Korean Travel Online - Herb Island's Fairy Tale Light Festival

Herb Island's Fairy Tale Light Festival this winter started on December 1, 2012 and is ongoing until April 30, 2013. Similar to the Garden of Morning Calm in Gapyeong, Gyeonggi-do, the place is draped with colorful lights to make up for the lack of flowers during winter. For more pictures of the Garden of Morning Calm's light festival, go here.

More of a village than an island, this place located in Pocheon, Gyeonggi-do is not as easy to go to if you don't have a car. Unless you're coming from Northern Seoul, it would take you more or less to get here. First, you have to go up all the way to the end of line 1, Soyosan station. From there, you have to take the local bus number 57 that goes to Herb Island. According to the website, the bus only comes once every hour so you have to overestimate the travel time a bit if you don't want to wait for another hour for the next bus. The bus schedule on their website says the bus arrives at 15:50. My train arrived at Soyosan station at 15:50 and I rushed outside to see if I could still catch the bus. At the bus stop, there's one of those computer screens that tell you when the next bus is arriving. It said bus 57 will arrive in 12 minutes. 5 minutes later, the bus arrived. So, it's either the 15:50 bus was 20 minutes late or the bus comes more often than what the website says.

Anyway, from the bus stop, it takes about 20 minutes to reach Herb Island. From where the bus drops you off, you have to walk about 10 minutes to reach Herb Island itself. If you don't have a car, you have to make sure you make back to the bus stop by 19:00 because the last bus is at 19:20.

Arriving around 4:30ish will give you just enough time to walk around and explore the surroundings before the lights come on.

According to the brochure, the place is supposed to be divided into a Italian Village, Greece Village, French Village, and German Village. You can also smell the delicious smell of freshly baked bread a kilometer away, coming from the Herb Island Bakery. By the looks of it, business is going very well.

There's also a pretty neat coffee shop and an aroma shop that sells herb teas, coffee, candy, perfume, herb fragrances, shampoos, lotion and a whole lot more

The best part is the 2,000 square meter herb museum containing around 180 types of plants. Inside, you can smell the different types of plants and see a variety of flowers regardless of the season.

I would say a few hours at Herb Island would be just enough. But you'll be hard pressed for time if you want to wait for total darkness to see the lights shine brightly. If you have a car, this won't be a problem. If not, then you don't want to miss that last bus going back to Soyosan station.

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