#cheongpung

[jhouros]

[kaitlinmcandrews]

So I really really like cherry blossoms… I didn’t know that the season for them was in incredibly short. Like 1.5 weeks short. I was pretty bummed out because we had plans to go to Jinhae for the cherry blossom festival, but I ended up leaving my phone in a taxi and had to deal with that so we decided to post one it to the next week. Well, within that week, all the cherry blossoms around Daegu had perished. *cries*. Jinhae is not too far from us so I know the trees would be in the same state. (I’m assuming that they are cherry blossoms… they are white so I’m not entirely sure. I was under the impression that cherry blossoms were really pink.)

I looked for festivals that would still have blossoms in mid April. It seemed like it was either Seoul or this place in the middle of nowhere. We decided to go on an adventure and went to Cheongpung which is near Jecheon.

Long story ahead. This travel to and from story takes the cake on our getting to Palgongsan story!

——– The journey there ——-

We took the bus from Daegu to Jecheon no problem. Cost us 15000₩ each and took about 2 hours. The instructions on the travel Korea were not great. They were directions that my mom would give (sorry mom). “Turn right at the Family Mart, walk 50m you will see blah blah blah”. Just tell me the street name! Guh! http://english.visitkorea.or.kr/enu/SI/SI_EN_3_2_1.jsp?cid=700764 . It’s usually a pretty decent site, but we were kind of flustered I suppose.

Anyways, we found the bus stop we needed to get to the small town of Cheongpung.  Seems strange that you take a city bus out there… well, they obviously didn’t plan well for this festival. The bus was absolutely packed. Like when you think of stereotypes of Asian buses, that’s what it was like. We barely got on. We had to drop our money in the slot and go to the back door. It was filled wall to wall with people. There were people sitting on each others’ laps and everything.

Not only was this bus filled, it was a pretty hot day. Everyone was uncomfortable. Someone farted along the journey, too. The traffic was so so slow and backed up. I think we were at a full stop for at least half the journey. People gave up along the way. They got off the bus and walked. We thought about it too, but didn’t know how close we were to our destination. (In hindsight, I’m glad we didn’t. It would have been 2+ hours of walking).

We left when it was still daylight and as we ventured down, the sun went lower and lower until it was eventually dusk. How can I take amazing pictures in the dark!!?? I wasn’t happy. It took us 3 hours to get there (I was expecting like 30min to an hour).  If it took the same amount of time to get back, we weren’t making it back before the last bus to Daegu.

——- The Festival ——-

Because of this, we decided that spending the night was the best option.We stayed at a hotel (first time for us! it’s hard to find hotels I swear… Korea has a ton of motels and love motels though.) It was pretty nice. Cost us 123000₩. Kind of pricey for Korea, but oh well. We were maybe a half hour walk to the festival. It was a nice walk though so no big deal. We crossed a nice bridge and the whole walked is lined with blossoms.

Since we got there so late, we experienced the night time version of the festival. This really just means we had some drinks haha. We had a lot of fun. The festival looked awesome. We ate some pig on a spit and drank some beers. Later we went to a restaurant with an outside patio and a furnace. We had sannakji for the first time. We have wanted to try it for a long time. It was really good. It was a bit weird for sure. They aren’t technically alive, but it’s still weird to see your food moving around on your plate.

We really enjoyed ourselves. We drank a lot, enjoyed the tents, had a nice place to go back to.

The next day, we woke up at 10am (for anyone that knows me, you know that that is pretty early haha). We were able to get a lot of pictures of the flowers. I was so happy ^^. This town had a lot of roads that had a tunnel of blossoms overhead. This small town had a lot of nice trails and touristy type places. They had a place to bungee jump (no, we did not partake in that….), boats, and art pieces.

Again, we went back to where the festival was happening. They tents were a bit more lively than they were at night. People were having a great time and it was a really nice atmosphere. We had some ribs from a place that also had pig on a spit. It was really good. It was obviously slow-cooked and had a really great flavour. There were some performances happening, such as traditional Korean fan dancing and some singing. We experienced it from the tent we were eating the ribs in. We also had some coconut water straight from the coconut. Not sure why that’s a thing at a Korean festival, but whatever.

Seriously, I really really enjoyed my time there. I looooooved the flowers and the festival. It was really my kind of thing ^-^.

We set a time limit of 2pm for when we should head back since the last train leaves to Daegu at 7:40 and it took 3 hours to get to Cheongpung. We figured that if we left at 2, we’d get to Jecheon around 5pm and get to Daegu around 7. Perfect! Just in time for dinner.

——— The way back home ———

Well, needless to say, it didn’t go as planned.

We went to the bus stop at around 2:20. We weren’t too concerned about being 20min over our schedule. Well, we waited. And waited. And waited. It was cold and windy. We were so scared that when the bus would eventually come, it would be so crowded that we wouldn’t get on. When we reached the 1.5hr mark, a Korean couple asked us if we were interested in flagging down a cab. They were charging 30,000₩ to go to Jecheon, so they just wanted to split the cost I think.

We were up for it. We contemplated doing the same thing, but were scared that our Korean wouldn’t be good enough. Well, at that point, we couldn’t flag down any cabs. They either weren’t going to Jecheon or weren’t picking up anyone. The Korean couple ended up talking to the traffic cops hoping to get answers as to why cabs aren’t taking anyone and the buses aren’t coming. Obviously, we weren’t part of this convo so I’m not entirely sure what was happening.

At one point, we had a glimmer of hope. A bus came! We ran to it so excited since it had been 2hours at this point. The bus was empty, didn’t pick up anyone, and didn’t stop. What the ****…. At this point, I was so stressed, so tired, so cold, and so annoyed. The Korean couple told us that taxis weren’t coming anymore. The police officer also told them the bus should be there at 5. It was 4:50 at that point. Okay, fine. We can wait 10 more minutes.

The bus didn’t come.

Around 5:30 the couple had disappeared. They must’ve found a way back. Lucky! about ten minutes later, we figured out where they went.

So, the police came up to us and through Google translate asked us where we are going. When we told him, he basically said to follow him. We followed these two cops to the middle of the highway where they were stopping vehicles and looking inside their cars. When they found a car that had room, they asked the people in the car to drive us to Jecheon.

The police hitchhiked for us.

Can you even believe that??

We waited for a bus for 3 hours. and even if we had caught a bus, our chances of getting the last bus to Daegu were slim. It was already 5:45. Yeah right the bus would get us to Jecheon in 2hours…. It took 3 hours to get down there in the first place! So the couple knew no English, but it didn’t matter. They gave us corn (did I ever mention how friendly Korean people are?) and didn’t seem uncomfortable. They were obviously locals and didn’t take the super crowded route that everyone (including the buses) were taking. We got to Jecheon at 6:10.

The reason I know the exact time we got there? The second last bus to Daegu left at 6:10. We seriously JUST missed it. Oh well, we ate some food and took the last bus.

Although our travel there and back were not ideal, we really liked our ‘vacation’. I’m glad we went, but I really wish the internet was more helpful for travelling rural areas in Korea.

Cheongpunghoban Cherry Blossom Festival (청풍호반 벚꽃축제) So I really really like cherry blossoms... I didn't know that the season for them was in incredibly short.