smokehard

This past Friday was Liberation day in Korea. I decided to get out of Seoul for the day and went to Gangchon with Sooky and Karl for the day.

Gangchon is a laid-back tourist village a few kilometers west of Chuncheon. It’s best known as a popular destination for what Korean university students euphemistically call Membership Training, which more or less equates to a weekend away getting drunk, singing karaoke, and doing as little other physical activity as possible.

We arrived at Cheongnyangni train station in Seoul at around 10am to find that all the trains to Gangchon were booked; even the standing tickets. After a couple of minutes, a brilliant idea dawned on us. Korean trains are so laid back, we knew no one would be around to check tickets. We bought tickers for the 2pm train and simply got on the 11am train. Prepared to stand for the journey, we entered the second car and found a cozy spot to stand. As luck would have it, the people sitting in the chairs on either side of us had “extra” tickets, so we sat down for the entire journey. When we arrived at Gangchon, we were welcomed by a most cool thing. The entire train station had been bombed by graffiti artists. After a little looking around, we found out that the artists had had permisson to spray their work. We at some Dok-galbi for lunch, walked around for a couple of hours, and then headed back to Seoul at around 5pm. All-in-all a great day. Had I known we could rent dune buggies and ATV’s, I’d have taken a bit more money. I shall return!

Here are some pics. More can be found here.