I took a trip to Mokpo; drove to Jindo Island, explored the Mokpo on foot and by a few cable cars, and drove to the spectacular Wolchulsan Mountain for a day hike.

DAY 1 OF 4-DAY TRIP to Mokpo

I took the KTX to Mokpo Station waaaay down south and went straight to my waiting SOCAR. Nearby was a toilet in a bank building with a bidet; that really made my morning! Unfortunately, there was a nationwide network outage as I was trying to access the SOCAR. Apparently this affected all the KT networks meaning there was zero data available for all mobiles! And you need mobile data to unlock SOCARs! I went back to the train station for a coffee and to find some working wifi. I’d just called Romana to see if calls were working, and that’s when she told me about the outage (I’d had no idea what was going on until then). I waited it out at Dunkin Donuts (I’d mistakenly reset my SOCAR app password while trying to access it and was having trouble getting in!). After another 30 minutes, I finally managed to get into the car. Not the best of starts!

I drove out of town and over bridges to Gohado then Haenamgun (해남군) then onto Geumho-do island which bridges two peninsulas of Haenamgun. I stopped here for cow head meat gukbap at Silgol Jangteo Gukbap (시골장터국밥). I continued onto Haenamgun to Seodongsa temple (서동사) for a bit. It was a nice peaceful place with only hints of sounds of people around somewhere… I didn’t see anyone though.

I kept driving south to Jindo (진도), the place that the ubiquitous Korean dog is named after. I was going to visit the cable car that goes over the Myeongnyang Straight, location of the a battle between Admiral Lee Sun-sin and invading Japanese forces in 1597. I missed the cable car entrance, however, and went across Jindo Bridge to the other side to Jindo Tower. I didn’t actually use the cable car in the end, and instead strolled the small park and went up the tower for some views.

I wanted to check in before it got dark. Back in Mokpo, I drove to Chukhudong 19Beonji Guest House (측후동19번지게스트하우스). and checked in. Then I drove the SOCAR back at the station, then walked back to the guest house. It was a new building, with clean accommodation and had a roof terrace. Unfortunately, it was the opposite of soundproof (a thing they’d advertised!) since much later on there was a very yappy dog. I went to search for food, but unfortunately I didn’t find much that I really wanted. I had pork cutlet at a place in town then headed back for some beer and Netflix.

I feel there is a lot more to do and see on Jindo and other islands, but this didn’t turn out to be the trip for that!

Places visited this trip (click the ‘door’ icon to see a list):