LUNAR NEW YEAR IN GANGHWADO

by seoulfulfamily - February 27, 2018

Did everyone enjoy the Olympics? Is anyone going through withdrawal now that it's over? I am! 😓 If you are, maybe a weekend getaway might do the trick.

We spent our Lunar New Year holiday in GangHwaDo, only an hour drive from Seoul. GangHwaDo is an island located by Gimpo right under the border of North Korea. I haven't heard much about this island until recently and went without much expectations, but we were surprised by the amazing food and fun activities for the family, and we definitely want to go back again.

First, we stayed at Jangbogo Hanok Pension (장보고한옥펜션). The Hanok is 99 years old and has a well that is also 99 years old that was built together. This pension also has a newer building next to the hanok where the owners live and also use as a pension upstairs where we stayed. I especially loved their huge yard where my kids enjoyed playing with a mountain right behind the pension where you can take a hike. This pension does not have any stores within walking distance so you will need to take everything you might need for the night. There is a convenience store at the bottom of the hill on the main road for basic necessities.

https://hanokp.modoo.at/

Our trips are mostly planned around our kids now so we stopped by Oktokki Space Center. Once again, we didn't expect too much, but we were pleasantly surprised by all the things to do, see, and ride. They have many displays of rocket ships, rides to train future astronauts, an outdoor dinosaur park, and seasonal activities (snow-tube and ice slides for winter and swimming for summer). It was educational and fun for kids of all ages. They also have a food court style restaurant and a snack corner outside so you don't have to pack too many snacks. I personally don't like to carry too much in my bag anymore.

http://www.oktokki.com

My husband and I were mostly impressed with the food here. Everything we ate was one of the best meals we had in all of Korea. I would recommend GangHwaDo just for a food. Here are all the meals we had here.

YongGuongHwaeGip (용궁횟집)

One of the best Korean style sashimi place I've been to. I loved the presentation, good price, tasty side dishes (plenty even for my no sashimi eating husband) and the open ocean view.

There were large pieces of ice floating on the waters when we went and it was quite a sight to see. You can also see SeokMoDo (석모도), another island that we would like to visit next time.

HwangSoMaEul (황소마을)

One of the best BBQ marinated port ribs we had! I highly recommend just ordering 양념돼지갈비. We tried different things, but at the end we liked the port ribs the best and wanted more, but we were so full. It was clean, meat was fresh, and includes a small video game room for the kids. They seated us in front of it so we had a good view of our kids while we were cooking and eating.

Below two pictures are from Naver. 😞

SanChoen (산촌)

This place only has two main dishes on their menu. Duck or Chicken Baek Sook which is boiled whole duck or chicken with rice porridge. Honestly, this is not one of my favorite Korean dishes, but the meat was so soft and porridge was to die for. We ordered one chicken for our family and it was more than enough for us. It's a good meal for 3-4 adults.

After the Lunar New Year trip, we went back for a double date with friends for ice fishing at InSan Reservior (인산저수지). I do believe you can go fishing there all year round if you like fishing. We paid to fish for rainbow trout, but didn't catch anything in the lake. But they had an event where they let us catch them in their pool for a limited time. I think they gave us 15 minutes total. You would think it would be easy to catch them in a pool, but it was a lot harder than it looked. Likely, our husbands caught one each and a worker caught one for us. You can take your catch to a nearby tent and pay 5,000 won each to prepare them the way you want. We got one sashimi and two grilled. We were a little skeptical at first, but they were delicious!

After ice fishing, we went to eat crab stew (꽃게탕), my husband's favorite dish, just a few miles from the lake. There are a few crab restaurants in the area, but we went to Wae-Po-Li-Kkot-Gae-Gip (외포리꽃게집). We ordered crab stew and raw crab marinated in soy sauce. Everything was delicious, everyone especially liked the stew. One of the best we had! Looking at these food pictures makes my mouth watery. Yummm!