A Weekend in Pohang
Monday was a day off since Korea is celebrating Hangeul Day (the creation of the Korean alphabet). So, I planned a trip down to the Southeastern coast to Pohang. It is a main seaport so I saw POSCO and tons of boats there. There is a KTX directly to Pohang, but I took a bus from the Express Bus Terminal to Pohang (approx. four hours) since I wasn’t in a rush to get there.
Lily booked us a motel since it was such short notice and lots of the hotels were booked or extremely expensive. In Korea, lots of the motels are for couples and some of them have some interesting themes. You can tell it’s a love motel when you enter and the reception desk doesn’t reveal the concierge (more privacy for the guests). We arrived at the motel at 3, and it was pouring down rain. The weather was cool and the rain kept advancing into the later hours on the forecast.
We took a bus for almost an hour and then a taxi to get to The Haven; a café. The drinks and cookies were quite good. Especially since I was starving from not eating lunch. The café is located on the beach. It was kind of a surprise to discover how unkept the beach was with trash and debris all over. Also, in this particular area, the water was really dirty looking. Despite that, I still enjoyed my time relaxing for a bit on the beach.
We took the same taxi (thankfully Kakaotaxi worked in Pohang) to Homigot Sunrise Square. It was quite dark (it felt like it was midnight), even though it was only 6 PM. There are two hand statues; one on land and one in the water to symbolize that people are living together and helping each other. It was quite pretty and I’m sad that I didn’t get to see it in the light. Next time!
After walking around, we went to a restaurant in the same area. Pohang had crab restaurants everywhere. The restaurant we went to also had tons of crabs. We wanted to order a crab platter but two crabs was close to $230. Way too expensive!! We settled on crab ramen which was a much more reasonable price (15,000 won each). The crab with the ramen was delicious.
We woke up early the next day and left at 9 AM. Unlike the rainy, cool weather from the day before, Sunday’s weather was extremely hot (mid-80s and humid). It felt like we had returned to summer all over again. We hopped in a taxi… and when I told him our destination (Daewonsa Temple), he had no clue where it was. We spent a good ten minutes while he struggled to figure it out. When we were almost there, the navigation system took us on a little detour that was completely unnecessary… but we made it.
The temple is quite small but very beautiful. It was so peaceful. The whole time that we were there I only saw one monk and another lady who had gone there to pray. There is an entrance through the dragon’s mouth and it' leads to a temple area in the dragon’s body.
We took a short bus ride and then followed the directions on Naver Maps to get to Gonryunsan (곤륜산). However, the maps were trying to take me straight up the mountain where there wasn’t any path. After searching on some blogs, I found out that the entrance is close to the campsite, so I walked there. From the entrance to the top, it’s about 15-20 minutes walk. I have no clue why but I think I have gotten more and more out of shape so climbing up the mountain, even though it was a paved road, was tiring. At the top, there was a clear view of the beaches on either side. I could also see the temple that we had just been at. Additionally, when I was looking at some blogs, I discovered that Hometown Cha Cha Cha filmed some of the locations in Pohang. The scene overlooking the town was filmed from this mountain. I think I would have enjoyed the view more if it wasn’t boiling hot.
I descended and walked along the road back to the village area. Walking along there, I got a good view of the beach and the people fishing and playing there. I was so hungry at this point that we stopped for Chinese food. After eating, we had planned to go to Naeyeonsan and hike a bit, but we were so hot and tired that we decided to go back to the area near our motel and find a café there.
We took three buses for a little over an hour to get to The Clover. The décor was unique and they also had Halloween decorations up. It was really nice because they also had a/c. I ordered the melon bingsoo and Lily got the Halloween pancakes. They tasted heavenly and I definitely filled up on my fair share of sugar.
Finished at the cafe, we walked near Songdo Beach and then walked along the port to the Pohang Corvette Experience Hall. It was free to enter and we got to explore the battleship. Golden Hour was hitting so it was especially beautiful.
On our way back to the motel, we stopped at Jukdo Market to see all the crabs and other seafood that they were selling there. It was quite the bustling market. A nice end to our trip.
Still full from all the sugar I had consumed earlier, I just got some kimbap from the 7/11. I chilled the rest of the night and then left Pohang at 10:40 AM the next day. It was a quick trip but I still feel like I got a good feel of how Pohang is.