Cheongdo | A Weekend of Eating & Hiking with Friends

On a rainy weekend this past summer, we met up with some of our Korean friends at a local coffee shop and made plans to rent a place in nearby Biesulsan. Over cups of overpriced coffee and chocolate-dusted tteok we envisioned a quaint log cabin, long walks beside the mountain, and plenty of galbi grilled up by Sly.

As luck would have it, all the wooden cabins were booked, our second lodging option – a condo in Mt. Biseul – didn’t allow charcoal grills, and it rained all weekend. We ended up staying in a pension on the other side of the mountain, in nearby Cheongdo.

In the short 45 minute or so drive to Cheongdo, the scenery changed dramatically from the city life we were used to. The roads wrapped around lakes, apple orchards, and old temples. Wispy clouds hovered persistently in between the mountaintops, creating a mysterious backdrop for the day’s activities.

It was still raining when we attempted to check into our pension a little bit early. Our room wasn’t ready (or so we were told) so we drove to the nearby coffee shop up on a hill overlooking the valley. Nestled in groves of old growth apple trees and decorated with a hodgepodge of seemingly unrelated items, the art and fashion cafe housed not only a coffee shop, but also a larger-than-expected inventory of clothing, ceramics, and odd statues.

creepy

Inside the shop, comprised of 4-5 very large, modern, concrete rooms, items ranging from designer patchwork clothing, to animal-inspired place settings, to $300 brass pigs, to saxophonist sculptures, crowded every inch of every corner. It almost felt as if whomever built the cafe came into a sum of money and blew it all on creating an art space/fun house/homage to patchwork fabric with all the bells and whistles s/he always dreamed of having as a kid.

To say the cafe was eccentric would be an understatement. We often found our eyes wandering, mid-conversation, to discover yet another unique item on display. One thing was for certain – it was definitely one-of-a-kind. Or so we hoped…

We ordered a couple Americanos, which came out in over-sized, half-filled mugs, settled into one of the patchwork decorated rooms, and caught up with our friends.

still creepy

After coffee, we drove back down the hill and checked into our pension.

Staying at a pension in the countryside with friends and/or family is a pretty common weekend activity in Korea. For city dwellers like us, it provides the opportunity to gather a large amount of people (or if you’re living with parents, a chance to get out of the house), cook up some good food (as our apartments don’t have indoor or outdoor grills, nor is there any place for a personal grill), enjoy the outdoors, and drink lots of makgeolli. In the States, people usually have friends or family over for a backyard bbq, but since most Korean homes in the city don’t have backyards, this is the next best thing.

Sly and I slept in the loft, on the world’s hardest floor

Once settled in, we shooed off the guy who ran the hotel for the millionth time and got right to cooking. Or I should say, we sent Sly outside to slave over the grill while we my friends washed and prepared veggies and fruit.

Indoor grilling of any kind, even on a butane grill, was prohibited, so we moved everything outside to one of the pension’s on-site grilling shelters.

The charcoal grill took an eternity to get hot enough to sear the galbi Sly had been marinating for several days. It didn’t help that by this time we were about to eat our own hands. It was worth the wait though. Those first few bites of hot, caramelized, slightly sweet meat made our eyes roll to the backs of our heads. From that point forward, conversations were kept to grunts of approval as our sole focus consisted of how much food we could stuff into our mouths. Suffice it to say, we ate (and drank) ourselves to the point of near exhaustion.

We leaned back into our red plastic chairs and determined that if we didn’t get up and get moving, we would remain trapped in that little shed, slowly eating ourselves to death. By this time, the rain had finally stopped, so we cleaned up our things and explored the paved trail/road near our pension.

The easy, uphill trail passed through groves of apples and persimmons fiercely guarded by chained dogs (poor dogs). We hiked along a stream bursting with flowers and wild pumpkins. A gray-blue mist settled once more over the landscape as we reached the top of the hill.

When we tried to cross the stream, we discovered the bridge had been washed out for who knows how long, the road abruptly ending in a steep drop off. There may have been other ways to cross the stream, but we didn’t give it much thought, it was as good a place as any to turn around.

 

The view from our return hike back to the pension was even more beautiful than at the beginning of our hike. It was just us on the trail, acting goofy and taking about a billion and one more photos.

We passed the strange art coffee shop once more on the way back down and contemplated getting another cup of coffee, but since we were in the area, and since neither Sly or I had ever visited Cheongdo, we decided instead to jump in the car and do a bit of sightseeing.

After visiting a few of Cheongo’s touristy spots, we picked up some tea and snacks from the only grocery store open in the nearby village, and drove back to our pension. There’s never a ton to do when you’re out in the Korean countryside, which, I think, is exactly the point. We could hear the other people staying at the pension drinking, talking/yelling, and laughing well into the morning. Meanwhile, in our tiny little room with a loft we played the board game, Life, followed by multiple rounds of the card game we call “VC.”

Despite Sly winning nearly every match, bets were made for things like who would make breakfast the next day, and who had to clean up the dishes. Luckily, I had the foresight to exit the game before any bets were placed or else I’m pretty sure I would have ended up doing all the chores.

 

Sly won, yet again, which meant the next morning our friends prepared us a lovely meal of fresh fruit, spicy soup with tuna, yogurt, and plenty of pots of hot herbal tea. It has taken me a while to get used to eating foods like soups and fish for breakfast — a typical morning menu here in Asia – but on this dreary, slightly chilly, fall morning, it felt like the perfect meal. Made all the better because we were sharing it with friends.

I often catch myself wondering what I will miss the most once we leave Korea, but I’m pretty sure I already know the answer. I am going to miss the mountains. No matter where we travel in Korea, the mountains are always waiting benevolently in the background, like an old, comforting blanket, ready to wrap itself around you the moment you escape the city. And of course I’ll miss the friends we have been lucky enough to make here.

At this particular instant in time, seated cross-legged around a low wooden table, I remember looking around at everyone laughing and eating and sharing silly stories, and my heart felt tugged once more by a feeling of pre-nostalgia. Simple moments like breakfast with these friends will be harder to come by once we leave Korea. But that is what makes these memories all the more special.

DETAILS

Fashion Cafe | COST: The cafe items are priced at about what you would expect from an art cafe. The items for sale, however, range from moderate to very expensive.   | DETAILS: I don’t know the actual name of this cafe, but I’m pretty sure it’s Fashion Cafe. If you’re staying at Sky Pension below (click here for map) then it’s basically the only other building on the same road, right across the way from the pension.

Sky Pension | COST: ~$60-$180/night. Extra ~$10-15 to rent a grill with charcoal | LOCATION: Near Biesulsan and about 30 minutes drive to Cheongdo wine tunnel. Click here for map. | DETAILS: This is one of those places where knowing a little bit of Korean would be helpful as the owners of the property speak very little (if any) English, and the guy who runs the place has about a million and one instructions. He would definitely fall into the category of helicopter proprietor as he was constantly hovering around us, explaining one rule or another in the peanut gallery. As for the rooms, they are very cozy, to say the least, and our room, which supposedly slept up to 6 people, felt like it would burst at the seams with us four. The sleeping areas were quite spacious (our place had one room with a tv and a loft over the kitchen) but the kitchen/living/dining space felt pretty tight. I always love a place with a good balcony, but the one attached to our room was so narrow that we couldn’t really do more than stand outside (underneath a massive hornet’s nest) and take photos. Like most Korean-style lodging, we slept on the floor. However, unlike most Korean-style hotels that we have stayed at, there were no futons, mats, or any sort of padding beyond a thin quilt laid atop a wooden floor. While we both prefer to sleep on firm to hard mattresses, sleeping on a floor without even the thinnest of mats was really uncomfortable. We didn’t sleep very well at all. There is an indoor kitchen, fridge, microwave, hot pot, rice cooker, utensils, etc, but if you plan on grilling any meat, that has to be done outside in one of their tented rooms. | VERDICT: I know it probably seems like I’m ragging on Sky Pension, but I actually think its location and view are quite beautiful, and its rooms are clean and well-equipped. If you decide to stay there I would recommend bringing a sleeping pad of some sort (unless you are ok with sleeping on the ground), and if it’s winter, maybe some extra blankets. As long as you know what to expect, this can be a good place for a group of friends or family to get away for the weekend.