Green Tea and Fresh Air in Boseong (보성)

This past weekend a few friends and I went to the tiny little town of Boseong (보성) to go to the stunning green tea fields.  Now from Busan it's a bit of a trek.  By bus it takes 3 hours each way and the two morning buses leave at 6:30 and the next not until 9:40 from Sasang.  You could go to somewhere nearby and then transfer, but we went the more direct route.  The last bus of the day leaves really early at 5:40 so you either have to have a jam packed day like we did, or spend the night.  It's a small town, so maybe if you went somewhere else close by for the next day it would be a better plan. 

Anyway, back to the real story.  While being half asleep through mountains and greenery on the way to Boseong I had one of those "Korea is Freaking Beautiful" moments.  These tend to happen often on bus trips, and sometimes on the KTX, while my Indiana-bred self sees lush mountains and hills and valleys very different from home.

I loved what I was seeing so much I ignored the spotty bus window to try to capture it for you.  The mountains get so green and heavy with life and the sky was so blue and I'm sitting in a lovely air-conditioned bus far away from bugs and work-caused sweat that it looks amazingly beautiful. 

After a nice doze, we arrived.  It really was a beautiful day for the green tea fields, and even though there were a lot of people around it never felt overwhelmingly crowded.  There's a lot of things to see so the crowds seemed pretty well spread out. 

 

Even before the main entrance, the tea fields were beautiful. 




Now I had been to tea fields before in Malaysia in the Cameron Highlands, and they were also really stunning- and more extensive, but the weather was a lot nicer this time around. 
 

                 I'm super nerdy and decided I had to re-create the picture above from Malaysia,

               but in Korea, and with awesome heart sunglasses, of course.  

Before we started our climb up into the tea fields we had some really rockin green tea ice cream.  It was so good I was almost done before I could be bothered to photograph it.  Also I had another one on the way back down the mountain, it was pretty much my lunch- I regret NOTHING.

 



There was a restaurant that offered green tea bibimbap, and other green tea infused Korean dishes, but I was too busy snacking on ice cream to sample the other stuff. 

 

Part of it was a bit of a climb, but the views were just beautiful. 

It really is nice to get out of the city for the day.  Even when a lot of that day was on a bus. 

 

                                                         Me and my lovely companions.

I just really love how in Korean this reads "Poto Jone' due to the lack of 'f' and 'z' sounds in Hangul. 



 





I saw these kids marching through the rows carrying sticks and whacking the tea it was a very Peter Pan "Following the Leader" sort of moment. 

 



Even though it was a bit of a hike, the overlook was really great, as was the whole place really.  It's totally understandable why this place is a big tourist draw. 

 





So much so that my future self came back in time to put my initials in the concrete. 




After hiking up and down tea fields, we went to a really nice jimjilbang in one of the nicer hotels that looked out over the ocean and had a green tea bath (they are green tea crazy over there and they stick with the theme).   Although I didn't feel like I was sitting in a cup of tea, like their statue suggests




We took a taxi there for less than 10,000won (10 dollars) and had a lovely relaxing time before running like madwomen to catch the last bus home without a second to spare (it started backing away before we were even seated).


Even with the close call and the long bus rides,  it was a beautiful day out in the fresh air away from the city, and I highly recommend it.



 



From Busan with Green Tea Love,
Jenna






 



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