Barely Travelling

I'm not sure if it's laziness or Jecheon being not quite as sucky as Buan or poverty or what, but Tom and I have several more weekends at 'home' than we are used to, and we haven't really done much. It's actually kinda nice but we broke up the repetition by taking a trip to Cheongpung Lake last weekend. 

Everything I know about Cheongpung I can't find referenced on the internet (that link above goes to info about the bungee jump on the lake) so here's some internet referencing for future people. Cheongpung's a big lake about 40 minutes from Jecheon city by bus. It's one of Korea's biggest lakes, it stretches from Cheongju to Danang (cities in our province) and features hotels, a theme park, a bungee jump and a traditional village. Jecheon has an annual film and music fest which is held on the lake, and apparently it's one of the best places in Chungbuk to see the cherry blossoms. PHEW.

It was pretty nice too, although has the standard Korean mix of gorgeous natural beauty with ugly-ass manmade grossness. CF:

Pretty lake, garishly painted bungee jump (that crane thing) and weird fountain. That fountain was absolutely immense - the bungee jump is over 60 metres, and at it's height the fountain was easily spouting 20m above it. Huge/weird.

We went to the lake with some friends and tried to take a picnic into the traditional village. Unfortunately one of our party was explicitly not allowed into the park. Tom gave her a cuddle to make her feel better.

Undeterred, we headed to a secluded spot and sat chatting and eating, admiring the lake and playing with Talia. At one point a bus pulled up nearby and out poured about 40 assorted old people, who started drinking makkeoli and dancing to a saxophone player. We went and said hi and were lectured about the importance of Gangnam Style. Oh, Korea. 

After filling up on sandwiches and thoroughly tiring out the cat, we piled back on the bus and headed home. A great day out!