A long weekend in Chuncheon

For our first long weekend, we decided to venture to Chuncheon, a city about the size of Newcastle that is two hours north east of Seoul. As I'm sure you are dying to know- yes, Chuncheon has a mascot just like our suburb in Seoul. His name is Hobani and he is meant to symbolise the beautiful waterways of the district.

Hobani

Chuncheon was a pleasant change of scale to Seoul, however, the main street was still packed with interesting shops and restaurants, an area that has been used in many Korean and Japanese movies.

Chuncheon town centre

Chuncheon is renowned for it's exceptional dakgalbi, a spicy chicken dish that you BBQ at your table. A lot of restaurants only serve dakgalbi, such as the one that we ate at in the photo below. One of the most commonly used utensils at the Korean table are scissors. Knives are never used at the table, so scissors are used to cut everything from raw meat to cooked noodles into bite size pieces that are manageable with chopsticks.

Dakgalbi and beer... heaven

On our second night we found a fantastic Japanese fusion restaurant- Zen. At first we were a bit dubious as we were their only customers, however, for less than $10 each we were presented with an amazing array of noodles, sushi, soup and side dishes.

A whole lota Zen

As well as the food, Chuncheon has amazing scenery on offer. On our last day, the clouds cleared and we scampered up Mt Samaksan with troops of senior Koreans in the latest climbing gear. The older folk in Korea are amazing, leaving us for dead in the fitness stakes. This is a shot of one of the Buddhist temples along the route.

Mt Samaksan temple

The climb gets really steep in parts and you have to use ropes and metal footgrips to anchor your climb.

It's harder than it looks, alright!

But it was all worth it...

Low-level view from Mt Samaksan

Pro climber No. 1

Pro climber No. 2