chuncheon

Monday, September 21, 2009 | |

Two weekends ago, I went to visit my birthmom in Chuncheon, a smallish town of about 265,526 people (thank you, Wikipedia!) situated about 40 miles northeast of Seoul. The train ride is, rather remarkably, two hours long, but it's quite a pretty one, running through the mountains and all. At least, that's what it looks like on Google Earth; I couldn't really have told you otherwise as I slept all the way there.

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At Namchuncheon Station, when I arrived on Saturday evening.

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Hai-ryun, my birthmom.



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On Sunday morning, my half-brother Ji-won took me on a walk along the stream running by their apartment complex. Along the way, I saw some of the first graffiti I've seen in Korea. I really enjoyed its whimsy...

you wanna something?

is it illigal?

T_T
...and downright emo-ness.

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Ji-won and a friend.

Chuncheon is, apparently, known for two things--being the home of dakgalbi, a marinated chicken stir fried paella-style on a grill in front of you in gochujang (Korea's traditional red chili pepper sauce); and being the setting for the K-drama Winter Sonata. I know nothing about Winter Sonata besides the fact that it's ridiculously popular throughout Asia; however, we did make a point of having dakgalbi for lunch. Regrettably, I neglected to take any pictures of it. Steph would be disappointed in me. It was delicious; my favorite part (as with any paella-style dish in Korea) comes when you ask the servers to fry you some rice in the leftovers.

After lunch, and just before I caught my train back to Seoul, my birth-grandmother took Hai-ryun and I on a quick drive around the outskirts of Chuncheon, along the foot of the mountains surrounding it to the east, and then along the river cutting through its western end.

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Korean War memorial in the park along the river.

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Hai-ryun.

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My birth-grandmother.

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Additionally, Chuncheon also appears to be home to a first-rate fish-jumping-through-hoops statue...
jumping fish

...as well as this pretty awesome pedestrian bridge.
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A lonely shin ramyun wrapper.



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2 comments:

Steph said...

May be a shock to hear this from me...Sometimes the food is secondary in the experience :)

Mark Z said...

Haha, you sure about that? O_o