We spent the day today in Sokcho with the Liddells. The forecast for the entire day called for rain, so we tried to find some indoor activities, the Sokcho Lighthouse fit the bill. When we arrived at the parking lot of the lighthouse, we noticed that we were only a few blocks from the Yeonggeumjeong. Yeonggeumjeong was on my list of things I wanted to see because it has an amazing view of the ocean. There are two pavilions here, the sunrise pavilion and the Observatory pavilion. Since it wasn't raining yet, we decided to go to the two pavilions and explore around them for a while.
The Sunrise pavilion is out a few hundred yards over the ocean. It was foggy this morning due to the impending rain, but it was still a beautiful site. The kids all enjoyed the view from the pavilion.
As we started walking up the stairs to the Observatory Pavilion, it started raining enough that we got our umbrellas out. We walked up to the pavilion and looked around for only a few minutes. The view was much better at the other pavilion, and it was beginning to rain more.
As we were coming down the stairs from the pavilion, we noticed a fish market around the corner. Addrean really wanted to get some lobster, so we ventured over to the fish market. The kids had fun seeing the different fish. Since the market was near the water, boats were coming and going and loads of fish were constantly being brought into glass containers. It was fun watching them as they sorted the different fish.
The prices at the fish markets were not as good as we would have expected, so we decided to make our way back to the Sokcho Lighthouse.
On our walk back to the Lighthouse, we noticed a trail that lead down to the rocks and the crashing waves. A few of the kids really wanted to walk around on the rocks, so we took a detour. The sky was holding it's rain presently, so we were able to enjoy the rocky shore without getting wet. Monster and Little A were so distracted by the waves that would come up onto the rocks, that it took us forever to get a picture on the rocks.
We made it to the Lighthouse Observatory next. Before we got to the main entrance, we were able to see all the neat structures outside. There were some really neat statues and structures.
My favorite structure was the Health Gate. At first I didn't understand why Kevin was sticking out his stomach. He told me to step back and look at the spacing of the poles. Sure enough, each pole progressively gets further apart, and above the space it tells the distance and whether or not you are healthy. We had a fun time finding where we were in the Health Gate.
We finally went inside the lighthouse and went to the top platform. The kids enjoyed the view of Sokcho from the lighthouse. We could see far across the ocean and the entire city.
We were all hungry so we decided to eat our snacks with the best view. There weren't any other people around, I'm not sure if it was the rain or school, but there weren't many Koreans in site.
We left the lighthouse in search of the Love Tree. I read a blog that talked about this metal love tree that looked out over the ocean. The tree took part in an internationally famous Korean movie, "Autumn in my Heart". After doing some research online, we drove right up to the beach where the tree is, and found a parking spot super close.
After getting my fill of love, we decided to spend the rest of our time at the Sokcho Haesuyokjang Beach, where the tree is located.
It was lunch time, so we grabbed all our lunch stuff and had a picnic at the beach. The kids all ran off to the water to run in the waves. We enjoyed eating with the Liddells and watching the kids as they tried to jump over the waves and bury their feet in the sand. We weren't expecting to spend time at the beach, so the kids were all in regular clothes. By the time we were ready to go, all the kids were drenched from head to toe, but they sure had a fun time. We used the side of the car, open doors and towels and made a make-shift changing room. All the kids changed into dry clothes, we used baby powder to get the sand off, then headed home. It was so fun spending the day in Sokcho with our friends, the Liddells!
No comments:
Post a Comment