Sokcho is a coastal city in the east coast. Its limited in the west by Seoraksan National Park, and the east Sea (Sea of Japan) in the west. It is located one hour far from the north border, and some ferries depart from here to China and Russia.
There are many buses from Seoul (about 3 hours 10 minutes, a lot of them) and from Incheon about 10 per day (3 hour 40 minutes). It is basically a touristic city, so as we expected no much people should be there in June, and it is probably crowded by summer holidays (July-August).
There are many accommodations next to Sokcho express terminal, from Motels (about 40.000 won per night) to nice Hotels (I didnt ask the price but probably double), and it is possible to sleep also in particular houses. Many people offers a place to sleep in a private house. Anyway, korea is full of Motels, so we decided to take a room in the closest to the station., basically becaouse we get there about 10 pm, and when nobody speaks english it could be a kind of difficult sometimes. That's what the Motel we slept looks like.
It looks a kind of funny, with green and red light in the room, in a Korean style bed (basically a kind of small matress on the floor), confortable?? not bad. Is a good experience for one night...
The characteristic food in that city is raw fish. I know that you are thinking about sushi now, but it is not exactly like that. I'll try to describe a picture of the scene... Imagine some big fishbowls with different kind of fish, squids, and red (rare) kind of squids pasted in rokcs, and similar.
Basically when you order one of them, it is fished, cutted, and served. So you see a guy fishing them with a small net, and cutting them fast. Then when you get all the stuff (Korean style) with all the salads, sauces, etc.. you can see a masacre of fish, moving in front of you. Well maybe, like that sounds a bit disgusting, but it is not.
We got squids and that kind of red thing that I am not sure how is it called. It is a bit difficult to describe the feeling of a squid leg kind of moving in your mouth, but is not bad. the red thing was like gelly something. Anyway, you should taste it. Sincerely the raw fish looked better, but after that we decided not to eat more...
The beach in the city is nice at night, and a lot of people goes there to have fun with friends and couples, fireworks are a cool nice amusement at night, while you can watch the fishing boats approaching with its lights.
Seoreaksan national park is located 30 minutes far from Sokcho (east entrance), and it is easy to got there by bus (bus 7 and 7-1, but try to ask the driver). The park is located in one of the highest mountains of South Korea.
We went through the east door into the park. It is really steep. I mean, let me be a bit freak, the streams has just a few water, and the sediment is really coarse, is like a torrent, but with a big basin. That is a view from the cable car, in 5 minutes bring you to the top a a peak, about 700 m. The view of the landscape, with the see and the mountains is really awesome.
That is a view of what we wanted to climb to arrive to the top, is so impressive my face with a John Travolta hair style jaja.
That's the top, oh yeah!!
After a 10 minutes rain, a bit of wind, and the awesome view, we decided to continue the visit. There are many rutes to hick, and many natural things to enjoy with all the senses, from waterfalls, to huge rocks, natural swimmingpools, and many different rock formations.
In the vale, the spirituality of the Buddhist is present. Many temples and figures are in the mountain, some of them to visit.
And, after a hick of 40 minutes, incredible rock formations and friendly natural pools (tempreture about 30-35ยบ) invite to jump in, even if the water is so so cold...
I can say that the park is really nice, nature, spirituality and water live together. I really reccomend it, but to hick it all 3 or 4 days are probably needed.
After a tiring day in the mountain I took 2 showers to get of all the nature accumulated during the day in my body.
If you go to Socko you can go to a Hotel or a Motel, but if you really want to enjoy the travellers spirit, you will look for a Hostel. Is not easy, but in Sokcho you can find one of the best I've ever been. The owner is a really nice guy. He make us a plan to visit the city just going into the hostel, some reccomendations for cheap and good places to eat and visit. The room was a kind of nice, and it is located in the old city (most of the motels and hotels are located close to the bus station, in a not really nice zone far from the center but close to the beach). One of the best things is the free bicicles in the hostel, but I will talk about that afterwards. The pictures of the hostel are taken from its homepage. Visit it! Home hostel Sokcho It really looks like that.
By the reccomendation of the hostel guy we went to have dinner to a buffet bbq. That's another thing that I really like about korea. Is a restaurant in which you get a grill or similar and you cook the stuff yourself. It is possible to have pork, beer, fish, squids and dessert. That one was really nice cos it was kind of familiar, small, cheap, and nice staff. In the picture it's me eating
an ice cream, we were too hungry to take pictures during the meal jeje.
A good destination in Sokcho is the lake. That natural lake situated in the north of the city is a reserve of nature and environment. We were riding a bicycle there. it takes about 1 hour to sorrounde it, but it depends on how fit you are and how many people are on the bike...
Even if the city is close, nature is more powerful. It was also good because there were not many people, so the feeling of freedom ii makes it even better.
You should take care about the dragons, they are still in korea, jeje
Another kind of typical food from there is noddles, potato noddles. The restaurant is a potato one. I mean, from the noddles, to the crep s looking something even the makoli are potato made. It is not bad, but I still prefer the "normal" pasta,jeje. the soup had a high density... but perfect to recover forces.
We came back to the hostel to return the bicicle and take a look to the port before come back to Incheon.
That bridge is really nice at night, lighted in colorful Korean style. During the day is also spectacular (if you like bridges) but not very useful, just take a look at next picture thats the highway that it was supposed to go. a bridge to nowhere...
That is the beach in front of the port, but I thing that there are building something not really good for that beach, so probably in a few month (pale pale) will be totally different if it still exists.
Finally, that is the view of an small island in front of the beach (the other beach of the city, the big one). It looks really nice.
After that we went just running to the station, to have a 3 & half hour trip back to Incheon. It was a exhausting weekend, and we left with the wish to come back to enjoy the rest of the city, beach an Seoraksan park. Simply amazing, one of the best weekends in Korea ;).
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