Namiseom Island

We took a day trip to Nami Island with Talia today.  I have wanted to go to Nami Island since we went to Petite France and Garden of the Morning Calm a year and half ago.  Nami is a half moon shaped small island that was formed as a result of the building g of the Cheongpyeong Dam.  The Island has the grave of General Nami who led a great victory in the 1400’s, which is where it got its name.

The original plan was for Kevin and a Talia to zipline onto the island and for me and the kids to take the 5 minute ferry to Nami. However, when Kevin went to buy the tickets for the zipline, he found out that there was a 3 hour wait, so we dropped that idea (and saved about $140) and we all took the ferry together.

The ferry was packed with people and took only a short 5 minute ride across the river to the small half moon shaped island.  The ferry had a bunch of flags from all over the world.  Nami is considered its own country and even has its own currency for purchase, if you so choose.  

After exiting the ferry, we leisurely walked through the island in search of the bike rental shop.  On our walk we passed cute sculptures and outdoor exhibits. One of the exhibits was to promote reading and huge book covers were lining the walkway.

We passed by a beautiful lotus garden sans the lotus since it was not the flowering season.  The pond was filed with huge lily pads with a bridge to cross right over the pond.  I can only imagine how crazy beautiful it would be if there were thousands of lotuses coming up throughout the pond.

The coolest part about the island is that there aren’t any telephone poles or anything to distract from the beautiful trees and natural feeling of the island.  They built all electrical underground to help maintain the peaceful beauty of the island.  There are so many rows of different variety of trees all around the island to include chestnut trees, cherry trees, white pine and more.

As we were walking around, Kevin saw a group of people all with the same breed of white dogs, and he was laughing and laughing about it.  He keeps saying that it must be the White Dog Support Group.  But seriously, there were so many of the same dog that it was beyond coincidence and was  just crazy, so naturally we told the kids to flash their blond hair and dimples and ask if we can get a picture.  This was only about 1/8 of the dogs that we saw in the group.

There were art exhibits all over the island, one was a sign that was welcoming us to Nami, and had countries from all over the world.  I was wearing my ‘I love Canada’ shirt and the sign on the welcome sign also said I love Canada, so we all jumped in and got a picture.

We found a large picnic bench and decided that since we only get bikes for rent for an hour, we should eat first so we don’t have to use some of the paid bike rental time to stop and eat.  There were grass fields and picnic benches all throughout Nami, so we found one of the bigger ones in the shade by the playground to enjoy our lunch.  We brought lunches with us for this very purpose, so we were excited to find a perfect spot.  The kids played in the playground and on a tree swing which was right by our picnic bench.  We chose the perfect day to come since the sky was a crazy beautiful blue, air quality was green and perfect and the weather was a perfect temperature of not too cold and not too hot.

We finished eating and playing then went and rented our bikes.  Kevin, Monster and I rented a family bike, while the other four had their own bikes.  It was perfect! The paths were all dirt paths and there weren’t too many crazy hills, with most of it being pretty flat.  We enjoyed spending the next hour going all the way to the very north of the island then making our way around the perimeter.

The quad bike that Kevin, Monster and I had was quite a work out.  The bike was heavy and of course, only Kevin and I were peddling while Monster enjoyed the ride.  There were definitely a few times that we were huffing and puffing while Monster. was just laughing and loving the ride.

As we rode all around the island we really enjoyed all the trees.  There were so many groves all over the island of as many trees out could think of.  It was so nice that we had bikes to take us all around, because there is absolutely no way the little feet of Monster and Little A would have made it very far around the island.  But since we had bikes we got to see all the tree groves.

There was a man made waterfall in the middle of the island that we got to see and enjoy. We also saw the river from the north side of the island.  We were able to park our bikes and take a little hike along a bridge to look out over the river.

We only had about 15 minutes left on our bike rentals, so we decided to take a ride all the way to the south side of the island.  The kids were still smiling and loving their bikes.  We were so proud of Little A because this was the longest and most rugged path she had ever ridden on up to this point.   She did such an amazing job on her bike and never complained. I bet having her amazing cousin with her helped a lot.

We reached the south side and were greeted by three huge piles of rocks and a picnic platform.  We rested on the platform and took some pictures with one of the piles of rocks. Everyone was pretty tired by this point and we had promised ice cream cones, and the kids wanted to cash in on our promise.  We rode back to the bike rental and returned our bikes.  The ice cream was next to the bike returns, so we enjoyed some shade and ice cream as we rested our legs.  We made our way back to the ferry.  It was such a nice day on Nami Island, I'm really glad we came.