We’ve been living in Yeosu for about two weeks now and have been loving every minute of it! We hope that you already caught our apartment tour earlier this week, and today we are giving you a peek of what our lovely city looks like. Yeosu was voted as one of the world’s four most scenic harbor cities, and it is easy to see why.

Gamak Bay

The waters surrounding this beautiful city are known as Gamak Bay. The best view of this bay can be seen from the Hemingway Cafe. With walls of windows lining the entire back side of the restaurant, you can enjoy views of Dolsan Island, the picturesque Dolsan Bridge, and, of course, Gamak Bay. The waters here are so clean and blue and it’s a stark difference from the cloudy and smoggy Seoul skyline. Here you can indulge in drinks, coffee, and they even have a small food menu. We had planned to have a quick drink and then head down to the beach, but with such spectacular views, we found ourselves there for over three hours, simply staring out the vast windows.

Beaches

Speaking of Gamak Bay…

There are many beaches that we have still yet to explore, but with the long four day weekend, we set off to see a few. There are many different kinds of beaches here. The sandy Ungcheon Beach in the heart of Yeosu is the easiest to get to. It’s just a quick five minute taxi ride or a twenty minute walk from our apartment! Here you can people watch, rent bicycles, and catch some awesome views of the Soho-dong neighborhood across the bay.

Another place to see the water is on Odongdo Island. In recent years, a bulwark was made, connecting it to the mainland. Now visitors can simply walk across to get there! The rocky coastline is beautiful, and many people like to climb around on the rocks in order to find solace or simply the best angle for a photo. The sunrise can be seen from this island, if you are willing and able to rise and shine early enough to get out there! Many of the buses will take you there, or just grab a cab for a quicker commute.

Manseongni Beach is listed as a black sand beach. However, the black sand only stretches for a few short yards before it it changes into a rocky beach. The rocks are large and round and quite tricky to traverse. Getting to this beach is also a bit difficult due to the one lane road that cuts through a large mountain. Traffic police stand and direct cars through the mountain a few at a time. It took us almost forty five minutes to get to the beach since we had to wait our turn to go through the mountain pass.

Sobaek Mountain Range

This mountain range is known as the “Spine of Korea” as they cut straight up through the center of the country. Yeosu is surrounded by these mountains and we are beyond excited to start hiking here! We have already climbed one of the tallest in the area, Horangsan Mountain (481 meters)! While we really enjoyed hiking in Seoul, the air quality was usually pretty poor. Yeosu has clean air and the views from the top reflect this.

Without much of a stretch of the imagination, we’re sure that you can image how excited we are to show you more of our new city in the year to come.