Before leaving Korea for a short visit to Germany I wanted to squeeze in some travelling. It came in handy that I still had a free day due to my volunteer work last Saturday and my flight leaving late Tuesday. That basically gave me more than three days, enough time to visit Seoraksan National Park up north, supposingly the most stunning in whole Korea (North and South). But first things first and another nightout at the Road King was due – I had a great time playing pool and ended up returning to the hotel just one hour before my bus departed from the City Bus Terminal. Who needs sleep anyway? And there’s this thing called caffeine, and I had had lots!

Stopover in Gangneung

10 o’clock, arrival in Gangneung, sunshine, I’m still awake – why not take a little detour and visit some historical places? Said and done, I dropped off my luggage right inside a fish shop and boarded bus 202 as I had been told by the tourist information. Only no-one told me that I had to pay attention to the direction of the bus and I ended up nowhere near the historical site but rather at the beach. No worries, hadn’t seen the sea in a while anyway. The sandy beach was deserted although the weather was definitely beach worthy. But I had been told that Koreans are somehow special with that. The also tend to put barbwire fence all along the shore to keep foreign (i.e. North Korean) spies off. And while lights in the water are supposed to attract shrimps, the coast is illuminated making it easier to spot intruders.
Eventually I decided to take a cab to Ojukheon Residence where I originally had planned to go to and spent some time there wandering between Kimchi pots and temples, “chatting” to little kids that kept following me around for quite some time. Taking another bus I returned to the terminal and continued my journey up north towards Sokcho.