Sokcho Trip: Wrap-Up

We ended this series about our Sokcho trip and still had quite a few pictures left to add. So we decided to make a wrap-up post and tell you about our wonderful accommodations while on the East Coast. We found The House Hostel in our Lonely Planet guidebook and we would definitely recommend it to anyone staying in Sokcho. The Korean couple who own the hostel are extremely kind, helpful, and accommodating. The minute we walked in the door, the man sat us down at the coffee table in the lobby and unfolded an English Sokcho tourist map, then gave us a 15-minute rundown of all the interesting things to do around the town, complete with bus numbers to get to all the main tourist attractions. In addition to free breakfast every morning, we also had free access to the hostel's assortment of bikes (the guidebook had said we'd have to rent them so the free bikes were a nice surprise). All in all, buying the Lonely Planet guidebook was totally worth it just for that one piece of advice it provided!

This is what the hostel looked like when we first got there

Outside during the day

They had some pretty fancy-looking doors, till we learned it was just a film put on

Hall phone

Our breakfast nook

The resident hostel dog, Gulumi (Goo-loo-mee)

The terrace and Gulumi's lair

Enjoying the quiet

The kitchen where we got free breakfast

Interesting strawberry jam packets (see video below for how they work if you can't figure it out by the diagram)

Quite the quirky quarters

Unfortunately we weren't able to stay at that great hostel every night: Saturday night they were already booked, so we had to relocate for that one night to a nearby motel - which was not quite as nice... Not tons worse but somewhat, plus it was more expensive. Needless to say we were happy to be able to return to the hostel for the last two nights!

We felt so secure...

Tired after a long day of hiking

My flip flops after being stuffed in a side pocket of my backpack for two days - luckily they're moldable
 so they straightened out after wearing them for a few minutes 

Ali took some nice pictures of flowers

Finally, a few photos from an impromptu photoshoot the first night on break, of Ali's brand new haircut! :)

So pretty :)

Glamour shot!

Through the looking glass - or bathroom door window, in this case...

For pictures and commentary about our other days in Sokcho, click the links below.

Day 1: Seoraksan National Park

Day 2: Naksan Beach

Day 3: Biking around Sokcho

Day 4: Sunrise & foot tour

Sokcho Trip - Day 4: Sunrise and foot tour

Our final day of term break arrived on Tuesday, May 1. Our stop at the Yeonggeumjeong Sunrise Pavilion the day before had inspired us to actually wake up early and watch the sunrise from the pavilion. So Jonathan set an alarm for 5 a.m. and we rolled out of bed and snuck out of the hostel, grabbed two bikes, and arrived at the pavilion right at 5:30. A few people were already waiting in the pavilion and more gathered over the next few minutes as the sky brightened. Watching the sun rise over the East Sea was beautiful and we took a myriad of pictures (which were extremely hard to pick the bests from). After the sun was well up in the sky, we biked back to the hostel for a bit more sleep. Later in the morning we had a relaxed breakfast at our hostel (which provided a simple breakfast every morning!) before packing up our backpack and vacating our room. (Stay tuned for a final post about this trip where we let you in on a cool secret about Sokcho's accommodations.)

After our leisurely breakfast, we left our backpack in the back hallway with other travelers' gear while we left for a tour of the town on foot. We had thought we had seen most of the interesting things in Sokcho the day before on our bike exploration. Well, it turns out there was still quite a lot of fascinating things toward the south part of town. On our two-hour walk we: took a short cable-ferry, walked over a large bridge (Jonathan got mildly hit on the behind by a stick-wielding drunk elderly Korean man as we crossed over), wandered around the fishing boat area, explored a nice park that ran along the south side of the salt-water lake, found a very tall rope swing which we enjoyed using (and also had fun watching a young child and some adorable elderly Korean ladies try out), spotted some pretty birds in a second park that seemed to be a sort of bird sanctuary, and finally ended up back on the main streets we recognized again. After snapping a few pictures of the statues we'd seen throughout our stay, we headed back to the hostel, grabbed our backpack, and walked to the nearby intercity bus terminal to catch the three-hour bus back to Seoul. I, for one, was definitely sad to see this break end...

The sun just edging up over the horizon

Sokcho in the morning

The cable ferry

Exploring the ports

Walking around the saltwater lake, we found a huge swing

I don't know...

Twisting

I commandeered a ship

The odd tower we saw several times in Sokcho

This was a boat-shaped movie theater as well as a few other things

Saw some herons

Or is it an egret?

Unfinished

We've added in a couple of statues we took other times that didn't fit in the other blogposts

Fishermen

For pictures and commentary about our other days in Sokcho, click the links below.
Day 1: Seoraksan National Park
Day 2: Naksan Beach
Day 3: Biking around Sokcho
Wrap-Up: Extras