With our departure from Korea fast approaching, Ric and I spent two consecutive weekends in the north-east province of Gangwon-do, one part of the country that we'd barely explored.
On the first weekend in the region we spent a relaxing two days on Jeongdongjin beach with our favourite Cheonan person, Sydney!
We found the place rather by accident whilst browsing Google images one day and decided it looked cool with the iconic ship-on-a-cliff resort hotel, beach-front train station and North Korean submarine. It didn't disappoint.
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| Happy threesome. |
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| Jeongdongjin beach and the Sun Cruise hotel behind us. |
We spent most of the weekend drinking beer, playing cards, reading books and eating junk food on the beach. We trekked up to the Sun Cruise Resort Hotel (the ship-on-a-cliff) and watched a stunning sunset over the mountains. The hotel is really beautiful, albeit in need of a lick of paint. It has a swimming pool, and huge gardens full of sculptures and the view from up there really is worth the 5,000won you have to pay just to enter the grounds!!!
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| Sun Cruise |
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| Sunset |
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| Sunset |
We ever managed to get up at 5am to watch the sunrise over the East Sea. Too bad it was overcast...
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| Sunrise, not worth getting out of bed for at 5am. |
Jeongdongjin is also home to one of Korea's many "Unification Parks", set up to teach about North and South relations and to promote the peaceful reunification. The park has a North Korean submarine that was recovered in 1996 when it crashed onto the rocks off the Jeongdongjin coast. Inside the sub were "26 armed guerrillas" that abandoned their sinking submarine and entered South Korea, where they were at large for several weeks before they were eventually captured/killed by South Korean forces. In addition there's a wooden boat, that brought North Korean defectors to the South in search of asylum and smart phones, and a naval ship, all of which you can nosy around in.
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| Unification Park |
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| Not sure why a naval ship has this... |
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| View from our hotel, overlooking the train station on the beach. |
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Ric and Sydney took a speed boat ride along the coast.
I didn't think it was 'relaxing' enough for my schedule. |
And my favourite photo of all...
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| We made friends with this couple when we decided to photo bomb their wedding snaps. |
Photos courtesy of Sydney and her smart phone, as we broke our camera :(
How to get to...
Jeongdongjin: we took a direct bus from Cheonan to Gangneung (3hrs30min) and then a local city bus (#106) straight to the beach. The bus took about 30 minutes but you can get the train from Gangneung station to Jeongdongjin station and it only takes 15 mins.
We stayed at...
A motel. There are plenty of motels, pensions and min baks to chose from along the beach, most motels cost around 40,000~60,000 won. Ours was the Full House Motel, and it was 60,000 for a room with a sea view.
