An Adventure in Nami Island
Since I stepped my feet in Korea for the first time, I really hoped that I could visit this famous island. Yeah, Nami Island is famous for its romantic situation because popular Korean drama, Winter Sonata, was filmed there. Nami Island is located outside Seoul, or exactly in Gangwon-do. So to go there, I had to take a train and also a ferry!
My friend, Astrid, and I tried to figure out how to go to Nami Island easily from Hongdae, the place where we stayed. So from Hongdae, we took a subway to Cheongryangri station (청량리 역 ) then from that station, we took an ITX to Gapyeong station ( 가평 역 ).
ITX train is the as fast as KTX, but it’s cheaper and the route is shorter than KTX. The subway fare is 1.600 won and the ITX fare is 4.000 won per trip.
When we arrived in Gapyeong, we went to the information tourist center nearby and asked how to go to Nami Island. The staff said that we can go by a taxi or a shuttle bus. The shuttle bus daily fare is 5000 won. So you can ride it freely in one day. But if you just plan to go to Nami Island without going to Petite France, you better take a taxi because it’s much cheaper than taking a shuttle bus. Since first we also wanted to go to Petite France, so we chose to take a shuttle bus. But then we realized that we didn’t have enough money to go to Petite France as well, since our money was so limited.
To go to Nami Island Ferry Station from Gapyeong Station only took 5 minutes. Then we bought a ticket. A ticket to Nami Island actually costs 10.000 won, but for foreigners, we just needed to pay 8.000 won. Round-trip ferry riding is also included.
After 5 minutes, we finally arrived at Nami Island ! Without any orders, people just rushed to the exit door. The weather was a bit nice. It means no cold wind blowing but the temperature was still dropped. Moreover, Nami Island is located near the mountain. I could see snow in some places. Astrid and I passed the gate and took a spot near the big rock with ‘ 남이섬’ ( Nami Island ) calligraphy on it. Definitely we took a lot of photos since in the very beginning.
Nami Island is famous with its scenery and also the ‘Winter Sonata’ drama filming site. So our aim to go here was to take good pictures as many as we can and also find the statues of Bae Young Joon and Choi Ji Woo, the actor and actress of Winter Sonata. But we found more than that. Nami Island is so amazing. I was amazed by looking around this island. So that’s why every inch we step, we took our phone cameras and get ourselves ready to be captured. Lemme show you some pictures we had taken.
Nami Island area is enormously wide. So prepare to walk further. It’s tiring, but your eyes will be satisfied by the amazing scenery of this island. Astrid and I took almost 3 hours to walk around this area. My first stop was a First Kiss Park.
It was a Winter Sonata drama where Bae Young Joon and Choi Ji Woo did their kissing scenes and built snow men. As we expected, of course, that is a really great spot for couples to take pictures … errr, maybe taking pictures while kissing … 헐 ~~ I just could chew my saliva seeing that kind of scene hahahaha If only I came with my boyfriend ….. hahahaha.
There was also a bridge at that park. But the unique thing is a glass wall on the edge of the bridge furnishing with empty soju ( Korean liquor ) bottles. I also took some pictures there.
Since our main reason visiting Nami Island was because of the Winter Sonata’s actor and actress’ statues, so we treasured our maps but we couldn’t find where the statues were. Luckily, we found a tourist information center and the staff helped us finding the statues. In fact, it wasn’t that far from the First Kiss park. Aaannnndd, finally we did find it ! A lot of visitors queued to take pictures next to the statues.
The good thing about traveling in Korea is the facilities in the travel spots. I am a muslim, so it’s a bit difficult for me to pray while travelling. But suddenly my eyes stared at the building by the library. There’s a musala in Nami Island! Musala is a Moslem praying spot. Since I hadn’t done my midday and afternoon prays, so I headed to the musala and prayed. I felt so blessed hahahaha So if you’re a muslim, don’t worry if you want to travel to Korea. You don’t need to be afraid skipping your prays. Thank you to the Ministry of Korean Tourism and Hospitality for this kind and great facility !! ^^
After adventuring around this beautiful island, we ended up going to GS 25– a minimarket in Korea – and stuffed our tummies with the simplest snack in the world, kob ramyeon ( 컵 라면 ) a.k.a cup noodles.
Actually you can find a lot of 닭갈비 ( dalkgalbi – Korean spicy chicken dish served with sliced of rice cakes and vegetables ) restaurants, but yeah, because we had to tighten our belts, so we chose to have cup noodles instead of dalkgalbi. So sad … T.T But for everybody who will visit Nami Island, please do visit one of the dalkgalbi restaurants there. Dalkgalbi is a really good dish to be enjoyed with the whole family.
At 5 PM, we waited for the shuttle bus to bring us back to Gapyeong station. The last shuttle bus is at 5 or 6 PM. So make sure not to miss the last bus, because you will end up wasting sum of money. We headed back to Seoul by the ITX train at 6 PM. We really had fun!!!