[Korea travels] This May, take the family somewhere that the imagination can run wild

Walkways via the Time Backyard in Sunyudo Park provide an ideal perch among the many lush greenery that now grows within the former water therapy facility. (Park Mee-hyang/Hankyoreh)

Could is understood in Korea as “household month.” Children are notably keen on Kids’s Day, which falls on Could 5.

Seoul, which has emerged as a worldwide journey vacation spot, affords a variety of points of interest positive to foster kids’s creativeness. We’ve gathered the perfect of them right here for readers able to discover. 

On the afternoon of April 24, I arrived at Seonyudo Park, in Seoul’s Yeongdeungpo District. A ten-minute stroll from Seonyudo Station on Line 9 of the subway introduced me to Seonyu Bridge, also called Sunyugyo.

As the one pedestrian bridge over the Han River, this was constructed as a commemorative challenge for the brand new millennium by town of Seoul and France. A well known French architect designed the 469-meter bridge, which is 3-4 meters throughout. Merrymakers collect right here across the yr given the bridge’s status as among the finest spots for nighttime images of the close by enterprise district of Yeouido.

As I used to be getting into the park, I encountered two French individuals who had already completed their tour and had been about to go away.

“We discovered about this park on-line. I believe it’s actually particular that an industrial facility was restored to a pure setting,” stated Tristan, who has been in Korea for eight years now.

Standing subsequent to Tristan, a pal who was visiting Korea for the primary time nodded in settlement.

As soon as a water purification plant, Sunyudo Park has turned over a brand new leaf as an ecological backyard. (Park Mee-hyang/Hankyoreh)

Seonyudo Park was a water purification plant that provided ingesting water to residents of southwestern Seoul. After pumping out 400,000 tons of faucet water on daily basis for 22 years (beginning in 1978), the power handed over its duties to the Gangbuk Water Purification Plant and shut down in December 2000.

However due to human creativity, the plant turned one thing even better. Two years later, it was remodeled into an ecological park.

As an alternative of being torn down, the outdated plant’s concrete constructions had been preserved and repurposed. The consumption pumping station, the water therapy facility and the concrete pillars on the reservoir had been all left intact.

Architect Joh Sung-yong labored with Jung Younger-sun, a towering determine in panorama structure, on what was Korea’s first park on a Han River island, in addition to its first park repurposed from an industrial facility.

Together with the wooded space, the park is split into the Story Corridor (an exhibition area presenting the historical past of Seonyudo and the Han River), the Backyard of Inexperienced Columns, the Water Purification Basin (a backyard situated within the outdated chemical settling basin), 4 Round Areas (an space of relaxation and recreation), the Time Backyard and an observatory on Seonyu Bridge.

The Backyard of Inexperienced Columns turns into extra mysterious the extra you gaze upon it. Ivy runs up the pillars that remained after the concrete roof of the reservoir was eliminated.

The Backyard of Inexperienced Columns in Sunyudo Park was made by rising ivy on columns that remained after tearing the roof off the water purification plant. (Park Mee-hyang/Hankyoreh)

Kim Ye-yeong and Jang Se-yeon had been within the park snapping movies for his or her Instagram accounts. (Park Mee-hyang/Hankyoreh)

The plush greenery is the star at Sunyudo Park. (Park Mee-hyang/Hankyoreh)

I quickly arrived on the Time Backyard, the park’s best-known part. Trying up, I noticed folks strolling atop a bridge that ran above me. Our eyes met in silent greeting — indolent comrades on a spring afternoon.

I adopted the trail, which ran forward in a straight line and intersected different paths main vacationers into the park. The twittering of birds rang in my ears, and daylight slipped between the leaves to the touch my laces and hint patterns on my footwear.

The silence of the backyard appeared to pose a query: The place do you stand?

I out of the blue heard the chatter of youngsters on an outing with dad and mom and grandparents.

“Why is there a bridge up there?” The youngsters ran as much as the bridge after which got here again down, glee on their faces. Speak about fostering the creativeness!

This backyard is situated within the former chemical settling basin. Now that the water has been drained, the area belongs to flowers and timber, together with zelkova, birch and quince.

I’m fairly positive just a few laps round this backyard could be sufficient to clear up any query in your thoughts. That’s the present of time — appropriately sufficient for the Time Backyard.

After stepping out of the backyard, I noticed a pair of ladies practising a dance amid the thick foliage: Kim Ye-yeong and Jang Web optimization-yeon, each 24 years outdated.

“We’re capturing a video for Instagram. Since there’s a lot selection on this park, yow will discover completely different [backgrounds] for movies,” one stated.

Clearly, the youthful technology is not any stranger to this ecological backyard.

Time Backyard in Sunyudo Park’s distinctive combine of commercial structure and verdant backyard is a sight to behold. (Park Mee-hyang/Hankyoreh)

Time Backyard in Sunyudo Park’s distinctive combine of commercial structure and verdant backyard is a sight to behold. (Park Mee-hyang/Hankyoreh)

Now’s the proper time to go to Sunyudo Park, because the spring flowers attain full bloom. (Park Mee-hyang/Hankyoreh)

In the course of the Joseon dynasty, the island was the positioning of Seonyu-bong, a modest peak (“bong”) or hill rising to a top of 52.5 meters. It was a spot of such magnificence that it was thought of a necessary vacationer web site for Chinese language envoys to Korea. The island even graced the canvas of famed Joseon panorama painter Chong Son (artwork title: Gyeomjae).

The island was dwelling to fishermen, shipwrights and shepherds who watched flocks on the close by island of Yeouido. However the island was deserted after historic flooding in 1925.

The Japanese colonial authorities relocated the residents and moved grime and stones from Seonyu-bong to construct dikes designed to dam rising waters. The hill additionally offered materials for constructing Yeouido Airport, which has since additionally been remodeled right into a public park. By 1968, the hill had been utterly leveled.

A day among the many lingering traces of Korea’s push for industrialization at Seonyudo Park jogs my memory of “Excellent Days,” the title of the Korean version of Mary Oliver’s essay assortment “Lengthy Life.”

The island park’s views of Seoul make it an ideal place for a date with somebody particular. (Park Mee-hyang/Hankyoreh)

Among the construction of the previous water purification facility has been stored and reconfigured into reflecting swimming pools and backyard beds. (Park Mee-hyang/Hankyoreh)

Pureun Arboretum in Seoul’s Guro District is a superb place to let little ones discover and observe nature within the metropolis. (Park Mee-hyang/Hankyoreh)

One other ecological park that makes for a super outing with kids is Pureun Arboretum, in Seoul’s Guro District. This opened in 2013 as town’s first public arboretum. It’s dwelling to greater than 1,380 native species of crops, in addition to jap spot-billed geese, gray herons and Eurasian coots within the park’s reservoir. It’s an ideal place to identify animals, some endangered, in area guides.

One other approach to stimulate kids’s creativeness is by introducing them to artifacts of the previous.

The Seoul Tourism Group’s journey decide for Could is trendy and up to date hanok, or Korean conventional properties.

Café Sunwoongak, on the slopes of Mt. Bukhan, is a picturesque spot in any season. The café is a favourite filming spot for Okay-drama administrators, that includes in such memorable applications as “Mr. Sunshine,” “Itaewon Class” and “The World of the Married.” It’s about 20 minutes on foot from Bukhansan Ui Station, on the Ui-Sinseol Line (a lightweight speedy transit line in northern Seoul).

Within the Seventies and Nineteen Eighties, Sunwoongak was one in all Seoul’s three personal golf equipment identified for internet hosting off-the-record political gatherings, together with Samcheonggak and Daewongak. After serving as a full-course restaurant and later as a prayer retreat, the storied hanok is now a café that generally hosts boutique weddings.

Sunwoongak is known to be owned by the prayer retreat, which purchased it in an public sale in 2000. The café is operated by the present tenant.

Three generations of a household on a go to to Mt. Bukhan’s Café Sunwoongak, which is situated in a conventional hanok. (Park Mee-hyang/Hankyoreh)

To get to the hanok, guests should cross via a hall that has been reimagined as a gallery area. (Park Mee-hyang/Hankyoreh)

A view from Café Sunwoongak. (Park Mee-hyang/Hankyoreh)

The trail to Sunwoongak runs alongside a stone wall. After I visited on April 27, Mt. Bukhan’s woods had been alive with songbirds.

The aesthetic attraction of this contemporary hanok is distinct from the hanok of the Joseon dynasty. The attention is drawn to the normal crimson motif on the stone wall and a bridge operating between the buildings.

The hanok tour begins if you cross via the contemporary-style café and a hallway that doubles as an exhibition area.

The picket ground creaks with every footstep — a well-known sound in a hanok. The decorative stone lanterns on the garden and the ink wash scrolls within the rooms appeared to take me again in time. Houses are a hyperlink between all who’ve lived there, in previous, current and future.

The café serves teas and natural infusions, in addition to mugwort-based desserts.

The view isn’t the one factor to savor at Café Sunwoongak. (Park Mee-hyang/Hankyoreh)

One other spot that illustrates the traits of recent hanok is the Baek In-je Home, in Seoul’s Gahwa neighborhood.

Inbuilt 1913, throughout the colonial interval, the hanok has a novel construction: the boys’s and girls’s quarters are linked by a hallway, relatively than occupying separate buildings as they nearly invariably did throughout Joseon.

One other putting facet of the Baek In-je Home is that a part of the boys’s quarters rises to a second story — one thing seen in no different hanok.

The home had a colourful vary of homeowners through the years: Han Sang-ryong (1913), Hanseong Financial institution (1928), the journalist Choe Seon-ik (1935) and Paik Hospital founder Baek In-je (1944). In 2009, the home was donated to town of Seoul, which turned it right into a museum in 2015.

Admission is free, and guests can prepare a guided tour on Seoul’s public service reservation web site (https://yeyak.seoul.go.kr/).

The previous properties of Bae Ryeom (in Gye-dong, constructed within the Nineteen Thirties), Go Hui-dong and Choi Sunu are three different websites at which guests can expertise the allure of recent hanok.

The previous home of Go Hui-dong (1886-1965), who’s thought to be Korea’s first painter within the Western type now hosts an artwork gallery. Go designed the hanok himself in 1918 and lived there for 41 years. It turned a registered cultural heritage (No. 84) in 2004.

The third of those hanok was as soon as the house of Choi Solar-u (1916-1984), a historian of Asian artwork who’s remembered for his ebook “Leaning Towards the Convex Pillars at Muryangsu Corridor.” 

The T6 Neighborhood Heart is an ideal place for youths to discover on a household outing. (Park Mee-hyang/Hankyoreh)

One other web site value visiting with the household in Mapo District is Oil Tank Tradition Park, the place guests can discover a number of growing old tanks of imposing measurement. These tanks had been as soon as used to retailer oil to counterbalance the sort of value surges brought on by a battle within the Center East in 1973-1974.

In 1976, town of Seoul started constructing oil storage tanks as a precaution in opposition to one other such disaster. It took two years to finish 5 tanks measuring 15 meters excessive and 15-38 meters in diameter, which had been then stuffed with 69.07 million liters of crude oil — sufficient for Seoulites to final a month by 1978 requirements. 

Tight safety was maintained on the important oil facility, which was ultimately closed in December 2000.

This was as a result of the construction, situated 500 meters from the Seoul World Cup Stadium, was categorized as a hazardous facility simply earlier than Seoul co-hosted the 2002 FIFA World Cup. In 2013, a contest inviting members of the general public to counsel methods to make the most of the tanks turned the catalyst for remodeling this web site right into a cultural facility. Its renovation was accomplished in 2017.

The T6 Neighborhood Heart’s distinctive structure makes a terrific place for exploring. (Park Mee-hyang/Hankyoreh)

The view from contained in the T1 tank on the Mapo Oil Depot. (Park Mee-hyang/Hankyoreh)

 5 of the tanks had been transmuted into cultural areas for various makes use of. The T1 tank’s metallic body was dismantled and remodeled right into a pavilion with a glass ceiling and partitions. The T3 has change into an exhibition area that totally preserves the tank’s authentic kind from the time of its development.
 
Varied interactive exhibitions are placed on inside T4, the place guests are more likely to be shocked speechless by the sheer measurement of the tank. The tank itself turns into a chunk of artwork, one which tickles your creativeness. 

Stepping contained in the tank turns each customer right into a traveler who has misplaced monitor of time, making them daydream about what the area they’re occupying actually is and the place they’re. This can be a good instance of how a relic from the times of industrialization can rework right into a flagship achievement of city regeneration. 

Behind this base lies the Mt. Maebong Forest strolling path, which is ideal for strolls.
 
In the case of locations of enrichment for kids, there’s nowhere higher than the library. 

Over the previous few years, kids’s libraries have had a glow-up. They’re now not the identical outdated box-shaped buildings. As an alternative, a brand new class of buildings with distinctive structure and spatial aesthetics invitations everybody to get pleasure from themselves and let their imaginations run wild.
 
The Hannae Forest of Knowledge, a library situated in a neighborhood park within the Nowon District’s Wolgye neighborhood, is one such instance. Arriving on the library, you can’t assist however cease and stare. Whereas it’s composed of 1 constructing, its roof is jagged and uneven, and the constructing’s profile, seen if one turns proper from the doorway, appears as if 4 fairytale gable-roof homes have been sutured collectively. 

Enterprise inside and the sights are much more spectacular. The lofty, A-frame ceilings prolong excessive into the air. It’s a well-known proven fact that areas with excessive ceilings assist to advertise creativeness. The wall on one aspect is product of glass, and a deep, shimmering inexperienced may be seen via the large glass home windows. The corridors contained in the library are a haphazard collection of paths that seem to steer into each other till they out of the blue finish, then seem to return to an finish earlier than persevering with once more, like a maze.

The Hannae Forest of Knowledge’s distinctive architectural design has gained quite a few awards. The youngsters’s library affords all kinds of enrichment for little ones. (Park Mee-hyang/Hankyoreh)

The inside of the Hannae Forest of Knowledge library. (Park Mee-hyang/Hankyoreh)

Opened in 2017, the Hannae Forest of Knowledge is a small single-story library with a complete ground space of 359 sq. meters. The library encompasses a kids’s neighborhood heart, a restaurant, and extra, with round 25,000 books on show. 

The constructing, designed to nurture the creativeness of youngsters, has gained plenty of notable structure awards, together with the grand prize on the 2017 Seoul Structure Awards and the excellence prize on the 2018 Korea Structure Awards. It additionally took high honors within the public areas class of the 2018 The Plan Awards, placed on by the famend Italian structure journal.

The library was designed by Shin Chang-hoon and Jang Yoon-gyoo of the structure agency Unsangdong Architects. 

“The shopper [Nowon District Office] requested [us] to construct a communicative area wherein kids might let their creativeness take flight,” Shin stated in a media interview. He added that even the bookcases had been designed in a approach to stimulate the creativeness. Though they resemble a tin roof from a fairy story, the cabinets are made with high-grade metal siding. 

Wolgye Library, additionally transformed by the Nowon District Workplace in 2025, is one other kids’s library designed to maximise creativeness, with services together with “Everybody’s Residing Room,” the “Pondering Research,” and “Moonlight Sound Corridor.” Take a 10-minute drive from Hannae Forest of Knowledge and you’ll arrive on the “Therapeutic City” on Mt. Buram. This can be a cozy city relaxation area, with the sphere of royal azaleas in full bloom throughout this season. It’s good for having fun with the ultimate traces of spring.

The rhododendrons had been in full bloom on the Mt. Buram “Therapeutic City” park. (Park Mee-hyang/Hankyoreh)

An inside shot of Wolgye Public Library, which was transformed final yr. (courtesy Nowon District Workplace)

The Bangbae Forest Surroundings Library, which encompasses a comma-shaped rooftop backyard, has garnered consideration as a spot to go along with the household on holidays. (courtesy Seocho District Workplace)

Seocho District’s Bangbae Forest Surroundings Library is one other library that has drawn simply as a lot consideration as Hannae Forest of Knowledge. Opened on June 24, 2023, it boasts one ground above floor and two beneath, with a complete ground space of 1,632 sq. meters.

The constructing has plenty of distinctive architectural options together with snail-shaped cabinets, a spacious inside, and an empty area within the heart. The roof of the constructing is especially particular. Named the “Cloud Backyard,” the roof is formed like a comma when considered from above. 

The locations the place we spend time affect the way in which wherein we develop. How about taking a visit to a spot the place the creativeness of youngsters grows in leaps and bounds?

By Park Mee-hyang, senior workers author

Please direct questions or feedback to [english@hani.co.kr]