I finally got to posting about my Yeosu and Suncheon trip!!! And of course I finally went after like 1 and a half year of putting it in my travel wishlist. I went during the last week of June right after my semester 1 final exams aaaand I can’t believe 2 months have passed and I travelled to Singapore and Xi An, China within this period plus finished my 2 months internship in Korea. Like wow I’m so proud of myself cause I think this has been the most productive summer vacation in my entire life.
As you can see in the picture above I went on the trip with some very awesome fabulous lovely high school friends of mine. Amelia was on exchange in KU, Bryce on exchange in Kyunghee, Nat and Esther flew in for travelling (more like shopping), and Teck Soon who is Nat’s uni friend, was on exchange in Daejeon.
Outline of our itinerary (courtesy of Sangyoon oppa) for the 3D2N trip:
Day 1 (Seoul to Yeosu): Check-in at 24 Guesthouse – Lunch (Raw Fish delicacy) – Odongdo Island – Yi Sunshin Square – Dinner (Raw crabs) – Dolsan Park
Day 2 (Yeosu-Suncheon): Yeosu Hanwha Aqua Planet – Lunch (Chinese food) – Suncheon – Check-in at Nreem guesthouse – Suncheon Bay Ecological Park – Yongsan Sunset – Dinner (Best Gukbap of my life)
Day 3 (Suncheon): Suncheonman Bay – Lunch (cheaper version of Korean hanjeongsik) – Back to Seoul (only me TT)
It actually rained on our first day in Yeosu while we were at Odongdo and made it a little hard to explore the island but we did manage it in the end. Odongdo is a pretty relaxing island for a short trek and you can get a good view of the sea around.
Sea of Yeosu~~~
Nat and Tecksoon sitting on the rocks outside the Dragon’s cave.
My habit to take a picture of the drain cover whenever I visit a tourist spot cause its so cute.
We cabbed to Yi Sunshin Square next as the tourist information center outside Odongdo Island told us that there would be lots of restaurants nearby.
Spot the statue of Admiral Yi Sunshin.
The famous turtle ship at Yi Sunshin Square.
Headed to Dolsan park after dinner. We were initially worried that the night lights won’t go on because of the rain but I’m glad the rain stopped and the lights came on! If you ever visit Yeosu this is the place where you can see a really beautiful night view of Yeosu. You’re advised to take a cab up though cause the walk up the park is rather steep. Or you can opt to take the cable car but we saw that the queue for the cable car was unbelievably long lol.
View on top of the Dolsan Park.
Dolsan bridge when it was still bright..
여수밤바다 is a famous song by Busker Busker
Yeosu all lighted up.
That concluded our first day in Yeosu. Unfortunately Nat, Esther had a flight to catch the next day and Tecksoon had to go back so it was just Amelia, Bryce and I for the rest of the trip.
Hanwha Aqua Planet was honestly the main motivation for coming to Yeosu hahaha. I’m a crazy fan of aquariums and we had soooooo much fun in there. Like best time ever cause the animals were soo cute and the programs were interesting as well.
Entrance cost KRW21,000 per person!
PENGUINS! Smart Penguins!!
SEAL! SUPER SMART SEAL! Saluting the audience 😀
Bryce admiring the fishies~
We spent a good 3 hours plus in the aquarium and I would definitely recommend it to anyone visiting Yeosu. The best one I’ve been to in Korea so far. Headed back to our guesthouse area to have a late lunch. We just randomly walked into a Chinese restaurant because I was craving for Jjambbong and holy it was super delicious. Amelia and I were totally addicted to the jjambbong soup hahahaha. If you don’t mind trying a non-local food, the restaurant is located across the street of 24 guesthouse when you come out of the guesthouse and turn left and left again after crossing the street. Walk like 50m and you should see it, its the only Chinese restaurant in the area.
Left for Suncheon after lunch and it was super convenient because the train station was inside the Expo area, right in front of our guesthouse. Took a one hour Mugunghwa train towards Suncheon (2400won). Checked-in our guesthouse and left our luggage before going to Suncheon Ecological Park, recommended by the guesthouse owner.
I really want to commend the guesthouse! It’s called Nreem and they have a webpage here. It was really comfy and clean and the owner is sooo nice. 10 minutes walk away from the Suncheon train station. We heard that they are moving to a new, bigger and nicer building in Sept and I would definitely go back to this guesthouse if I were to visit Suncheon again. Oh btw it’s dormitory style, meaning there are no private rooms but a minimum of 4 per room so you may have to share but its perfect if you’re travelling alone or on budget. We paid KRW20,000 per pax!
Cabbing to Suncheon Ecological Park took like 25 minutes. Not to be confused with Suncheonman Bay which is another awesome place to be introduced. The ecological park is the biggest mudflat area in the entire Korea (if my memory didn’t fail me) and it was hugeee. Like I don’t even know how they manage to cordon off this area and sell tickets at the entrance I mean it expands out of the mudflat all the way to the Yongsan observatory like omg. We heard that the top of Yongsan observatory was a good place for sunset so we went. Probably the first time I’ve attempted to catch the sunset because I’m all into sunrises. Little did we know that we were into a 2 and a half hours hike up the small mountain I mean it took us like 1 and a half hours to get to the bottom of the mountain already from the park it was an endless walk in the mush of pretty grass.
Suncheonbay Eco Museum. A lot of talk about birds!
A view of the wideeeeee park.
Path towards the Yongsan observatory. Below is actually all mudflat and you can see small crabs and mudskippers when you look down into the grass.
This funny spot mid-way up the observatory. Its like a consolation for those who can’t reach the top.
Finally at the observatory. However, the skies were too cloudy and we didn’t manage to see the sunset in the end TTTT
Yup, sad story of not seeing the sunset after going through all those hardships. By the time we crawled out of the park its was 830pm close to 9pm. We decided to cab to the famous geonbonggukbap its like a nationwide famous gukbap place. MUST EAT if you visit suncheon it’s life-changing I swear. I had the makchang gukbap, Amelia had soondae gukbap and Bryce had the sliced pork gukbap. BEST GUKBAP OF MY LIFEE!!!
I think you get my drift hahahaha. Anyway just tell any taxi driver geonbonggukbap and you will be brought to your destination.
The signboard of the gukbap restaurant.
We rested really well in the guesthouse and headed off to Suncheonman Bay the next morning, just a 10 minutes taxi ride away from the guesthouse.
Wow like wow. I can safely say that its the most beautiful garden I’ve visited in my life. And again, its freaking huge. I think Suncheon likes to make everything extra large. The garden is divided into many many parts, and we started off at the Korean traditional garden, before going down to the mini zoo, resting at the cafe for a while, crossed the Dream bridge to the main flower garden where it’s separated to different exhibitions by countries.
I almost forgot something important. The taxi driver dropped us off at the South gate (I hope I remembered it correctly) because its supposed to be the starting point!
Greeeen.
Amelia tricking the Kois to pose for a picture.
Korean garden.
Am I the only one who in love with these customised drain covers?
Pretty flowers everywhere.
This is heaven.
Flamingos.
Cute fox!!
Oh and this reminded me how it was the MERS outbreak period so like there literally weren’t any visitors around even though it was supposed to be the peak period for school excursions. We totally enjoyed touring Suncheon like it was our personal garden haha. The staff even came to give us a spontaneous guide around.
Pretty wall with woodblocks drawn by kids.
Crossing the Dream bridge to the other side of the garden.
Even more pretty flowers.
So I was saying that this garden is enormous and honestly you can’t finish walking through every single exhibition in a day. We opted for the tram ride around the countries gardens (20minutes ride) because we were positive that we won’t finish walking through them. The Holland garden is the most famous one out of them all because no one can resist beautiful rows of tulips. But no closeup shots here since we went past fast riding on the tram.
Holland garden.
British Garden but it reminded me of the Hofsburg palace in Vienna for some reason.
Rose garden. It was the end of the rose season so the roses were wilthering already. Would love to go back during the rose festival.
My model for the trip. Please contact Amelia ameliability for photoshoots LOL
The famous spiral hill thingy that is used in every single promotional poster of Suncheonbay garden.
A really pretty pretty lovely place especially for those picture-lovers because everything was so picturesque. Surprisingly Suncheon was more travel-worthy than Yeosu for us and omg the gukbap. Definitely somewhere I would like to visit again.
Spent a total of about KRW150,000 including transportation to and fro Seoul and accomodation. The entrance fees were more than I expected? But food was really awesome. Hope you enjoyed the post as much as I enjoyed travelling there! Bye~~!
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