot, meaning that Koreans go there to visit. I didn’t see any other white people so I’m thinking that foreign tourists don’t usually make it there.

Of course, the only reason for a foreign tourist to go would be to see an actual Korean vacation spot. The activities themselves are nothing too exciting.

The first place was a school turned art gallery. My wife really liked it. I thought it was OK - certainly different, but there were only afew artists represented despite the fact that Mooee Art Gallery could have packed a lot more art into the school. One artists had about 50 paintings of Memil flowers. Most of the rest were crazy modern sculptures - never really did learn to appreciate modern sculpture.

Then there was the home of a famous Korean author – Lee Hyo Suk - the sign said he was born there and lived there until he was 13. It also said that another family lives there now so you can’t actually go inside. We spend less than 5 minutes there.

Then there was a memorial to Lee Hyo Suk. The information signs there said that his birth house had been destroyed – weird since we thought we had just come from the house where he was born. They also had his former gravesite. Apparently he’s no longer buried there. We walked around for about 30 minutes because the place was pretty big but we didn’t actually see much. Korean tourists like to pose for pictures by the sculpture of Lee Hyo Suk sitting at his desk writing. There’s also a museum – it looked pretty boring and we wanted to go to the next big attraction.

Herb Nara (Herb nation) is basically an herb garden. We had fun walking around and sniffing all the different herbs which are labeled in English and Korean. There are some nice picture spots in the gardens there and you can buy plants, herb bread, herb cookies, herb candy, etc.

Then we went to try some of the local beef; Haeng Sung (next to Pyeong Chang) and Bong Pyung (part of Pyeong Chang) are famous for beef. Now Koreans think that Korean beef is superior and are willing to pay for it. At the butcher, 600 grams cost us 42,000 won, probably $45 or so. We also stopped in another store and got some cooked rice, some side dishes, some sauce, etc. and went back to our hotel for a feast.

Now the hotel was Memil Flower Valley Pension. The area is famous for Memil as you can tell from the pension's name and the paintings in Moose Art Gallery I already mentioned. Plus one of Lee Hyo Suk’s novels was titled (this is a rough translation) When the Memil Blooms. Anyway, the place was dog friendly so we went there.

A pension, by the way, is just a hotel where the rooms have little kitchen areas.

Our room was spacious and we were, I’m fairly certain, the only customers last night. Pretty bad for a pension that I estimated had about 50 rooms but my wife guesses had 10 at most. Anyway, we were the only ones there and it would have been very quiet and peaceful if not for the construction next door where they seem to be building another hotel. Still, they stopped around 7:00 PM so it was quiet at night. Of course they started before 7:00 AM so the morning wasn’t so peaceful... The room was about $130/night.

Anyway, we cooked our local delicacy but the beef was tough. Anyway, we had fun walking the dogs and watching Animal Planet (the only channel with English programs we could find). And we did spend some time looking at the moon and stars. We couldn’t see many stars because of some clouds but those clouds did look pretty when they passed in front of the moon.

All in all it was nice to get out of the city and experience a place I had never been before.

Posted by James Trotta at October 23, 2007 7:01 AM | TrackBack