Green Tea in Boseong.

I had a wonderful weekend. Going to the middle of nowhere proved to be one of the better trips in Korea. Yesterday, my friends and I hopped on an early morning bus in Ulsan headed toward Boseong. Boseong about four hours away from Ulsan on near the southwest coast of the peninsula. What's in Boseong? Well... not much. When the bus first pulled up at the Boseong station, we all looked at each other and thought out loud, "Where are we?" The town hasn't seen much of the prosperity and rapid modernization that most South Korean cities have experienced. There are some redeeming qualities though. First and foremost, the terraced tea fields are unbelievable. Second, the people proved to be incredibly kind and generous.

The first thing we did was find a taxi and make the several kilometer trip to our "pension" condo. For some reason, Koreans use the term pension to refer to guest houses. The place was really neat because there were traditional mud style buildings. The bedding: traditional mats on the floor that actually proved to be very comfortable. After checking out the inside of our pension, we walked around the property and bumped into an older lady we think was the owner. She didn't want us to tire from walking and insisted on getting her friend/daughter to give us a ride to the tea plantation right away. So, that's exactly where we went next.

The Boseong tea plantations were so worth the trip. In my opinion, the view of the terraced fields rising up the side of steep hills is absolutely breathtaking. Like my recent trip to the DMZ, I've wanted to visit the tea fields for quite some time. I was happy to see so many Koreans enjoying the pride and joy of Boseong. Most of my co-teachers and students have never visited here (or many other places in Korea...). Surprisingly, the vibrant green fields didn't smell like anything. There was a complete lack of smell. After hiking up the terraces and partaking in a faux-photo shoot, we purchased some green tea goodies. I ate some amazingly delicious green tea ice cream (fresh from the source!).

After that, we jumped into another taxi and headed toward Yulpo beach. Our taxi driver became an impromptu tour guide on the way. He pulled over at one area to let us see a spectacular vista of more tea fields leading down to the ocean. We walked around the beach area for a bit, played velcro ball and catch (scatch), and then enjoyed dinner at a Chinese restaurant. Once dinner finished, we stocked on snacks and beverages for the pension. We rounded out the night with a few games of Scrabble.

This morning, we packed our backpacks and were about to head back to bus station. That's when one of the owners volunteered to take us after enjoying some complimentary green tea, cookies (green tea flavored, of course), and broken Korean-English conversation. That was the best green tea I've ever had. His generosity really made the final moments of the trip worthwhile.

If you're ever in Korea, visit Boseong!

First glimpse of the fields ~~ so pretty.

Click below to see more...

View from near the top of the fields.
I think this picture would have come out much better with a better camera.

Green tea ice cream!

The random stop our taxi driver made us see. 

The beach. I'm assuming it was VERY low tide. It might be prettier on clear days.