Some experiences are more difficult to explain/describe than others. This seems especially true the further away (in time and space) I get from home and thus common ground with those for whom I am writing. This was one of those experiences. But perhaps those reading will understand more than I realise. Here is the story of Cheongpung.
Jecheon is a town in the middle of nowhere. My guidebook doesn’t even mention it, although it appears on the map so that you can see that it’s in the far right corner of Chungcheongbuk-do (ChungCheong province, north), which puts it somewhere near the middle of the country. It’s so far off the beaten track that only the very slow ‘commuter’ (Mughangwa) train goes there. The train does actually stop there, which is an improvement on some of the smaller farming settlements nearby.
Cheongpung is 30 minutes outside Jecheon. To get there, you take the Saemaul or KTX train to Daejeon (1-2 hours) and then change to the slow train to Jecheon. A couple of hours later, you walk out of the station onto a dusty street-side area, complete with deserted roads and faded buildings. It is technically a city (140 000 people), but in Korean terms – where people cluster in huge numbers (like termites) – it’s virtually a small town. There are no signs in English and no flashy new information offices. You know you’ve left the beaten track. To get to Cheongpung, you take a bus or a taxi. The buses are cheaper but there is absolutely no English so you may end up rather a long way in the wrong direction.
Of course, the taxi drivers don’t speak much English, either, so you’re likely to find yourself sitting in the taxi with a nagging premonition of being lost, anyway. If you’ve gone to Jecheon/Cheongpung for the spring flowers, you’ll also be watching in anticipation, hoping all the time that they’ll appear soon. If you’d followed the information on various usually reliable internet resources this year, and gone last weekend, as we did, you’d be disappointed.
There were no cherry blossoms. As our taxi drove on and on, we watched, in dismay, the bare branches of the hillside trees. All that travelling, all that waiting, to see flowers that weren’t there. And it didn’t even begin there. My morning had started with sneezing, my cold feeling nastier than ever, rushing to the station and discovering that all the tickets for the next three trains were sold out, leaving me twiddling my thumbs at Dongdaegu station while my travel companion cooled her heels in Daejeon. There are only four trains from Daejeon to Jecheon each day. The train I finally found to Daejeon (buying first class because it was the only option) was due to arrive 15 minutes before the train to Jecheon left. Cutting it fine but the only option. The train was 5 minutes late. Luckily my travel companion had bought tickets. I ran from one platform (up one set of stairs and down another) to the other and only just made it. And then the uninspiring Jecheon station. And then the taxi driver and the fear of being lost. And then no cherry blossoms.
The weekend could have been a total disappointment. It almost should have been a total disappointment. Instead, it turned out to be a lovely couple of days in a place I would quite happily have stayed.
The taxi trip took about 30 minutes, giving us ample time to enjoy the spectacular views of the lake from the winding roads (in between worrying about being lost). We were headed for Cheongpung Resort, the only hotel we’d been able to find on-line that was definitely in this area – as opposed to being in Jecheon itself. It was more expensive than most accommodation but we wanted to be sure we’d see the cherry blossoms. This turned out not to be an issue, of course, but the choice was a good one nonetheless. It turned out the driver knew exactly where we were going. As we got near to the hotel, he asked if we were booked at the ‘hills’ or the ‘lake’ hotel. We said ‘lake’, figuring we could go to the other one if we needed to. He drove up to a huge hotel overlooking the blue-green water and dropped us off. In the 9 months I’ve been in Korea, I’ve seen plenty of love-motels, a few backpackers, a ‘youth hostel’ on a ski resort and some ‘tourist hotels’ (which tend to be expensive and particularly ugly). I haven’t seen a ‘normal’-looking hotel for a while. We walked in through the main door and went to a professional-looking reception desk. They confirmed our reservation, polite and friendly (if not all that fluent in English) and handed us our key to our room on the 8th floor.
Every room in the hotel faces the lake. From our 8th floor balcony, we looked out across the beautiful expanse of water towards perfect mountain peaks. All around, the lake stretched away to mountains in the distance, finger-spreading into valleys. To the left, on the same side of the lake as us, we could see a huge crane-like structure which turned out to be a bungee platform. To the right, small jetties stretched into the water. On that afternoon, mist and low cloud rested on the mountains, giving the whole place a mysterious, storybook quality. A fountain came to life spraying high into the air. It is one of the highest fountains in the Asia, reaching 162m.
Our room was great. A real, proper hotel room. With a bath. I don’t think people who have never lived in Korea (and possibly other Eastern countries) truly understand how glorious baths are. On Sunday morning I had a bath which was, absolutely seriously, the first bath I’ve taken since I arrived in Korea. It was wonderfully luxurious. So, so good.
For now, though, we went down to the hotel restaurant. In the midst of late trains and worrying about getting to the hotel, we hadn’t had lunch yet. We sat at a table against the huge windows looking out at the lake, and drank beer and ate steak and duck and revelled in the view and felt like real grown-ups.
After lunch we went walking. We spent the rest of the afternoon and early evening wandering along the roads and paths around our hotel area, taking in everything, returning each time we turned a corner, to the stunning views of the lake. We saw so many things. At one point we tried to stop at a wonderfully quirky and cute wooden restaurant/bar but they didn’t want to serve us outside, so we moved on. We stopped on a gravel road looking across a dusty field in winter colours and with rusting soccer posts towards our hotel. The other hotel (‘hills’ not ‘lake’) stood white against dark, craggy mountains soaring towards the sky. We walked along a wooden board-walk down and up the side of a mountain, climbing steps and strolling along wooden walks, all the time watching the different-coloured lights on either side of the path. We stopped to look a huge climbing wall and the night-time lit up, multi-coloured bungee platform. We watched colour-changing lights reflecting off pine trees. Back at our hotel, we watched the evening go by with a cold beer and good conversation. From what looked like a tiny performance stage near the bottom of the bungee platform, out a little into the lake, drifted Korean music throughout the evening, music that was aptly dubbed by my travel-mate, Anna, the Korean Neil Diamond. It wasn’t unpleasant and it added a uniquely Korean feel to the evening. Anna thought the place looked a little like Guilin (in China) “but the Korean Neil Diamond version”.
By the time we decided we were hungry (after our late lunch), the restaurants had closed, so we got a take-away pizza from the bar and ate it upstairs, more than happy to combine reasonably good pizza with an awesome night view. The pizza was ‘combination pizza’, which, it turned out, meant whatever was left over, ranging from ham and plenty of cheese to shrimps that kept surprising us. By midnight we were crawling into hotel beds complete with crisp, white sheets and down duvets.
Sunday morning breakfast was a hotel breakfast buffet. Between 2003 and 2008, I spent an awful lot of time in hotels. The hotel buffet breakfast is something that is familiar and a little bit comforting (as odd as that may seem). This buffet didn’t disappoint. It had all the usual standard options: cereal and milk, muffins, croissants, pastries (all of which were miniature), watermelon and fruit salad and hot breakfast. Of course there were differences. Most breakfast buffets I’ve experienced don’t include rice, kimchi, bulgogi, seaweed and rice porridge. Anna decided to try them out. I stuck with the traditional. I even had bacon, sausage and chips. All finished off with coffee and tea. It wasn’t a cheap breakfast but it was so good that it was worth it. In fact, that was pretty much true of the whole weekend.
After breakfast we went to the reception desk and asked when the ferry rides started and where we should go. Here we ran into a problem (exacerbated by the lack of a common language between the desk staff and ourselves). It turned out the ferry departure point as not within walking distance. “Well, can we call a taxi?” we asked. Apparently not. Since we’d arrived, the idea of a ferry on the lake had wormed its way into our plans. I had my heart completely set on it. But what could we do. Just as we were deciding whether we should set off walking anyway, even if it took us hours and hours, the hotel staff graciously offered to drive us there. Thrilled, we threw our stuff into bags, checked out, and rushed out to the hotel mini-bus.
We were early for the next ferry departure. We bought our tickets and wandered around looking at the curios until the overwhelming smell of bondeagi drove us outside to enjoy the water and the view of the bridge. The weather was overcast but the clouds were high and there was plenty of light.
The ferry arrived and everyone rushed inside to get a seat. We were very happy (if bemused) to let them rush indoors and found ourselves a spot near the back from where we could watch the stunning scenery with the wind in our faces and the splash of the water below us. Boats are another wonderful way to see the world. The scenery we passed was stunning. Above the water-line, all around the lake, there are layers of exposed rock in various colours, starkly clear and exposed between the start of the trees and the water. In some places, similar rock was visible in huge, strange formations higher up the hills. Sometimes the rocky cliffs reach the water. The waves from our boat splashed against the rock.
We travelled between high mountains and hills and passed small villages and roads twisting along hillsides. We passed under bridges and commented on traditional buildings. At the end of the ferry trip, we walked up to the top of the hill and looked out across the blue-green lake at the hillsides and mountains. We were at the start of some of the trails in Woraksan National Park but there was no time for hiking. Before we knew it, it was time to get back to the ferry and return to our starting point. The ride back was even prettier than the trip there because the sun came out and sparkled on the water. We stood at the back of the boat, enjoying the water and sunshine. It seemed an appropriate moment to open a beer. An older man sidled up to us and offered us some rather disgusting chips. We accepted them. In Korea the act of ‘offering’ can sometimes be rather forceful. Just then, after looking around to make sure no-one else was watching, he surreptitiously opened his coat to show us a bottle of soju tucked in his pocket. We declined as politely as we could in our limited Korean. In a last ditch attempt to persuade us, he whipped out a cucumber and offered it to us triumphantly. He eventually found someone else to share his drink and they sat tossing back soju shots from paper cups as the boat sped on.
The hotel staff really went above and beyond for us and when they dropped us off had given us a number to call so that they could fetch us. They even refused payment and then organised for us to go back to town with the hotel’s shuttle bus. Our experience of the hotel was definitely one of the most positive I’ve had at any place in Korea and I’d recommend Cheongpung Resort (Lake Hotel) to anyone. Plus the setting is just exquisite: blue water, sweeping hills, pretty fountains and the ferry. The kind of place you may only see once but you know that looking back you’ll always – even just a little – wish you could return.
Some experiences are more difficult to explain/describe than others. This seems especially true the further away (in time and space) I get from home and thus common ground with those for whom I am writing. This was one of those experiences. But perhaps those reading will understand more than I realise. Here is the story of Cheongpung.
Jecheon is a town in the middle of nowhere. My guidebook doesn’t even mention it, although it appears on the map so that you can see that it’s in the far right corner of Chungcheongbuk-do (ChungCheong province, north), which puts it somewhere near the middle of the country. It’s so far off the beaten track that only the very slow ‘commuter’ (Mughangwa) train goes there. The train does actually stop there, which is an improvement on some of the smaller farming settlements nearby.
Cheongpung is 30 minutes outside Jecheon. To get there, you take the Saemaul or KTX train to Daejeon (1-2 hours) and then change to the slow train to Jecheon. A couple of hours later, you walk out of the station onto a dusty street-side area, complete with deserted roads and faded buildings. It is technically a city (140 000 people), but in Korean terms – where people cluster in huge numbers (like termites) – it’s virtually a small town. There are no signs in English and no flashy new information offices. You know you’ve left the beaten track. To get to Cheongpung, you take a bus or a taxi. The buses are cheaper but there is absolutely no English so you may end up rather a long way in the wrong direction.
Of course, the taxi drivers don’t speak much English, either, so you’re likely to find yourself sitting in the taxi with a nagging premonition of being lost, anyway. If you’ve gone to Jecheon/Cheongpung for the spring flowers, you’ll also be watching in anticipation, hoping all the time that they’ll appear soon. If you’d followed the information on various usually reliable internet resources this year, and gone last weekend, as we did, you’d be disappointed.
There were no cherry blossoms. As our taxi drove on and on, we watched, in dismay, the bare branches of the hillside trees. All that travelling, all that waiting, to see flowers that weren’t there. And it didn’t even begin there. My morning had started with sneezing, my cold feeling nastier than ever, rushing to the station and discovering that all the tickets for the next three trains were sold out, leaving me twiddling my thumbs at Dongdaegu station while my travel companion cooled her heels in Daejeon. There are only four trains from Daejeon to Jecheon each day. The train I finally found to Daejeon (buying first class because it was the only option) was due to arrive 15 minutes before the train to Jecheon left. Cutting it fine but the only option. The train was 5 minutes late. Luckily my travel companion had bought tickets. I ran from one platform (up one set of stairs and down another) to the other and only just made it. And then the uninspiring Jecheon station. And then the taxi driver and the fear of being lost. And then no cherry blossoms.
The weekend could have been a total disappointment. It almost should have been a total disappointment. Instead, it turned out to be a lovely couple of days in a place I would quite happily have stayed.
The taxi trip took about 30 minutes, giving us ample time to enjoy the spectacular views of the lake from the winding roads (in between worrying about being lost). We were headed for Cheongpung Resort, the only hotel we’d been able to find on-line that was definitely in this area – as opposed to being in Jecheon itself. It was more expensive than most accommodation but we wanted to be sure we’d see the cherry blossoms. This turned out not to be an issue, of course, but the choice was a good one nonetheless. It turned out the driver knew exactly where we were going. As we got near to the hotel, he asked if we were booked at the ‘hills’ or the ‘lake’ hotel. We said ‘lake’, figuring we could go to the other one if we needed to. He drove up to a huge hotel overlooking the blue-green water and dropped us off. In the 9 months I’ve been in Korea, I’ve seen plenty of love-motels, a few backpackers, a ‘youth hostel’ on a ski resort and some ‘tourist hotels’ (which tend to be expensive and particularly ugly). I haven’t seen a ‘normal’-looking hotel for a while. We walked in through the main door and went to a professional-looking reception desk. They confirmed our reservation, polite and friendly (if not all that fluent in English) and handed us our key to our room on the 8th floor.
Every room in the hotel faces the lake. From our 8th floor balcony, we looked out across the beautiful expanse of water towards perfect mountain peaks. All around, the lake stretched away to mountains in the distance, finger-spreading into valleys. To the left, on the same side of the lake as us, we could see a huge crane-like structure which turned out to be a bungee platform. To the right, small jetties stretched into the water. On that afternoon, mist and low cloud rested on the mountains, giving the whole place a mysterious, storybook quality. A fountain came to life spraying high into the air. It is one of the highest fountains in the Asia, reaching 162m.
Our room was great. A real, proper hotel room. With a bath. I don’t think people who have never lived in Korea (and possibly other Eastern countries) truly understand how glorious baths are. On Sunday morning I had a bath which was, absolutely seriously, the first bath I’ve taken since I arrived in Korea. It was wonderfully luxurious. So, so good.
For now, though, we went down to the hotel restaurant. In the midst of late trains and worrying about getting to the hotel, we hadn’t had lunch yet. We sat at a table against the huge windows looking out at the lake, and drank beer and ate steak and duck and revelled in the view and the sense of being real grown-ups.
After lunch we went walking. We spent the rest of the afternoon and early evening wandering along the roads and paths around our hotel area, taking in everything, returning each time we turned a corner, to the stunning views of the lake. We saw so many things. At one point we tried to stop at a wonderfully quirky and cute wooden restaurant/bar but they didn’t want to serve us outside, so we moved on. We stopped on a gravel road looking across a dusty field in winter colours and with rusting soccer posts towards our hotel. The other hotel (‘hills’ not ‘lake’) stood white against dark, craggy mountains soaring towards the sky. We walked along a wooden board-walk down and up the side of a mountain, climbing steps and strolling along wooden walks, all the time watching the different-coloured lights on either side of the path. We stopped to look a huge climbing wall and the night-time lit up, multi-coloured bungee platform. We watched colour-changing lights reflecting off pine trees. Back at our hotel, we watched the evening go by with a cold beer and good conversation. From what looked like a tiny performance stage near the bottom of the bungee platform, out a little into the lake, drifted Korean music throughout the evening, music that was aptly dubbed by my travel-mate, Anna, the Korean Neil Diamond. It wasn’t unpleasant and it added a uniquely Korean feel to the evening. Anna thought the place looked a little like Guilin (in China) “but the Korean Neil Diamond version”.
By the time we decided we were hungry, the restaurants had closed, so we got a take-away pizza from the bar and ate it upstairs, more than happy to combine reasonably good pizza with an awesome night view. The pizza was ‘combination pizza’, which, it turned out, meant whatever was left over, ranging from ham and plenty of cheese to shrimps that kept surprising us. By midnight we were crawling into hotel beds complete with crisp, white sheets and down duvets.
Sunday morning breakfast was a hotel breakfast buffet. Between 2003 and 2008, I spent an awful lot of time in hotels. The hotel buffet breakfast is something that is familiar and a little bit comforting (as odd as that may seem). This buffet didn’t disappoint. It had all the usual standard options: cereal and milk, muffins, croissants, pastries (all of which were miniature), watermelon and fruit salad and hot breakfast. Of course there were differences. Most breakfast buffets I’ve experienced don’t include rice, kimchi, bulgogi, seaweed and rice porridge. Anna decided to try them out. I stuck with the traditional. I even had bacon, sausage and chips. All finished off with coffee and tea. It wasn’t a cheap breakfast but it was so good that it was worth it. In fact, that was pretty much true of the whole weekend.
After breakfast we went to the reception desk and asked when the ferry rides started and where we should go. Here we ran into a problem (exacerbated by the lack of a common language between the desk staff and ourselves). It turned out the ferry departure point as not within walking distance. “Well, can we call a taxi?” we asked. Apparently not. Since we’d arrived, the idea of a ferry on the lake had wormed its way into our plans. I had my heart completely set on it. But what could we do. Just as we were deciding whether we should set off walking anyway, even if it took us hours and hours, the hotel staff graciously offered to drive us there. Thrilled, we threw our stuff into bags, checked out, and rushed out to the hotel mini-bus.
We were early for the next ferry departure. We bought our tickets and wandered around looking at the curios until the overwhelming smell of bondeagi drove us outside to enjoy the water and the view of the bridge. The weather was overcast but the clouds were high and there was plenty of light. The ferry arrived and everyone rushed inside to get a seat. We were very happy (if bemused) to let them rush indoors and found ourselves a spot near the back from where we could watch the stunning scenery with the wind in our faces and the splash of the water below us. Boats are a wonderful way to see the world. The scenery we passed was stunning. Above the water-line, all around the lake, there are layers of exposed rock in various colours, starkly clear and exposed between the start of the trees and the water. In some places, similar rock was visible in huge, strange formations higher up the hills. Sometimes the rocky cliffs reach the water. The waves from our boat splashed against the rock.
We travelled between high mountains and hills and passed small villages and roads twisting along hillsides. We passed under bridges and commented on traditional buildings. At the end of the ferry trip, we walked up to the top of the hill and looked out across the blue-green lake at the hillsides and mountains. We were at the start of some of the trails in the Woraksan National Park but there was no time for hiking. Before we knew it, it was time to get back to the ferry and return to our starting point. The ride back was even prettier than the trip there because the sun came out and sparkled on the water. We stood at the back of the boat, enjoying the water and sunshine. It seemed an appropriate moment to open a beer. An older man sidled up to us and offered us some rather disgusting chips and then surreptitiously opened his coat to show us a bottle of soju tucked in his pocket. We declined as politely as we could with limited Korean. In a last ditch attempt to persuade us, he whipped out a cucumber and offered it to us triumphantly. We declined again and tried not to burst out laughing at the sheer oddness of the situation. He eventually found someone else to share his drink and they sat tossing back soju shots from paper cups as the boat sped on.
The hotel staff really went above and beyond for us and when they dropped us off had given us a number to call so that they could fetch us. They even refused payment and then organised for us to go back to town with the hotel’s shuttle bus. Our experience of the hotel was definitely one of the most positive I’ve had at any place in Korea and I’d recommend Cheongpung Resort (Lake Hotel) to anyone. Plus the setting is just exquisite: blue water, sweeping hills, pretty fountains and the ferry. The kind of place you may only see once but you know that looking back you’ll always – even just a little – wish you could return. .