Asan: A Thousand-Year-Old Hot Spring and a Village That Never Modernized

Asan is in South Chungcheong, an hour from Seoul on the KTX or the Line 1 commuter train, and it is built around water that has been coming out of the ground hot for a very long time.

Onyang Hot Springs

Onyang is the oldest recorded hot spring in Korea — the first mention is from the seventh century, and Joseon kings including Sejong and Sejo came here to treat illness, with a royal travelling palace built for the purpose. The water is alkaline and comes out at around 57°C.

What survives today is a spa district rather than a royal retreat: large public bathhouses and hotel spas, a traditional market beside the station, and the Onyang Folk Museum, which holds one of the best private collections of Korean everyday objects anywhere. A soak followed by the museum is a very good rainy day.

Oeam Folk Village

Twenty minutes away, Oeam is a Joseon clan village of the Yi family that has been continuously inhabited for some 500 years. Stone walls, thatched and tiled roofs, water channels running between the houses, and — importantly — residents. It is not a reconstruction and not a theme park; people live there, farm there, and open some of the houses as guesthouses.

There is a small entry fee, the lanes are walkable in an hour, and it is at its best in early morning or late afternoon when the tour groups are gone.

Hyeonchungsa

Also in Asan: the shrine to Admiral Yi Sun-sin, Korea's most revered military figure, built where he grew up and trained. The grounds are large, formal and free, and the museum sets out the naval campaigns of the 1590s clearly. If you've seen the statue at Gwanghwamun, this is where the story is told properly.

What to eat

Chungcheong cooking is the quietest of the Korean regional styles — less chili than Jeolla, less salt than Gyeongsang — and Asan is a farming county.

• Gukbap. Slow-simmered beef or pork soup with rice, and the market restaurants here do the unfussy old-fashioned version.
• Sogure. Boiled and pressed beef offal and skin, sliced and served cold or in soup — a Chungcheong specialty that has largely disappeared elsewhere.
• Pajeon and jeon. Oeam's restaurants serve savory pancakes with makgeolli, which is the correct thing to do after walking a village in the cold.
• Grilled chicken. Old charcoal chicken shops near the market, a local format.
• Country baekban. Set meals built around vegetables grown within a few kilometers, which is the argument for eating out here at all.
• Buffet-style hanjeongsik. A rural Korean institution: a fixed low price and a long table of home-style dishes.

Practical tips

• Getting there: Seoul Subway Line 1 runs all the way to Onyangoncheon Station (about 100 minutes) — slow but cheap and easy. KTX to Cheonan-Asan is faster.
• Bathhouse etiquette: wash thoroughly before entering the pools; they are single-sex and unclothed.
• Oeam is a living village. Stay on the lanes and don't photograph into courtyards.
• Hyeonchungsa is free and closed on Tuesdays.
• Asan pairs with Cheonan, ten minutes away, if you want a bigger city for the evening.

Each restaurant below has a video on its EatHub page, which is the fastest way to tell a serious country set-meal house from a roadside stop.