Off to Gapyeong. (p.2)

Gapyeong is a small county in Gyeonggi province that is located right in the middle of the Korean peninsula. It's easily accessible by train, and has everything from beautiful mountains, to lush forest, rivers, lakes, and valleys so there's always a huge traffic of tourists coming every single day. Chris is quite familiar with Gapyeong cause we already visited the place multiple times before. The most significant tourist destination there would be Nami Island. My mom is a huge fan of the drama Winter Sonata that made the place famous, so I bought her the "Polaris" necklace during my first visit there. We didn't visit Nami this time, but as we were driving, we saw the small island from afar.



Gapyeong is also known for their specialty Dalk Galbi (which probably originated there), so we didn't wanna miss the opportunity to try it while we're there.. Chris chose this beautiful restaurant by the river. He specially requested to use the tables outside so we could have a better view of the Bukhan River. It was surprisingly warm at that time.. It felt more like summer than spring, and I even saw people wearing T-shirts and shorts.



After lunch, we got back on the road again and Chris saw an arrow pointing towards the "Fantastic Driving Course" written in Korean. Chris got curious of the place so we drove towards that direction, eagerly anticipating the fantastic view about to unfold. We then reached a huge parking lot where a person asked us to park our car cause we're about to enter the "Fantastic Driving Course". Chris couldn't help but ask why did they call it a driving course in the first place if cars can't pass through. The guy gave some lame excuse about the new rules and regulation, and Chris didn't want to argue anymore so we decided to climb on foot. We heard there's a huge lake on top of the mountain, and that's all we could think of while we were climbing. It was so hot at that time and I sweated profusely. After 50 minutes of climbing seeing nothing but trees (no fantastic view or anything), we heard a bus approaching... We took the bus to go to the top, and a very disappointing view of a reservoir greeted us. We just spent a minute there and took the same bus to go down. As soon as we got back in the car, I turned the airconditioner on in full blast. It was later mentioned in the news that it was the warmest day in March for the last 100 years. When we got back on the road again, we passed by several viewing points where we stopped and took pictures..







Our next destination was this beautiful valley... The flowing water in the stream was cold but very refreshing. I forgot how tired I was from climbing when I saw the stream. I saw several people there going in, and getting their clothes wet in waist-deep water. There's a government warning posted, discouraging people not to swim cause the water can get very deep during summer, and several people already died. But since we're still in the early part of spring, the deepest part is just waist-deep. I wanted to relax so I chose a more secluded spot for us.. There were plenty of huge rocks there so we sat comfortably while watching the water flow... The water is very clean and you could clearly see the rocky bottom. Here's Chris looking like a young boy from afar. He didn't know I took a picture of him..^^







On our way back, Chris saw this banner which translates as "Philippine Style Houses" in English.. The word 피 리 핀 would always spark interest and curiosity in us, so we stopped to take a better look of the place. There were rows of "kubo" or nipa huts that strongly resemble the ones back home. Chris thinks the owner stayed in the Philippines for a long time. But I think the owner is purely Filipino. We debated on this topic while we're walking around the area...



Then I saw this tricycle. For a second, I thought I was magically transported back to the Philippines... I can't believe how the "kubo" and "tricycle" got here in Korea. In my head, there's no doubt that the owner is a Filipino (and a damn proud one!), possibly married to a Korean. I called Chris from afar and I laughed when I saw the look on his face when he recognized what it was... and later he said "There might be a jeepney somewhere!". I laughed even harder after that. Chris is utterly familiar with the tricycle back in the Philippines. He strongly complained about their noise, and how tricycle drivers can sometimes be shirtless ^^.



If we hadn't made a reservation to a different place, we would've stayed in that pension. The sky grew dark soon after that, so we drove straight to the river-side pension where we planned to spend the night.



I wanted to spend more time outside the pension, but it started to rain so we didn't have choice but to stay indoors. The rain didn't stop until the next day. It was mildly drizzling and the sky was still dark when we drove back home.