Travelogues - Nami Island, Sokcho - ALL ABOUT KOREA

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Travelogues (6) : Nami Island, Sokcho

We were quite excited to take the Zipline across to the island but we were feeling hungry, so we stopped to grab a bite first. Chuncheon is famous for their Chuncheong Dak Galbi (춘천 닭갈비) we just chose the one nearest to the Zipline. The BBQ chicken is served on a large hot plate with several ingredients then you slowly mix them until they turn orange. We were quite full from the chicken and we couldn’t order the rice where they mix with your leftovers to become fried rice (what a shame...).

We then headed to the ticketing counter to purchase Zipline tickets. Because of crowd control measures, they sold the tickets in time intervals. We only managed to book our tickets for the 4:30pm slot. Ah… We should have bought our tickets before having our lunch, now we needed to wait 40 minutes more. So, we hung around the area, taking photos.

Finally, it was our turn! Honestly speaking, I am a little acrophobic (fear of heights), but my friend really wanted to try so I told myself “This would be a once in a life time experience; I might not be brave enough to do this again.” We were all the way on the top, taking turns to ride the Zipline (a few people were allowed for each time slot).

Suddenly, I found myself strapped to the harness at the gate, ready to take off. 3, 2, 1! The gate swinged opened and I was Ziplining to Nami Island. The experience was less scary as expected as it did not have the feeling of free falling which I hated; I actually had an amazing overview of Nami Island and another smaller island, Jarasom (자라섬) while I whizzed by. While I was being strapped to the harness, I was told by the staff to maintain a certain position while I Ziplined. I tried to secretly record the Zipline via camera, when I checked the video, I realised I only managed to record the last 10 seconds! My bird’s eye view ended after a total of less than 2 minutes.

When we reached Nami Island, we had less than an hour before it’s totally dark. We also couldn’t leave the island too late as we needed to catch the Intercity bus to Sokcho. As it was too dark for me to photograph (it was that dark to the eye, but my camera does not work well in low light), we simply took a tour around the island. We didn’t have the chance to ride the bicycle too. The sun has set so we took the complimentary ferry back. We then saw the bus that we were supposed to take to Nami Island and we took it back to the train station.

We quickly head back to eMart to collect our luggage and head to the Intercity Bus Terminus which was just next to eMart as we haven’t bought our tickets to Sokcho yet. Luckily the next bus to Sokcho was within the next hour so we didn’t have to wait too long. As we might reach the guesthouse that I booked in Sokcho late, I contacted the host and asked he could pick us up the the Sokcho bus terminus and he gladly said that he will pick us up. It was a long ride there (about 3 hours) in the pitch dark, similar to when travelling to Malaysia on those big luxury buses. Korean Intercity buses were so comfortable too that we slept all the way.

The host hasn’t reached when we arrived so we waited for him a little. The guesthouse that I booked was a villa-styled guesthouse that was near Soraksan (설악산) which we planned to go early next morning. However, while the host was driving us, I noticed we were further and further from the city and entering the ‘darkness’; there wasn't any street lamps en route to the guesthouse. If the host hadn’t fetched us, I don’t think that we would have found our way. After 30 minutes of a bumpy ride, we finally reached the villa that looked like the Booking.com pictures but it was pitched dark. Before we went to bed, the host offered to take us to Soraksan and the rest of Sokcho the next day for a small fee; me and my friend agreed to him as we didn’t book any Soraksan tour. He then said we needed to leave at 6am sharp as there were going to be a lot of people even for a weekday. I did not believe that at first but I was about to be.

Writer : Wei Wei

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