Fall in Korea is beyond gorgeous. Even being from a place with a nice fall season, I was mesmerized by the colors on the trees in this country. Everything becomes painted with shades of orange, red, and yellow and seems to stay that way for months. Set against the backdrop of mountains and blue skies it makes for a dreamy walk to work each day. That said, with all of its beauty Korea unfortunately lacks in the customary autumn festivities. There isn’t any apple picking or hot apple cider. Starbucks doesn’t serve pumpkin spice lattes. Halloween is not celebrated. There is no pumpkin carving or scary movie marathons on TV. While the weather is beautiful the traditional feeling of fall can be hard to come by.

In an attempt to regain some of the fuzzy feelings of fall from home some friends and I decided to venture out of the city to an apple festival that we had read about online. The ad promised apple picking and tons of autumn activities. With ideas of home in mind we adorned ourselves in plaid and woke up early to make the long trek down to Cheongsong in central Korea.

Getting to these places is never quite as easy as it seems. It took a subway, a bus, and a kind stranger to get us to the festival in a total of six hours… what some basic white girls will do to go apple picking in October.

We made it to the festival expecting to see stands selling apple cinnamon baked goods, apple cider, apple wine, and of course miles of red spotted orchards to go apple picking. What we discovered is that even in its best efforts, Korea’s idea of an apple festival is unfortunately quite lacking in the standard festivities we are used to from the United States. Ironically, the festival was less about apple themed festivities and more about apples themselves. SO MANY APPLES.

As it turns out Cheongsong is famous for growing apples, and it seemed every orchard owner and their cousin was set up in a booth offering samples of, what appeared to be, the exact same type of apple which is kind of similar to a gala. Not to sour or too sweet, and actually quite delicious. We sampled as we walked taking in all of the green and white tents as well as the apple themed art installations. Finally, we found a little girl selling home-made apple pies that she baked with her mom. Score.

We continued to explore the festival. We saw some tractors and sampled some apple liquor, various types of tea, and even a little apple juice. It turned out there weren’t any apple orchards for picking bundles of apples, or at least not that we could find, but at that point we were happy just to be taking home our apple pies.

After a few hours we left the festival via bus and started our six hour journey home. While it was a long day, it was worth it for a little taste of autumn and the apple pie which made for a scrumptious breakfast the following morning