Soyang Dam and Cheonpyeongsa Temple (Part 1)

Today we traveled to northern Chuncheon to check out one of its lakes. The city of Chuncheon has two dams, one of which is the Soyang Dam. We were looking to visit the Cheonpyeongsa Temple, but in order to get there, we had to go to Soyang Dam and travel across the lake to reach the area where the temple is located.

Let me back up. We woke up and had a breakfast of pancakes with raspberry jam. And orange juice. A definite good start to the day. 

We took a taxi from our neighborhood to the bus terminal. I thought we would be able to take a tourist-y bus to the dam, but the only way for us to get there was by taxi or by city bus. At the bus terminal, a nice woman at the tourist information booth showed us which bus we needed to take and how to get to the bus stop. We hopped on the #11 and paid the driver 2200 won and sat down. The ride to the other side of Chuncheon was beautiful. It was also long, accompanied by stops every half mile.

I wasn't sure where we were supposed to get off so we hopped off the bus a few miles from the dam. It worked out perfectly because we ended up at a park that had a view of the lake and mountains and the dam as well.

 

So from there, we hopped on another bus that took us up to the dam. We went through the dam museum, which was really boring (about water conservation and some videos that were in Korean), but we opted to skip the dam tour and the dam souvenirs (ha ha ha). 

Right below the museum is the ferry dock. We paid our fare and got on the ferry that took us to Cheongpyeongsa. 

If you can see the map below, the ferry dropped us off at the wharf. From there we walked to the Temple, which I was told by Chuncheon's website is a 30 minute walk.