mutelife

For day 4 we did something we never tried before. We booked a tour (via Klook) that would take us outside of the city for the day. As you can imagine already, this was another day for the kids. Mostly.

Coincidentally, this was also the night that jet lag hit it me. Hard. My brain simply refused to shut down and I got about 2 hours of sleep total, if that. Surprisingly though, we all got up pretty energized and excited for this day.

Our driver, Eddy, picked us up from Myeong-dong where we had been waiting while having breakfast and exploring around. We weren’t the only ones though; there were 3 groups totaling about 9 people packed in a mini-van, and we would be driving from place to place all day long.

Eddy was a young Korean dude who had lived in China, Brazil, and even Porto (!!) for a couple of months. We exchanged a couple words in Portuguese at first and a handful stories throughout the day. Eddy told us he could never live in Portugal for more than a few months and it came down to food — for him, his Korean treats can’t be matched by our best Portuguese gastronomy — though he was a big fan of our culture.

As for our day together, Eddy would be driving the group to three places: Alpaca World, Gangchon Rail Bike, and Nami Island.

Alpaca World

We first visited Alpaca World, a neat zoo out in the middle of the mountains where the animals have tons of space to roam free. It’s about 1.5 hours away from Seoul or around 100km.

The main attraction were the impossibly cute alpacas. They release them first thing in the morning so all the alpacas come galloping down the hill to be fed by hundreds of people that buy similar packages to ours.

The girls were beyond excited when they realized what was about to happen, but also a bit terrified when it did start to happen. These alpacas were domesticated, but boy were they aggressive eaters!

Gangchon Rail Bike

Once we were done with Alpaca World we quickly got back into the van and drove some more. The landscape was gorgeous, a lush green as far as the eye could see. We went through countless mountains and valleys, and at some point Eddy pointed out that mountains cover 70% of the land in Korea. It certainly looked like it, if not more.

Along with many other groups, we had lunch in this restaurant that served Dak-galbi. The dish consisted of stir-fried chicken with mushrooms, cabbage, tteok (rice cakes) that were homemade and to die for, topped with melted cheese and scallions. There was also hot soup, soba noodles, all the kimchi you could eat. A delicious feast!

We were running late though, so lunch was kind of rushed. A hop over the road and we were at the entrance of Gangchon Rail Bike, but we were the very last ones.

The rail bike course is short but sweet. Most the of track is downhill so you don’t have to pedal that much. The scenery is beautiful, hills on one side and the Bukhan river on the other. Throughout the course you go through a few tunnels that got progressively crazier, and louder, and more eccentric.

At the end, a train takes you to the final station on the other end of the course. You never loop around, which means you’re always seeing new things and finish on a completely different note than what you started on.

Nami Island

Last but not least, we finished off the day in Nami Island (or Namiseom).

A ferry takes you to the island which feels like a mini natural theme park where you can see animals, some shows, rent a bike, and more. But it’s also weird because the island is home to Naminara Republic, an actual self-declared micronation, complete with a fake (?) immigration office.

We had a cold drink, strolled around for a bit and the kids had fun in the playground, before it started to rain. All too soon it was time to go back to the van to head back to Seoul.

Cat café

Back in Myeong-dong, Seoul where Eddy dropped us off, Lena and I immediately spotted a cat café. We looked at each other and nodded. The girls were promised a visit to a [insert animal here] café and we didn’t want to waste this opportunity.

Alpacas, rail bikes, Nami island, and an overload of cute cats — all in a day’s work.