Week in Seoul: Garden of Morning Calm

I decided to hire a driver and a car for Day 3's itinerary as the locations were all a distance away from our hotel in Myeongdong. Of course, these attractions on the day's itinerary can all be reached via public transport, but I figured it would just be easier on my parents with a car.

I ended up on a private tour with KTourStory. I will probably write a short post about my experience with them later.

Day 3 in Seoul: Garden of Morning Calm --> Nami Island --> Petite France

We started Day 3 really early! Out driver-cum-guide, a young, strapping Korean fella named Seo, was prompt in picking us up at 7:30 am as agreed on. Haha, mom thought he was handsome enough to become an actor! But eye-candy or not, off we went with him on a chilly morning to out first destination of the day, the Garden of Morning Calm.

Mom and I love our flowers and hence I would often include a garden or a flower festival into the itinerary whenever I travel with her. I guess its no surprise then that the Garden of Morning Calm ranks as one of my favourites in this Seoul trip. Plus, I did say that I was chasing K-drama locations right?

Can you figure out which popular K-drama was shot in the location in the photo below?
Hint: It stars Park Bo-gum!

If you guessed "Love in the Moonlight", BINGO! 

In all honesty, I didn't recognise it at first. Seo, who found out about my love for K-drama (and hence how I picked up some really basic Korean phrases), was the one who pointed the Pond Garden location out to me. I think he was amused when I squealed Park Bo-gum's name out loud. Yeah, I know. Embarrassing 40-year old auntie moment.

The Garden of the Morning Calm is an arboretum designed by professor Han San-kyung and opened in 1996 as a private garden. Apparently its name originated from an Indian poet, Rabindranath Tagore who declared Korea the "Land of Morning Calm". This private garden that's now opened to the public is pretty impressive, housing an estimated 5,000 species of plants, some of which are rare or endangered! Just like how scared this Millennium Juniper tree (pictured below) is! It is about 1,000 years old and is apparently the representative tree of the garden.

We were fortunate enough that there was a chrysanthemum exhibition going on during the time we visited. My colleagues often laugh at how much I love chrysanthemums which are often seen as prayer flowers here in Singapore. It’s just that chrysanthemums are so sturdy and hardy while looking pretty at the same time! Pretty much how I would like to be.

There are several sections to the garden and you should be able to allocate a good 2 to 3 hours for this attraction if walking at a healthy pace. I’ve included an iPhone shot of a map of the garden for your reference. Alternatively you may wish to check out the website. I’ve included the link below. My elderly parents ain’t the fastest walkers but we managed to cover most of the grounds in about 3 hours. And that included taking photos and exploring the herb and gift shops.



I highly recommend dropping into the shops, especially if you are into plant-based products. We bought quite a lot of things for ourselves and friends, including hand-crafted soaps, essential oils, hand creams, etc. Mom and I also got ourselves a bag of pine nuts each! Seriously love it! Pine nuts do not come cheap in Singapore and this packet I got was very yummy! I've been happily adding them to my salads.

The Garden of the Morning Calm is definitely one place in Seoul that I wouldn't mind returning to in future. Not just for a different festival, but also to pop into those stores to get my pine nuts and stuff!

Tourist Information

Garden of Morning Calm

Website: http://www.morningcalm.co.kr/_ENG/html/main.php
Address: 432 Sumogwon-ro, Sang-myeon, Gapyeong-gun, Gyeonggi-do, South Korea

Entrance fees:

	Adult	Youth *Japan’s middle to high school aged youths	Child *36 months to Japan’s elementary school aged children	Adult with discount *Aged 65 years and older	Child and Youth with discount *Those with disabilities
Individual	9,500	7,000	6,000	7,500	5,000
Group *Weekdays only	8,500	6,000	5,000	6,500	4,500

Prices reflected are in Korean Won.

For your reference, I've listed some of the exhibitions and festivals over the 4 seasons that the Garden of the Morning Calm hosts. Please check the opening hours for each season.

Spring	March	Wild Flowers Exhibition
	April to May	Spring Flower Festival
Summer	June to July	Hydrangea Exhibition
	August	Rose of Sharon Exhibition
Autumn	September	Wild Chrysanthemum Exhibition
	October to November	Chrysanthemum Exhibition
Winter	December to March	The Starlight Garden Festival