Suncheon Bay (순천만)

I spent part of Saturday at Suncheon Bay, a significant wetlands a few miles south of downtown Suncheon. It is known for not only being incredibly scenic but for being home to loads of migratory birds. It is, as the website proclaims, the "Treasure house of having the various many species."

It was a perfect day for walking around and taking pictures, the first weekend of fall, weather-wise. Here are some photos, with loads more in my Flickr set. Practically everyone in the area has taken a million pictures of the bay, the reeds, the birds, the wetlands, and everything else down there, so if you want to find other versions of what will follow, a Naver search will help.




The bus drops you off near the Eco-Center, whose large front yard is an uncommon site in Korea. The museum has displays on the wildlife that visits the Bay, and there's a small park and a couple of convenience stores nearby. This year there's a train that motors around the park. Here's a local journalist trying to get the scoop on me:



You can take a little boat ride down the length of the river for about 4,000 won. The mud throughout the area is home to lots of crabs and a type of amphibian whose name I don't know. During the boat ride the driver will hit the boat against the shore, and you'll see the land come alive as the little creatures run for cover.



There's a network of bridges that run through the reeds. There are placards that name and describe the various plant and animal species you'll see. And there are mothers and fathers walking with their children explaining, in turn, which species of crab are good to eat.








If you follow the path to the east you'll see it leads up a small mountain. It's a twenty-five minute hike to Yongsan Observatory, where I took the photos you'll see below. Before you get to the observatory you'll go up a few sets of stairs.




There were lots of photographers at the observatory on Yongsan, and they had parked themselves in their spots, making it difficult for others to sneak in and get clean photographs. The weren't really taking pictures, though, and I assume that they were being assholes were waiting for the sunset that was about an hour away.








I'm not a fan of burials, and burial mounds I find especially unpleasant. They're often placed in accordance to feng shui, meaning they're on mountains, overlooking water, and so forth. What that means for you and I, though, is that we have to try and enjoy the scenery next to unsightly piles of dirt and remains. Hell, there are even mounds mixed in amongst the gorgeous Boseong tea fields. I bet the mounds were there first, but talk about presumptuous and selfish. And, where you have burial mounds you have the potential for this:




Only a few children ran around on the lower one, but the upper one has been reduced to a little stump because from people using it as a vantage point. The best case of this kind of behavior happened about a year ago as I was hiking in Suncheon. There's a mound overlooking New Downtown, a mound one guy was using to help him do his stretches.

On a more pleasant topic, here's a white guy photoshopped in:



People in Suncheon can get to Suncheon Bay via city bus number 67, which runs its route 32 times a day and which stops at, among other places, Suncheon University, Central Market, and in front of the bus terminal. It's also a part of the Suncheon City Tour. From October 28th to November 4th it will host the Suncheon Bay Reed Festival (순천만갈대축제), which runs concurrent to the Ramsar Convention in Changwon, Gyeongsangnam-do.