Boseong is a town that is only about 45min away by car, but on the busses can take as much as an hour and a half with transfers. What makes this relatively small city so worth it though is that it is home to the largest tea farm in Korea, and the only public, tourist friendly tea garden. If you've ever seen pictures of Korea that aren't the big city, or if you watch many Kdramas, the sight will be familiar to you. The farm is enormous, covering the slopes of multiple mountains, though the beautiful touristy area is mostly contained to one, climbable (if you enjoy walking strait up mountains), hillside. As far as we can tell, Koreans don't believe in the kind of zig-zag-y trail you find in the states wherever there is a hike up a mountain. For example, when I was at the grand canyon, you could walk for hours and find yourself not so far from the top due to all of the long sloping horizontal double-backs. Not here, though. Both the hikes we have done in Goheung, and this one in Boseong expect that if you want to see the top, you walk in a strait line between point A and point B, regardless of how steep that may be. If you're really lucky, there are handrails to help you pull yourself to the top, or mount the conveniently laid steps, which might be so big as to have you clambering up the depth of your thigh with each step. Reguardless to say, hikes are never all that long, but they are absolutely exhausting. The tea garden was no different. Check out that slope!
Fortunately, the view from the top was even more than we could have expected. The direction of that face of the mountain has you looking over the rest of the hills as they slope down into the ocean. We climbed the garden just in time to see the sunset too. The experience was nothing short of spectacular, I'm sure in part due to the endorphin high.
Having mentioned the hikes we've done in Goheung, and, given that this post is full of pictures of beautiful views, it seems only fitting to include a couple from the top of the mountain on the south side of Goheung-eup. The hike up this mountain is as steep as any, and despite being less than a kilometer to the top, we stop every time to rest half way up. This is one we do more frequently, because the trail actually starts from downtown and is very easy to get to and hike (the trail is mostly gravel and well laid).
From this lookout we can see just over 180 degrees around us which easily includes the whole of Goheung in our view. There is the rocky outcropping that a very brave Jamie is standing on in the picture above, and a picnic lookout spot in the pictures below from which I can take pictures of Goheung to give you an idea of it's size and our place in it.
So in looking at the pictures above, the first one shows all of downtown. Can you spot the ball field in the first picture? We live directly across the nearest street from that field. The second pictures shows the rest of Goheung including the bus station and PC bang in town, and the rice fields just outside downtown which stretch all the way to the bay. This time of year the rice is turning golden and almost ready to be harvested. When we arrived is was a bright spring green.
So between the tea fields, our own homey mountains, sunsets, and picnic hikes, we have no shortage of beautiful views to remind us just how lucky we were to get placed here. As fall sets in, it has been particularly nice to get outside and enjoy the natural environment. Thanks for reading our blog, and last but not least, a happy hilltop selfie to send you off with....
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