This weekend’s trip took my girlfriend and I to Chuncheon. An area of Korea that’s worthy of a daytrip instead of just an afternoon, we hopped on the bus for the hour-and-a-half trip and settled in. After finding ourselves in Chuncheon – and without a specific destination in mind – we hopped on a random bus and got off when something interesting appeared out the window. Near our first stop were these peculiar – and quite colorful – pinkish red flags.
Yep, you’re reading that right – “The Memorial Hall for Ethiopian Veterans in the Korean War”. And the award for the most random thing to stop and see goes to… Having sent 1,271 troops to the war (
source: Wikipedia), Ethiopia and Korea began a friendship of sorts that presumably culminated in this memorial.
The first main display within a circular room.
The official orders from the UN – all in English, of course. Poor Korean / Ethiopian visitors – no translation?
Some of the medals earned during the war – no indication of whether they were all earned by one man or a number of them.
Some interesting art…
…and some Ethiopian masks. The second floor consisted more of items from Ethiopia, while the first floor focused on their assistance during the Korean War.
Nearby was Uiamho Lake, complete with a bike path running alongside… and swan pedalboats!
My girlfriend insisted we try them out, and pedalboats are usually fun, so off we went. Note to self: if above 5’9″, be comfortable with that whole ‘knees to chest’ thing – the pedals are not adjustable to your height. Renting a pedalboat was 8,000 won to rent one boat for about 40 minutes; if you didn’t like swans, there were also ducks, dragons, and griffins available.
An interesting dome across the lake.
After returning the boat without incident, we made our way across the street to a sculpture park.
A pyramid worthy of ancient Egyptians stood near the back of the sculptures – naturally, we had to check it out.
Inside was a water clock – designed to make sound and use water in… some way… It looked more like a pretty fountain, and we didn’t want to wait around for the next hour for the thing to go off…
One of the statues around the fountain – each two-hour period of the day had an animal standing with anthropomorphic grace and holding a staff.
Time to walk around a bit more – one nice thing about small towns that you can do and still feel like you’re seeing the town.
Some of Chuncheon looks a bit rundown, as though there hasn’t been enough renovation / need for renovation. This building would seem quite out of place in some areas of Seoul… After awhile we jumped on another bus and got off here:
Just across a bridge is a row of restaurants – we stopped at a pretty good Chinese place.
Flowers are perfect for the macro mode – what can I say?
To wind up the evening we found a bowling alley while walking around (they’re easy to find since the universal symbol for bowling around Korea is a two-meter-tall bowling pin next to the building).
Come to Chuncheon to get out of Seoul – but brush up on your Korean if you want to get somewhere specific (or be willing to take a taxi). The bus system is of little help, and although there’s quite a few different buses for the town, there’s almost no way of telling where you are on any of the maps. If you’re willing to randomly bus hop you’ll get around alright.
Directions to Chuncheon: from Seoul’s Express Bus Terminal (lines 3 or 7), take a bus to Chuncheon. There’s 20 of them leaving Seoul for Chuncheon every day, so you shouldn’t have to wait more than 45-50 minutes for one. 1 1/2 -2 hours (depending on traffic) you’ll be in Chuncheon. While at the bus terminal, pick up some information from the small tourist information booth near where you arrived, then head out the front door. There’s no subway system in this smaller town, and the buses are very confusing to figure out off the cuff.
What a cool find, especially the Ethiopian Veteran Memorial. The sculpture park looks like a blast too.
However, 2 hrs from EBT makes it a challenge …
Nice post, but man.. reduce them graphics.. the smallest of them is a meg.
When a Korean internet server chokes?
Your graphics may be too big.
😉