Okcheon

My Home

This quaint town of 30,000 people that make up the actual city and 58,000 including surrounding areas is both adorable and limiting.

This is a view of Okcheon from the top of a small mountain I hiked.

 Every five days there is an outdoor street market where all the farmers, fishermen, and clothing vendors set up stalls on a couple of our downtown streets. This is an excellent opportunity to buy cheap vegetables that are fresh! Sometimes there is even a dried fruits and nuts man where I buy the MOST delicious dried mangos. For spices and certain ingredients like oats, cheese and many meats a trip to the bigger city may be in order.

Market Day

Yup, these are for dinner



Beautiful array of fruits and veggies

Though it may seem there aren't many restaurants here and NO western food at all there are a LOT of hidden gems. There are Korean restaurants galore in this small town and each one of them give their own little flavor of ambience. Us waygook(foreigner) Okcheoners tend to gather at a hidden place called 5.5 and feast on Dakgalbi. Afterwards, we swing by our trusty yogurberry for some frozen yogurt with choco chips and blueberries, yummy yummy!

As for tourist destinations in this city it is very limited. There is a well-known poet, Jeong Ji Yong that is from Okcheon and his house is preserved with a museum next to it holding pages of his poetry and photos of him. The first lady, Yuk Young Soo, of South Korean President, Park Chun-hee, is also from Okcheon. At 10am on Korean Independence Day, August 15, 1974, she was shot and killed by Japanese born and North Korean sympathizer, Mun Segwan. Her house is close to Jeong Ji Yong’s house and is also very well preserved. Currently her house is under construction but it should be finished soon. If you are traveling from a distance or want to experience staying in a Hanok Traditional Korean house there is one available in this area and renovated with Western bathrooms and a TV. Here is the website in case you are interested.

http://www.visitkorea.or.kr/enu/AC/AC_EN_4_5.jsp?gotoPage=1&category=B0201&areaCode=33&menuId=3380&cid=755394&anchor