We took our first trip outside of Seoul! We traveled 200 km east to a coastal city called Sokcho (속초).

Korea celebrated their harvest festival called Chuseok (추석) the last weekend of September. (The dates change from year to year based on the lunar calendar.) We heard people describe it as the Korean Thanksgiving. They also said it’s a bigger holiday than Christmas. People typically travel to their hometowns to spend time with family. Traditional customs include rituals to honor ancestors, but not everyone practices those.

We were a little nervous. It was our first trip in Korea and one on our own. We purchased bus tickets the week before at Express Bus Terminal. The lady at the counter spoke fairly good English, and David confirmed the departure times two or three times with her. We didn’t even think to double check the tickets themselves and when we handed them to the man to board the bus, we realized she had given us tickets for 3:00 pm instead of 7:00 pm. We headed back to the counter and hoped we could get another bus that night. Fortunately — and I don’t know if this was because of the holiday or not — buses were leaving every 10 minutes and we got on the next one. I was amazed! I was so worried they would be sold out. (We ended up changing our tickets again on our return trip to get back earlier. The process was easy and they didn’t charge us anything extra.) It took us around 3 hours to get there and it would have taken less had it not been for the holiday traffic. The return trip was 4.5 hours.

Sokcho is a smaller city of around 90,000 people. Everything moved a little slower and the people were more tan (like me!). The area where we stayed was quiet. This may have been because of Chuseok and/or it being past beach season. The city is situated around the bay and the mountains and felt a lot smaller than it looked on the map. We loved the fresh sea air and gorgeous views!

It was a great little getaway. We rented an electric motorcycle for $10 and road around the Expo Tower, saw the Tree of Hearts sculpture, stuck our feet in the water, and explored the market areas. We also hiked in Seoraksan National Park… I’ll do a post on that later! Our last day, we stopped by the Abai (North Korean Expat) Village for lunch.

David’s now shot a gun in three countries! America, Georgia, and Korea:

Being on the coast, we saw seafood and hatcheries everywhere:

The Donghae (meaning the East Sea… aka the Sea of Japan):

We saw a few foreigners swimming, but we just stuck our feet in:

Like we saw in Turkey, Koreans sun dry a lot of food:

When you have stuff to dry, might as well string them all together. Socks, eggplant, and squid:

A hand drawn ferry to the Abai Village:

Where we stayed:
City Seoul Motel. We booked our reservation through AirBnB. It was very clean and in a good location. It was right around the corner from the Sokcho Foodtown. It took us about 20 minutes to walk to the beach area, but from what we heard from friends, cost about half the price of the hotels closer to the water.

Where we ate:
• Matsu – a cozy Italian restaurant tucked away near the national park. We met up with some friends from the school who had eaten here before. A plate of pasta cost around $15 and included a free appetizer, salad, and dessert! I had a delicious seafood alfredo dish. I don’t know if there’s a great way to get to the restaurant by public transportation. It’s close to the entrance of the hill that goes up to Seoraksan National Park.
• Flat White – this was a gem of a coffee shop! We had breakfast here two mornings. The shop has its own roastery inside.

Sokcho was a great location for our first Korea trip! I highly recommend it. I’ll share more about Seoraksan National Park soon.

Any recommendations for our next excursion in Korea?