Wine Train

On Halloween morning, Dan and I met up with our neighbors Jess and Fran and headed to Seoul station via the M2104 bus. At Seoul station, we met up with Ben, Lydia, and 3 other friends to embark on our Korean wine train adventure. At first we had trouble finding the line for the train then we noticed a long line of Koreans standing in front a sign that said “Wine train”. We checked in and waited for 10 minutes until the train came. The train featured four themes under which the cabins were divided: red wine, white wine, ginseng, and herbs.
On the exterior of the train was photographs of wine while the interior was decorated like a wine bar. We sat in the ginseng cabin; instead of regular passenger seats tables of two or four filled the space. En route to the winery we made about 4 or 5 stops picking up passengers. We sat around talking anxiously waiting for the wine and snacks to be served. Finally a platter of snacks was served crackers, peanuts, muffins, and Kraft cheese slices along with 4 types of wine (red-merlot, white-sparkling chardonnay, grape juice wine, and plum wine). Overall, I didn’t like most of the wines but I’m not really a fan of red wines to begin with. The red wine was too dry, the plum wine tasted like cough syrup, the grape juice wine tasted like wine from communion (Dan enjoyed this one), and the sparkling chardonnay was my favorite it tasted like champagne mixed with wine. We were pacing ourselves to taste more wine at the winery.
The train stopped and we hopped onto a bus to the winery Wine Korea. We were served a Korean lunch with wine (red wine and plum wine). After lunch we walked around the grounds taking pictures and admiring the leaves changing for fall. We followed our wine tour group of about 30 people to a large meeting room and the tour leader told us about the winery in Korean. Being fluent in Korean I was able to understand. This winery has been producing wine since 1998. After about 10 minutes of having no idea of what was being said I assume it was an explanation of the wine-making process. The tour group started to remove their shoes and we followed. I was excited because I thought we going to stomp grapes like on I love Lucy. Instead our group just put our feet in a wine foot bath. After the foot bath, we went back into the meeting room and tried to make a bath ball out of wine. We were unsuccessful cause Ben poured too much wine into our ingredients causing the ball to be to wet. We took a tour around the winery seeing bottles of wine being processed, a museum, and wine-making booths. Anxiously waiting for the wine tasting to begin we were told that the wine tasting only takes place on the train. Slightly disappointed we were told to get back on the bus to head to our next destination.
We headed to Geumsan, a town which produces 80 percent of domestic ginseng. We walked around a ginseng museum and along a street where you can buy ginseng, other roots, and herbs. The locals were happy to see foreigners and invited us to have some dong dong ju and fried ginseng. Dong dong ju is a traditional drink made from rice and has a milky appearance. It is served out of a large bowl and poured into a separate cup with a ladle. The Korean men were especially happy to see Dan and Fran cause of their blond hair and blue eyes. I swear these two get the most compliments I have ever seen. We departed from our new friends and headed back to the bus to catch the train. We hopped on the train and headed back to Seoul. We were served a light dinner Kimbap and hard boiled eggs. Someone in our group found out that the wine was unlimited and let’s just say we drank our money’s worth.
We arrived at Seoul Station feeling good and ready for the rest of the evening. The group parted ways to enjoy Halloween activities Dan, Jess, Fran, and I headed to Everest an Indian restaurant for dinner. This restaurant had the most amazing chicken tikka massala, garlic naan, and chicken tikka. Dan and I enjoyed the food so much that we ended up having it 4 times that week for dinner. We headed back to our town to go to a Halloween party but it started raining and we were all tired from the day so we called it a night.