Yongmeori Cliffs

Last Saturday Brian, Mike, and I walked along the shore from Sagye-ri to the Yongmeori Cliffs. It's not a far walk, maybe ten or fifteen minutes at most, but we stopped a couple of times to explore the beach and check out the infamous Hamel's ship.


Hamel was this dutch sailor/writer whose ship was destroyed in a severe storm and washed up on the shore near Yongmeori back in the mid 17th century. Hamel kept a journal of his stay while he was in Korea, and from what I gather, he and his surviving crew were taken back to Seoul, where they were treated "like Koreans", whatever that means.

There is also a section dedicated to the 2002 World Cup in Korea inside the ship for some reason. It's a very eclectic and strange museum that has just a bunch of different things mixed together. After we had our laugh, we exited the boat and grabbed a bottle of orange makgeolli and some 불닭. It was quite refreshing, especially sitting in the shade on a perfectly sunny afternoon.

Once those were finished, we headed back down towards the shore to the cliffs. There were plenty people walking about, and the trek around the shore was a bit difficult, but still enjoyable.


Brian got this great picture of the cliffs with Sanbangsan in the background. A few minutes later he almost lost his camera trying to cross a narrow path wearing only flip flops. He recovered, but was a little banged up.

The cliffs have many hollows and small nooks that look like they were once used for something, maybe to stow gear for haenyo or fishermen long ago. There are quite a bit of smaller ponds too, that look like they would be a nice spot to relax in on a hot summer day.


I was running low on battery power at this point so I didn't get much footage of the area, but it's almost impossible to try and capture something like this without just being there; like many places here on the island, it's an experience you need to see yourself to fully enjoy it.

It only takes about twenty minutes to walk around the whole thing, but if it's busy and you're stopping a lot, which you will be, then I'd definitely make sure you've got at least an hour to spend there.

Once you come to the end of the path, there is a set of stairs leading back up to the little tourist/shop outlet. From there, take an immediate right and you can walk up some stairs back to the bus stop in front of Sanbangsan. After we finished with the cliffs, we still had time to go check out the mountain shrine just above the buddhist temple, which is built into the side of Sanbangsan.

Last two photos provided by Brian Miller