July 29, 2025

Day 35 - Hwanseongul Cave & Samcheok - July 29

Today's goal, conquer Hwanseongul Cave. Google is telling me it is 20 hours round trip on public transportation. Ugh! I know there is faster route but it's complicated. Lots of different connections to make and many don't run very often. I eventually gave up and used ride-share (AKA uber) for the very first time in my life. A lot more expensive but we got there in less than an hour. It would prove to be the first of many ride-share trips.

Hwanseongul Cave

Hwanseongul Cave is the largest limestone cave in Korea and one of the largest in Asia.

I sold Ava on the trip by telling her it was a short hike to the tram which would take us to the cave which would be nice and cool. No mountain climbing in the heat. Ugh! Turns out the tram is closed for the entire day. Now there is no way I'll convince her to hike to the second cave!

It was a steep climb with lots of stairs. We were all sweaty by the time we completed our journey. The cave was 10 degrees, down from the +30 outside. So needless to say we were pretty chilled.

It is impossible to capture how big the caverns are in photos. It like something you would see in the caverns of Mordor in Lord of The Rings. I attempted to take some videos but even that doesn't quite capture it.

Checkout this dude looking for handouts. Apparently he was a monk who entered the cave to meditate many moons ago. And if you listen really carefully, you can still here his chants faintly echoing through the cave.

For the Journey back we couldn't go ride-share. We were in the middle of nowhere and no one comes out that far. Good news, there were 3 different busses. Bad news, I didn't know entirely where they went but none of them would bring us back home. I figured they must all go down the mountain which would bring us a bit closer, and we could navigate from there.

Samcheok Central Market

The bus dropped us off at the city of Samcheok. I took a few minutes to come up with a game plan with a little help from AI to determine what was near by.

First stop was lunch at Samcheok market. It was like an aquarium. Live cuttlefish, octopus, crabs, lobster and various fish. So much to choose from!

Jukseoru Pavilion

This is the site of some historical government buildings and structures, sitting on top of a cliff overlooking the city.

Here is a building we past along the way. I'm always impressed with the variety of architecture. It's like something out of an anime move.

Rose Garden

We went to 삼척 장미공원. It is not far from Samcheok Central bus station. It's easily the largest rose garden I’ve ever been in and it is free. Neither of us made it to the other end, it's narrow but long. There are little paths that wind through. So peaceful. For the most part we were the only ones there.