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Start
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Soyang River
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Cheongpyeongsa
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Flower Garden
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Ethiopia
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Pension
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Park
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Uiamho
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Kim Yu-jeong Station
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Jade Garden
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Finish
Janghan Sutbul Dakgalbi (Janghan charcoal-grilled spicy stir-fried chicken)
If anyone has to pick one food to eat in Chuncheon, it would be Dakgalbi(charcoal-grilled spicy stir-fried chicken) and Makguksu(buckwheat noodles). For late lunch, we headed to Dong-myeon area which is on the east of the mouth of Soyanggang(Soyang River).
If you look at the downtown from here, you'll see Mount Bongui, Ansan of Chuncheon, far away and the flocks of migratory birds on the water near the mouth of Soyang river covered with bushes like a jungle.
While taking a walk enjoying the view of Soyang River, we finally arrived at the restaurant, Janghan Sutbul Dakgalbi, where we could eat special spicy stir-fried chicken.
Actually Dakgalbi is so popular in Chuncheon that the number of Dakgalbi restaurants is higher than the number of convenience stores in Chuncheon. Not only that, there are many Dakgalbi streets so that everyone could eat it easily including Myeong-dong, Onui-ding, Hupyeong-dong, Sinbuk-eup and so on.
But the reason we had to bother to come here is because there's something special about this restaurant. It is that you could try hericium erinaceum, which is known to be more valuable than wild ginseng, with Dakgalbi.
Cool wind from air conditioner invited me inside. The restaurant was clean with 15 tables prepared and there were a few rooms as well.
After we wiped our sweat with cool towel on our seats and drank a few glasses of water, I checked the menu.
Janghan Dakgalbi cooks not only hericium erinaceum and charcoal-grilled Dakgalbi, which is different from regular Dakgalbi grilled on plate, but also provides Bbongip Makguksu(buckwheat noodles with mulberry leaf) that they picked by themselves. However, most of menu were about 1,000 won expensive than other restaurants.
As far as I heard, Dakgalbi was originated in Hongcheon, town next to Chucheon, and they used to grill Dakgalbi on a gridiron like now. So it was way past our meal time and I was about to taste the original Dakgalbi so I was a little excited.
A jade decorated on the table. Chuncheon is also famous for producing jade in Korea. If you go further inside Dong-myeon, there's a jade mine and jade jjimjilbang(dry sauna) but we had to eat first.
I ordered Dakgalbi for 2, one dish of Deodeokgui(grilled deodeok) and Makguksu for 2, and soon the common dishes were served on the table neatly.
Onions soaked in soy sauce. Quite spicy taste because of peppers inside made my mouth feel fresh until I finished Dakgalbi.
Red color always stimulates our appetite, doesn't it? Radish shreds were sweet and sour enough to stimulate our appetite in a hot day like that. Along with that, potato salad and cold dongchimi(water-based radish kimchi) go with Dakgalbi very well.
Soon after the common dishes, charcoal fire was served on our table. Oh~it's hardwood charcoal made of oak tree, not a cheap hexagon one.
Before they brought meat, vegetables for ssam was served fully on a plate.
In addition, vegetables seasoned with vinegar and other condiments mixed with welsh onions was served in a big bowl followed by Dakgalbi.
The owner grilled the chicken on charcoal fire by himself and cut them into pieces. My goodness! I was watching him grill the chicken and I forgot to take pictures of chicken. I think it was five or six big chicken chunks.
With button mushroom, saesongi(pleurotus eryngii) mushrooms and the today's highlight, hericium erinaceum. White fine soft hairs really looked like a tail on the ass of roe deer.
Dakgalbi is served half-cooked already so on the table you gotta heat it and flip it properly because sauce makes it easy to burn.
It was properly grilled so I added some vegetables and tried one bite. There was no fat so it was neat and it was so delicious that I suspected if it was really chicken.
Deodeokgui(200g) was served next. They basically provide Deodeok for people to eat with Dakgalbi but it's little and ones I ordered were evidently bigger and fresher.
After Dakgalbi, we started to grill seasoned Deodeok on the gridiron and its delicate scent started to spread. Yay, yummy~!
Sweet and spicy sauce was applied on the back and front, thick Deodeok were splitted properly for one bite so that the taste and the texture was so great, different from Dakgalbi.
Would this be magolli? In fact, this iced kettle has broth for cold Makguksu for me to freshen my mouth.
I am not so sure what mulberry leaves are good for but on the top of black buckwheat noodles, it had vegetables, chopped seaweeds and red sauce.
You could pour the broth whatever way you like. If you pour a little, it could be Bibim(spicy) Makguksu and if you pour it until the noodles are soaked, it's Mul(soup) Makguksu.
I poured the broth between Bibim and Mul Makguksu, mixed it properly and almost drank the noodles. 'Ah….am I happy now'.
At last, I drank cold sprite in the almost-frosted cup then I thought I didn't want or need to do anything but to sleep for a while.
However, I felt good after eating nice food and cool air from air-condition so it was time for us to go to our next destination. It says on the wall that I could buy dishes at a reasonable price for to-go. Should I stayed near the restaurant, I would've ordered some more that I could enjoy barbecue at the pension.
The only thing I felt sorry was that there is no bus station within 1.5km radius. Although we made a 3-km round trip with our strong legs but I don't suggest walking so I strongly suggest you to take something else.
Address : 751, Janghak-ri, Dong-myeon, Chuncheon-si (강원도 춘천시 동면 장학리 751)
Operating Hours : 11:00 - 22:00 (No holidays)
Gangwondo Provincial Flower Garden 강원도립화목원
Within Chuncheon downtown, there are buildings to visit like puppet theatre or animation museum. We were about to try animation museum but it seemed like a place for kids so I had to change it suddenly.
That's when we decided to go to Gangwondo Provincial Flower Garden located in Sanong-dong, upper part from Chuncheon Motor Park.
Gangwondo Provincial Flower Garden is a public arboretum run by Gangwon-do city that is consisted of 9 gardens depending on theme including Banbi Botanical Garden, Rock Garden, Topiary and so on.
You could take a look around the Forest Museum for 1,000 won containing 100 thousand plants of 1,653 plant species and 20 varieties of endangered plant species designated by Ministry of Environment.
As I entered the garden, wooden bear that represents Gangwon-do was opening its arms to welcome us. But it still has a lot of holes so it will look better in summer.
On the right I could peek at Hwamokjeong(flower and tree pavilion) between the trees. So we headed to Hwamokjeong first.
After we passed the forest, there came a large garden and the long pond surrounding Hwamokjeong had a cool fountain that spreads water. It was a little bit late so I didn't see many tourists yet.
Hwamokjeong is a two-story pavilion where you could take a rest watching glamorous flowers around it.
If you cross a small bridge in front of Hwamokjeong, varieties of flowers that I don't know the name of are bloomed altogether.
I don't know when it all started, but I hear the constant sound of 'teok! teok! teok!'. It's the sound of spinning wheel that has a shape of shingled house, traditional house in Gangwon-do, was spinning and milling.
Around Hwamokjeong, there were varieties of flowers and aquatic plants, and among the bushes full of flowers there was a waterway hidden as well.
Each flower had its name and description written under it but it's impossible to remember them all. Watching them and appreciating them was enough for us so we moved along.
At the end, the kids were playing on the big playground. The unique thing was that all the plays were made of woods. A heart-shape flower garden in front of the playground caught my eyes too.
Next to the playground, there was a forest museum. 'Forest museum…what's there to tell about the trees?' I didn't expect so much but I went inside because I had to go to the toilet anyway.
Under the high ceiling with no floor between two levels, there was an asiatic black bear character, a symbol of Gangwon-do and made of jade, opening its arms and welcoming visitors in the lobby.
Over our heards, the models of red-crowned cranes hung on the ceiling made us feel like we were watching them flying.
To the right of the lobby, there were places to see stuffed animals, 4D theatre and experience centre. They played a role as an educational space for kids to get more familiar with animals.
An asiatic black bear with his teeth and a tiger behind the tree inside the dark exhibition room…
Over our heads, an owl as big as a kid was looking down with scary eyes, and you could see more animals through glass after you pass the dark tunnel.
Various birds of prey living in Korea were stuffed like living ones in the glass. I didn't have a clue that there were so many birds in Korea.
Along with birds, samples of diverse fish species were displayed in one corner as well including a mandarin fish from Soyang Lake.
I had a chance to actually meet the cute wild baby pigs of the scary wild grown pigs that I saw on the news.
There's even a sample of wildcat, which is a wild animal living in our forest zone but hardly been seen.
The room was full of the life-size samples of different migratory birds along with red-crowned cranes and white herons.
Even along the passageway to another exhibition room on the second floor, the samples of various lumber were displayed in the place of railing so that you could see the characteristics of each tree.
Unlike the first floor where the life-size samples in the first floor, the second floor had scientific materials regarding the history and evolution of living things that have been developed from the ancient times.
Different kinds of fossils found not only in Korea but also in Brazil and European countries were displayed here.
You could also see fossils from plants stuck in rocks in the Cretaceous period of the Mesozoic Era to dozens or hundreds of Gastropoda like an ammonite.
We lost track of time here because it was so fun to see the exhibits look exactly like the real ones.
We accidentally found this fossil experience corner somewhere. I press my hand and it leaves handprints that would be a fossil.
Normally it's for kids but we couldn't just pass by. We had to throw ourselves and left a big fossil.
Right past the fossil experience corner, we could see insects of different species. The butterflies were emitting so beautiful colors from their bodies like lights.
At the end of the second floor, it finally had some descriptions on the plants grown in Gangwon-do, which is supposed to be a purpose of any arboretum, but I couldn't focus on descriptions probably because I saw so many living plants already.
But this information is all instructive I am sure, so I think it would be nice to bring your kids in the future.
Lastly, the artworks and daily goods made of woods or the roots of trees were displayed through the pathway where it leads to outside.
It was almost an evening when we got out of the forest museum. Operating hours were until 6 p.m. so we hurried a bit.
It was almost summer so the sun was long but because of rapidly changing weather, outside was becoming darker already.
When you walk along the center street of the flower garden with Japanese cherries on both sides, you'll see the topiary works of dinosaurs or big birds shapes displayed on the lawn.
I was exhausted because of long journey that day but those small flowers that I saw on the bench gave me strength to move again.
Not only the benches here and there, the garden also has a big room that's called Banbi Rest Area for visitors and people to take a rest in nature.
In the rest area, tall metasequois trees were providing the perfect shades to make us want to lie down on a mat.
There was also a 'barefeet path' trasversing the whole garden where you could walk the forest with bare feet and feel the nature.
There were three taps to get water to wash your feet after walking with bare feet but only one of them had a handle.
We approached the entrance to the flower garden we entered, saw the fountain square at last and headed to 「Banbi Botanical Garden」 decorated in a green house for the plants sensitive to temperature.
Banbi Botanical Garden is an indoor botanical garden where you could see various plants including warm temperature, foliage plants, fleshy plants garden and ecological observation garden so it's a nice place to see green leaves in cold winter but in a summer like now…it was too hot.
I had to bear the heat for a while to get inside and I saw the green house was filled with cactus of different spines like in a movie.
Cactus spine is sharp and it is in general ugly but the flower was so unexpectedly white and beautiful. I was told somewhere that it's hard to see flowers on cactus but there were quite many flowers in the green house. Did I get everything wrong?
In another green house, tropical plants with wide leaves were growing and unknown trees with strange holes on them, not from the bus, were standing proud of big tree leaves.
It hadn't been long since I had visited Jeju Yeomiji Botanical Garden, but Gangwando Provincial Flower Garden had so many kinds of plants displayed so I didn't get bored at all.
In one corner of the green house, I found a small room where the dozens of butterflies were flying surrounded by the mosquito net. This is where they raise butterflies. With the description on the transformation from caterpillar to butterfly, a signboard was attached to the window telling us to keep the door closed.
Okay, the plants growing in the air are what impress me whenever I see them. Dozens of plant species hung in a small space with different shapes and heights that made them look like they're riding on swings.
A plant that looks like a kind of orchid(蘭) is hanging from the small water tank in the green house and growing its roots spread in the air.
The tour in the green house ended with the plants growing into the air and after that, I had to drink two cups of water in front the building before we went out. Phew…green house tour is too much in summer…
With Banbi Botanical Garden as our last tour, we arrived at the exit (entrance) and the cold drinks and snacks in the shops in front were seducing us.
In the shop, you could even buy small pots of plants so you could give it a try growing plants by yourself. But I wish there was a small shop next to the forest museum where we could get cold drinks in hot weather like this. We didn't plan on visiting Gangwondo Provincial Flower Garden at first but it's quite a great tourist attraction with cool shades under the trees except for the green house, resting places, varieties of plants and museum where you could learn about plants. It's near the Chuncheon Doll Museum that kids like so I strongly suggest you to drop by and relax with various plants.
Address : 218-5, Sanong-dong, Chuncheon-si (강원도 춘천시 사농동 218-5)
Telephone : 033-248-6690~1
Operating Hours : 10:00 ~ 18:00 (In winter: 17:00)
Website : http://www.gwpa.kr/
