Seoraksan National Park - Part IV

Day 3 - Biseondae Trail and Sokcho city

On the third day, the only short trail left for us was the trek to Biseondae. Beyond that are long treks that require at least a full day and you have to start early (there are hiking hours restrictions on the trails beyond Biseondae).

Our plan was to trek to Biseondae in the morning and than head down to Sokcho city for the rest of the day.

The Biseondae is really just a walk in the park. It is a mostly flat trail that runs besides a river. As you reach Biseondae (which means Flying Fairy Platform 飞仙台), there are a series of colorful pools which looked very inviting in a hot sunny day.

You can do the trek in 2 hours round trip. There is the Geumganggul Caves just beyond Biseondae. The maps gave the time required to reach it as 40min (one way). But it was a really steep climb and my friend wasn't up to it.

There is nothing I didn't find Biseondae particularly spectacular or or beautiful. But it is a nice walk if you have the time. If you are visiting Seoraksan just for a day, you should really go Ulsanbawi or take the cable car to the Gwongeumseong Fortress instead. However Biseondae is the gateway to trek further into the mountains. You will need to pass by here if you intend to go up the Daecheongbong peak for example.

I hope I will be back to scale the Daecheongbong peak another time.

For now, we turned back at Biseondae and that was the end of our Seoraksan trip.

Emerald pools at Biseondae

The Biseondae rocks were carved with Chinese calligraphy

Emerald pools at Biseondae

We took the bus to Sokcho Express Bus Terminal and had our lunch in one of the restaurants there. It was a really hot and sunny day and we got into the E-mart for the air-conditioning and browsed a bit.

An interesting sculpture just outside E-mart

From the E-mart we walked to the Seorak-daegyo Bridge that connects to the Abai Village. The bridge is quite high and you get a nice view of the harbour, the Abai village as well as Sokcho town.

I don't find Abai Village particularly interesting. It was just a one street thing, full of restaurants and cafes, and posters of various Korean dramas or variety shows that were filmed there. The specialty here is seafood, and in particular Abai Sundae ("soon-day", it's not ice cream, but stuffed squid. The way it is done here is that the stuffed squid is sliced and the fried from egg batter).

We did decide to stop of a coffee in one of the cafes here. It was while I was reaching the map of Sokcho here that I discovered there is an interesting boat ride just round the corner called "gaetbae boat".

A navy ship coming into harbour, seen from the Seorak-daegyo bridge connecting to Abai Village.

This boat is not powered. Instead, the passengers of the boat have to pull a steel cable to move the boat across the water!

From the Abai Village side, the boat is boarded from under the bridge, right next to the bronze statues that depicted the filming of the drama series "Autumn in my Heart".

The bronze statues depicting the filming of Autmn in my Heart. The gaetbae boat is in the background

We paid 200W each (yes, only about 25 cents a person!) and boarded the boat. There is no fixed timing. The boat is launched when there is sufficient people. 2 passengers were asked to help with pulling the boat and both my friend and I volunteered. We were given a metal handler and shown how to grip the cable with the handler. Then you just have to drag the handle down the boat. It doesn't take much effort really. It was really interesting and fun!

The gaetbaet boat. The bridge in the background is the red color Seorak daegyo bridge.

The gaetbae boat as it is launching. You can see the steel cable that is connected to the platform. A father and his son is pulling the metal handle that is latched onto the cable.

We then headed towards the Sokcho Lighthouse Observatory. To get to the lighthouse, we had to walk towards the Yeonggeumjeong Sunrise Pavilion. That was where we discovered that the area the pavilion was actually a very nice place. It was a rocky area that was quite beautiful. You can walked down to the rocks. We ended up spending quite a bit of time enjoying the place.

The Yeonggeumjeong Pavilion in the background. We got down to the rocks by the sea.

Quite a beautiful sight as the tide and sun were both down

My friend was fascinated about the tripod breakwater.

When we got up to the lighthouse, it was already closed for the day. I had thought it would open till late at night, but it closed at 5:30pm. However, there is a nice view of Sokcho from here. You can even see Seoraksan and Ulsanbawi rock from here!

This is cheesy, but I can't help it. It's a pair of seagull like wings at the lighthouse. It was getting chilly and I had to put on my windbreaker.

There were many restaurants around the Lighthouse Observatory and the Dongmyeonghang Port. But they all serve raw seafood and I was extremely uncomfortable with that. My friend was understanding enough, so we took bus 9-1 to the Express Bus Terminal for dinner instead. But first, my friend bought some dried pollack and cuttlefish from one of the many shops selling dried seafood.

Even though the afternoon was very hot, it got chilly as it got dark and the wind started to blow in from the sea. Luckily, I had a wind breaker with me.

We didn't explore the downtown Sokcho where all the glittering shops were. There might be some nice restaurants there. But we were happy enough with the simple restaurants near the Express Bus Terminal.

If you have time, Sokcho is a pleasant town worth exploring.

That was pretty much the end of our Seoraksan excursion. After dinner we took the bus back to Hotel Sorak Park. The next morning, we checked out of the hotel and took the bus back to the Express Bus Terminal, just in time to catch the 10am bus at the Express Bus Terminal back to Seoul.