Day 1 of 4-day trip to Yeosu

Romana and I visited her hometown in Yeosu (여수) for a few days. It was the first time for me. On the first day, we had eel soup, visited places she used to live and go to school when she was a kid, went on a rail bike, had coffee and mojito by a beach, and finished with grilled fish by a harbour.

After getting off the KTX (we were worried about being late because of traffic near our house!), we picked up the rental car with no issues. We drove to where we were staying at the K-Grand Hostel (K그랜드호스텔) just to see about parking, then had some eel soup; this is something she had been looking forward to eating as soon as we got the train tickets! It tastes like a standard fish soup in Korea (to me, sorry!), but trickier to eat because of the tiny bones.

Next, we drove north to where Romana used to live. We dropped by her school (probably illegal!), then went to the accommodation complex provided by her dad’s company back in the day. She took lots or pictures and I enjoyed listening to her reminiscing about the old days. We even drove past her parent’s old restaurant building.

Next was the Yeosu Ocean Rail Bike(여수해양레일바이크). I’ve seen these advertised before; they’re pedal-powered cars that you ride on abandoned rail tracks. It’s not too difficult and fun. This one runs along the coast and goes through a neon filled tunnel. It cost us about 26,000 for two of us.

After that high-speed (not) adventure, I needed my coffee. A short drive down from the rail bike was a nice coast road with restaurants. Just as the road turns from the beach is Meriel Cafe (메리엘카페) Romana had a Mojito and I got my coffee. It’s a beautifully placed coffee shop and small hotel (pension). It has massive windows looking out over the sea, but best of all is the shady garden right next to pebbly beach. It was very relaxing, especially since no one was around and the sun was thinking about setting. We wandered onto the beach for a bit and down to the sea. We noticed some large bushes wild growing mint (they used it in the Mojito!) and rosemary; we decided to steal a few sprigs of the rosemary to take home for our next lamb dinner.

We drove back to the hostel, then walked to the harbour nearest us and got some grilled fish-not my favourite meal of the trip. Then we stocked up on snacks and beer and went to the hostel roof garden. It was nice with lots of chairs, shade if needed, and a view to one of the big bridges. A good start to our trip I thought 🙂

Map of places we visited this trip. Click on the ‘door’ icon to see a list: