After leaving Gangneung, I decided to move up north to Sokcho. As the weather wasn’t bad, I went out and walked around the city, to see what I can find in there. My first stop was the Abai Village, and in order to get there I took gaetbae boat, which wasn’t the experience I was hoping it would be. It might have been because there were only two other passengers on the boat, but the driver did all the work on his own, and seemed to not want any help.
A couple of minutes later we got off the boat, and I was free to walk around and explore. This village may have been founded by refugees from North Korea during the war, but now it seems to be more of a tourist center with quite a few restaurants and coffee shops. It might have been impressive, and more crowded, in the evening, but as I went there in the morning there wasn’t much that held my interest, so after a quick look around I left the area, this time walking along the bridge rather than taking the boat again.
From there I made my way toward Yeonggeumjeong, where I could have a nice view of the ocean and the port. There were two pavilions in there, the Sunrise Pavilion and the Observatory Pavilion. First, I went to the Sunrise Pavilion, as it was the lower one that went out further into the sea. Despite not being there at sunrise, the view was quite nice. The sound of the waves crashing onto the rocks was pretty loud and drowned out the city noises. The only thing I could hear was the people next to me who were yelling excitedly.
I stayed there and listened to the waves for a while, and then turned back, walked up a few stairs, and was at the Observatory Pavilion. As the name suggests, this place provided a better view of the area, both the sea and the city. The view was nice and the height difference made me feel a bit more isolated than the lower pavilion, despite being pretty much in the middle of the city.
Hoping to get an even better view of the city, and as it wasn’t far from the pavilions, I walked over to Sokcho Lighthouse Observatory. After walking up quite a few stairs I was at the top of the lighthouse, and had a clear view of the city. While it didn’t look that much higher than the pavilion when I started my climb, when I got to the top I had a wide view of my surroundings, from the city to the sea, and the mountains in the horizon.
For my last stop of the day, I decided to go to Yeongnangho Lake. The lake itself is quite big, and there is a trail that goes around it, so it can be a relaxing way to spend a few hours. At some point I sat down to look at the water (and the trees that were all around it) while having some food. There weren’t many people around, so it was fairly quiet as well. After resting for a little bit, I resumed my walk along the lake, until I reached a wooden staircase that leads to Beombawi, a rock that is said to have the shape of a tiger, although to me it just looked like another big rock. After going back down, I walked around the lake a bit further before deciding to call it a day.