The Daehan Tea Plantation at Boseong

I finally made it to the tea plantation!  This is something I have been wanting to do ever since I got here and saw Mali's pictures of the plantation.  "Wow! What is that!?" I asked her.  When she told me I promised myself that I would go.  Her pictures were breathtaking.  

The bus ride to Boseong took practically all day long because it involves so many connections.  Jennifer and I spent the night at the Dragon Hill Spa in Yongsan and so from Yongsan we took a taxi to the Express Bus Terminal in Seoul.  I had read that you can go directly from the Express Bus Terminal to Boseong, and while this is true, the tourist information website neglected to mention that this is only a twice a day deal: one at 8:10am and one at about 4pm.  That clearly would not work seeing as it was about 11am.  

Instead we took the bus to Gwangju which was about 4 hours.  From Gwangju we took a bus to Beseong which is another hour.  From there we took another bus (20 mins) to Yolpo because that's where the "best accommodation" is.   After looking at a bunch of gross minbaks we decided on the one motel on the main strip which cost us w25,000 per person for a bed (instead of the floor like at the minbaks), a tv, a nice shower and a/c.  By the time we got to the motel it was about 6pm so we settled in, walked to the beach (very muddy and not even worth a picture) and ate dinner.  

The next day we went to the famous green tea spa.  (We had actually tried to go after dinner but it turns out they close at 8pm so that was a no-go.) The spa cost w6,000 and we sat in a hot tub, a cold tub, a green tea tub, and what we presume was a black tea tub.  

At noon we checked out of our motel and attempted to go to the tea fields.  We got on the bus and expected to see the loads of busses and tourist attraction site like we did on the way down.  Wrong.  We were on a different road.  So we missed our stop.  After considering waiting for yet another bus back down we opted to take a taxi.

Finally we made it to the tea plantation!  We thought it was going to rain on us but it didn't at all.  Instead we got some magical mist.  It was even more breathtaking than I had imagined!  (It was also more touristy than I had imagined, but I honestly should have expected that by now. Silly me.)