Thursday, November 20, 2014

Chuseok Adventure in Jeollanam-do : Day 2 (Part 1/2) - Hwasun County

After we explored Damyang County, the journey continues down to suncheon city where we spent the rest of our vacation. We left Gwangju Express bus terminal at around 6:30 pm on the same day. The tickets were purchased on the station which costs us 6,900 won each.  Approximately after 2 hours, we arrived in Suncheon Bus Terminal. From the bus terminal, we looked around to pin point where exactly the suncheon KTX station is located. Since we are new to the place, one of us used GPS to make sure which way to go. We opted to walk (instead of bus/taxi) for about 10-15 minutes to reach the accommodation  which we were reserved from (accommodation name is "Comodo Motel"). It is located just across the street of Suncheon KTX Station. See the map below.


Courtesy of Google Map

Suncheon Bus Terminal to Comodo

Comodo Motel was seemed to have the cheapest price with a good quality amongst the accommodations we have researched. Starting from 35,000 won you can get a descent room for two people, where we chose an Ondol Room type. For more detail, check their website here. Note that not all accommodations around suncheon has website, only few of them have and most of them are kind of  expensive for a backpacker like us. Also, better to seek help from korean friend/colleague once you decide to reserve a room (via phone call) as many of them don't speak English well.


We arrived at the motel around 9:00 pm and meet the motel keeper to say hi and claim our room key. We just laid our things and went out to look for some place to eat dinner. Luckily, the area has lot of  Korean Restaurant around the motel which remained open for the whole period of Chuseok (others are 24 hours open, good to mention). The menu/dishes they served has pictures, so it helped us to figure out what food to eat. After our dinner, we roam around the motel for a couple of minutes to check whether the area has any interesting subject for photography before we went back to our room and took rest.

First stop for the day is Hwasun County. Hwasun County can be described as a small county contributing to Jeolla Province. The county has a famous spot and was known for its ethereal mist and reflections of colorful blossom and autumn leaves. It invites many photography enthusiasts ranging from professional, hobbyist down to amateur photographers. It was once made by men to trap water coming from the mountains to serve as a reservoir for the farm around the area. The lake was built in 1969 and named as Seryang-je.

Started our second day at early call time of 5:00 o'clock in the morning. The reason is to have an allowance time to account any inconvenience that we may encounter along the way and taking necessary preparation for the whole day of trip. We left the motel at around 6:30 am and rushed towards Suncheon Bus Terminal for several minutes. There, we asked a lady in the ticket counter to give us tickets for Hwasun. Unfortunately, she informed that there are no buses travelling directly from Suncheon going to Hwasun. So she advised instead to take the longer route (good thing she speak english a little), that means we should go to Gwangju first then take a bus going to Hwasun from there. Having no choice, we followed her advise and purchased the tickets (6,900 won each) for Gwangju. It took us around 2 hours to be in Hwasun Bus Terminal (1 hour 15 mins. going to Gwangju and another 45 mins. going to Hwasun for 2,000 won).

As written in other blogs that we read and according to the experiences of some of our photographer friends, riding taxi is the best option to Seryang-je from the Hwasun bus terminal. Anyway, taxi drivers are just sitting next to the terminal, so we asked one of them to drive for us to Seryang-je. The drivers talked to each other and select who's the lucky one to drive for us. Then they select Mr. Cho. It seems that he didn't know well the directions to the lake, since he has hesitations at first. He asked his fellow drivers about the direction cause it seems that the other guys pretty know the direction to the lake. We left the bus terminal around 9:15 am in the morning and we knew that the mist we are longing to see might not be visible anymore. But since we are there already, we pushed our luck.

We're confident enough that driver already knew the route to the lake, so we sat back and relaxed. We asked for his contact number and asked him also to pick us after the shoot. Kind enough, he gave us his calling/contact card.


Call him Mr. Cho

It's quite a long ride, which took us about 20 minutes before going off road leading to Seryang-je. Upon passing the tunnel, there is a small sign board written in Korean, which we think is a guide direction to the lake. But Mr. Cho seems confused that moment, ignoring the sign board and followed his instinct instead. He took the right turn instead of the left which is the correct way going to the lake. We started climbing the unpaved road, while had this feeling that we took the wrong turn. The taxi kept on ascending the mountain for minutes, until we realized that we are overlooking already the lake on the left side. The driver kept going and looking for the place we supposed to be. We tried to explain to him for a couple of minutes that the lake is already on our left side and we need to go back. Finally, he listen to us and decided to maneuver the car on a narrow road with a cliff on one side. One of us (restie) decided to go down and helped the driver for a successful maneuver. But our problem didn't end here. As we head back down, a van was going up the road, which we think made a wrong turn as well. The problem now is the road is narrow for two vehicles. Once again, one of us (restie) went down the car and and walked to the cliff to check the hard portions so we wouldn't fall to the cliff; while the other one (rhie) gave signal to the driver whether to go straight, turn left or right. We felt relieved after arriving in the lake safely at almost 10:00 am and paid around 20,000 won (which normally this should cost around 16,000~17,000 won),  Quickly after that, we took out our gear to take the pictures. Unfortunately, the mist were gone already (sad). The time we visited this place was not yet autumn, so the leaves are still green.

Anyway, here are some shots of the lake and the fisherman happened to be there catching small fishes (or Haeumang 해우망) through an improvised fishing device.


Tranquility

Calm

The Lone Fisherman

Here are some photos of this place taken on last year's autumn season (2013). Special thanks to our friend Mr. Bryant Ilagan for these beautiful photos.

Seryang-je

Autumn Reflections
And we are still alive...




We finished the shoot after 2 hours (that's 12 noon), and decided to call Mr. Cho to pick us in Seryang-je while we were packing up our things*. We arrived at Hwasun terminal around 12:30 pm, then bought bus tickets bound for Gwangju. Below are the timetables posted in the terminal.
*If ever you couldn't catch Mr. Cho, be sure take the number of the taxi driver that will bring you to the lake. Transportation in this place is kind of difficult. Also, bring cash with you as taxi here are on a cash basis.






We arrived in Gwangju Express Bus Terminal after 45 mins and took our lunch here instead of having it in Suncheon (starving..). Soon after we finished our lunch, we bought bus tickets back Suncheon (so that's another 6,900 won each). We reached Comodo Motel by 3:00 pm and took some rest, unload unnecessary things before we head to our next stop, which is Part 2/2 - Suncheon Bay (or Suncheon man).

Thanks for reading and be sure to follow our next story.

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Location: Seryang-ri, Hwasun-eup, Hwasun-gun, Jeollanam-do, South Korea

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