Ansangaltae Nature Park and Jinju Farm make for a wonderful getaway from busy Seoul. Enjoy birdlife in Ansan area, let your kids discover farm-life and eat delicious Korean food!
Last week-end we went to discover the Ansan area. Ansan City is located at the South West of Seoul (within 30km radius away) and is open to the Yellow Sea. Ansan has numerous streams and is known for rice fields and a large number of farms.
As our kids are getting crazy about farm animals, we’ve been looking for a dairy farm not far from Seoul where the kids would be able to see and touch the cows. And we found it!
There is a beautiful farm just about 40 kilometers south of Seoul called Jinju Farm which offers exactly what we needed. The farm is very close to the highway 15 but it’s surprisingly located in a beautiful environment surrounded by apple orchards. I learned from their website that they propose organized tours for whole days spent in the farm. 
There is a bunch of activities in the package, including a ride on the tractor, milk the cow and learn how to make cheese… Actually as we were out of season and we didn’t do any booking we just stopped by the farm to have a look on the animals. The gate was wide open even if nobody was there, and we spent one hour just walking around the farm and stopping at every barn to watch the curious cows and cuddle the friendly horse, observe the deers and give some dried grass to the hungry rabbits. Unfortunately, we didn’t find any person in the farm to chat, but just visiting this beautiful and clean farm with all the animals enjoying the opened barns and stables on our own, was a great experience.
For more information (in Korean only ) go to Jinju Farm website
Jinju Farm 진주목장 Tel : 031-356-0073
How to find your way 
Being in the area of Ansan we decided to visit the reed wetland or the Ansangaltae Nature Park. This park was formed to improve the quality of water flowing into Lake Sihwaho. The park is Korea’s first large artificial wetland. 
Which is the most interesting about this park is that you can walk along the wooden bridges and observe all the birds and aquatic plants. The learning center at the entrance of the park has a nice exhibits of pictures and models of animals and birds. The second floor has an observatory for bird watching. Even if the visit in winter is not very rich for the plants observation it’s still a great and magic place for kids to run around in the nature.
Location: Public water surface of Sa-dong and Bono-dong, Sangnok-gu
Directions: Head toward the Rural Research Institute in Sa-dong,
bus no. 52, 72
Tel: 031-419-0504
If you want to have a lunch in the area, we strongly recommend to stop by the Deng-Yi Street in Ansan. It’s just impressive to see the concentration of Korean traditional restaurants and it looks like they are all very good. Maybe it’s better to decide before what you want to eat because you’ll find everything from beef, chicken, pork and goat to eel, monkfish or seafood… Just check their website Daengeegol
Have a great trip!
kidsfuninseoul 