Photos of From Gangneung to Sinnam, Gangwon Province, Korea

About eighteen kilometres south east of Gangneung on the coast of Gangwon-do (Gangwon Province) is Jeongdongjin, with its beach, one of the most popular sites in Korea for watching the sunrise on New Year's Day. This is the site of Hourglass Park with its large hourglass, that takes a full year to flow down, the site where a popular soap opera with that name was filmed in 1994.

Overlooking Jeongdongjin from a hill is the Sun Cruise Resort, a hotel designed to look like a cruise ship, with its park. Four kilometres north of Jeongdongjin is Gangneung Unification Park, with its displays of North Korean vessels: a wooden boat used by 11 North Koreans who escaped in 2009 and a submarine that ran aground here in 1996. Also displayed are a number of military aircraft, including the famous Sabre Jet and President Syngman Rhee’s plane.

Further south along the coast, past Donghae, is Samcheok on the Osipcheon Stream, surrounded by gorgeous coastline, as well as 55 caves; it hosts the Mystery of Caves Exhibition, depicting cave formations, in a museum in Expo Town, just to the south west of the city. East of Samcheok is Hwanseongul Cave, the biggest lime stone cave in Korea, created 530,000 years ago and one of the largest in Asia, featuring stalagmites, stalactites and about 10 lakes and waterfalls. Its length is 6.2 kilometres and it has almost 2 kilometres of steel stairways.

About 20 kilometres south of Samcheok, overlooking Sinnam Port, is Haesindang Park, also called Penis Park, with over 50 phallic sculptures, above the small coastal town of Sinnam, about 20 kilometres south of Samcheok. The sculptures were entered for a contest in Samcheok's Penis Sculpture Festival (now defunct because of pressure of the Christian community). Its background is that of the tragic "Legend of Auebawi and Haesindang", but the sculptures depict a very rich imagination!