Thursday, April 7, 2011

Hwanseon Cave

I said i've never been to a cave. So when I saw the sign that there is a cave in Kangwondo (Gangwon, Province) near Samcheok, I told my hubby that I wanted to see it. We went to Hwanseon Cave, one of the largest limestone caves in Asia and the biggest in Korea. Over one million people visited each year. It was cold when we went there but it was warm inside. I think it also makes it cooler in the summer because once inside, the temperature varies between 10° and 14°C. The cave is open year-round and takes about an hour to traverse 1.6 km on steel catwalks, not including the 1.3 km long, 200 m climb to and from the entrance.

From the entrance, you have to walk about 1km. to the monorail. But you can just walk or climb but because we were tired and it was freezing so we decided to take the monorail.



It costs about 5,000 won (around $5) if i'm not mistaken.



We finally reached the cave. There weren't many people. Maybe we were the first customer on that day. We were the early birds. Besides, there weren't many people go to the cave in winter season.



I was amazed of what I have seen inside. I was scared at first, because I thought caves have plenty of bats. But luckily, I've never seen any here in Hwanseon Cave so I just enjoyed the beauty of the cave inside.













There's even waterfalls.



The high rate of water flow has prevented the building up of many stalagmites or stalactites.



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