Last week on January 3, 2019, I made a short trip here. I’m working at Gongju University so it was an easy trip with a car.

It is about 12km from Gongju bus terminal. There is a parking lot that you have to pay to park in which is 3,000won. However, since it was a weekday and in the winter there weren’t a lot of people so I drove up the road a bit and parked there. I checked for cameras and there weren’t any. It’s important to do so or you could get a ticket in the mail. It was probably probably about 400 meters from the ticket booth, so it was an easy walk.

This gate is in the park and my car was just on the other side. The entrance fee was 1,500won. I think this is a reasonable price for what I saw.

I did a short hike up the small mountain first.

I was able to see views like this. I think it will be different each season and pretty good for a day trip if you are in the area.

I walked a bit more to and there was an animal village. There were goats, sheep, a donkey, monkeys, raccoons, and some other animals.

raccoon dog goats

After I went down and most of the plants weren’t green as it was winter.

So I visited a museum. It is in Korean but depending on the weather it can be a break from the cold or the heat.

There is also a green house which is in a dome.

This was interesting but there aren’t places to sit inside. The plants are quite interesting but I wish there were benches as this would be a nice place to take a rest.

Overall this is a good place to visit if you are in the area. I spent about a hour and a half here but I recommend 2 and a half hours at least depending on your speed and who you are with. I have been to other gardens in Korea and even though this is a good one, it’s not the best so I wouldn’t make a trip only for this.

I’ve lived in Korea since 2008 teaching English in various positions. There are 9 provinces in South Korea. I finally visited Jeju in the summer of 2019. I have been to all of them except for Jeju Island. I especially know Gangwon Province since I have lived and worked there primarily for 9 years. However I have explored Chungcheong North and South provinces and Gyeonggi province extensively as well. I have been to almost town and city in Gangwon Province. I have set foot in almost every town and in North Chungcheong and I have set foot in every town in South Chungcheong. However that doesn’t mean I have explored every town.

I got a brochure from the Korea Tourism organization called the top 100 places to visit in Korea. http://english.visitkorea.or.kr/enu/AKR/FU_EN_15.jsp?cid=2475901

So I decided that I would try to visit as many as I could this past year in 2018. If I didn’t visit them before, then I didn’t go back. I will also be writing up reviews about public transportation such as bus terminals. This is my first time blogging, so I hope I do a good job writing up my experiences.

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton