Geumgang Natural Recreation Forest



We've been wanting to visit the Geumgang Natural Recreation Forest since we first got here. It's just south of Sejong, about a 7 minute drive from our apartment. There are a few buses that go to the area, but unfortunately they don't run during the weekend. That's part of why it has taken us so long to get over there. We had to take taxis, and because it is so close to us it only cost about W7,600 there and W9,200 back.

Also, the entry fee for the GNRC is only W1,500 per person.

Here is a map of the area

The first thing we noticed upon entering the area was the huge glass dome, so we headed over in that direction. Inside we found a hot, humid, and dripping wet tropical greenhouse with hundreds of plants. It was really amazing.



It was hard to capture the huge dome in photos

Map of the collection
Key 
Purple: phytophyte, Blue: culture plant, Green: succulent plant (in an adjacent, separate greenhouse), Black: wood plant, Pink: fruit plant, Dark green: flowering plants

We were amazed by the age, quality, and density of the species


Phytophyte

Oxalis deppei Wood Sorrels

Aechmea fasciata Silver Vase plant

The tropical greenhouse was so cool, and the rain-like watering system was a nice touch; we felt like we were in a rainforest. And while we were blown away by it, we were in no way prepared for walking into the next greenhouse, the succulent collection.


So many plants here looked like they were from an alien planet


Eriocactus leninghausii Type of flowering cactus

Agave parviflora small-flower agave




Graptopetalum superbum Leatherpetal
My absolute favorite succulent here, the color and shape is so beautiful!

Wow. That collection was so cool, the plants all so large and healthy-looking. We were really surprised and excited to be there.

♥

Rose garden, a little past season now but we will be back in the spring ☺

View of the rose gardens with the greenhouses in the back

Next it was time for the forest museum. Unfortunately ~90% of the signs contained no English at all, so we had to guess at some of the information here, but we hope you enjoy the pictures:

Trees of Korea

Insects of Korea

Lepidoptera close-up ☺

Mantidae

These were really cool-
Wooden carvings of the 12 signs of the Chinese zodiac

Close-up of the monkey ☺


And horse ☺

Part of the "Healing room" -- smell boxes
These three were of different kinds of ginseng

Beautiful Nephila clavata hanging out in a slide, male above her to the left

We then happened across a barefoot walking path. Essentially a cedar-lined path made of some sort of red clay. There were water spigots on both ends of the walk to clean off your feet when you finished. It was really cool. There are apparently a lot of health benefits to barefoot walking.

Health benefits of barefoot walking


☺ ♥

We walked down to an area which had a lot of different animals, though I'm not sure if it was a "zoo" exactly. There was an octagon-shaped aviary with many types of pheasants, swans, peacocks, vultures, owls, falcons, and ducks in separate cages. 

Aviary

Down the path a ways we stumbled on a huge enclosure just filled with rabbits. Lots and lots of rabbits, just hanging out. Then we found a concrete cage structure with Manchurian black bears, Japanese macaques (snow monkeys), a racoon, badgers, guinea pigs, and chinchillas. It was pretty sad to see the state of some of the enclosures, the health of the animals, their conditions... I want to keep that for another time.


There are lots of hiking trails and gardens throughout the forest. There's even a hike that takes you up on the ridge of a small mountain (~357 m at the summit), but we didn't get to that on this trip. We instead took a shorter hike which brings you to this beautiful pagoda overlooking the Geum river:






Bridge we crossed to get to the arboretum from Sejong





Enjoying the beautiful fall weather!

Sam working the camera

After a long afternoon exploring, we were ready to head home. One last thing we wanted to show you guys was this:


While we're not 100% sure what the solar panels were used to power, we thought this was a really cool display.

Overall this was a really amazing place that we want to go back to soon so that we can explore some more! It felt great to be hiking and surrounded by nature.


Coming soon: videos are coming, we promise!! ☺



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