Pohang: Sunrise at the Edge of the Peninsula, and What to Eat There

Pohang sits at the far eastern edge of the Korean peninsula, where the land runs out into a hooked cape. It's a steel town — POSCO built the modern Korean economy here — and it's also the place the country comes to watch the first sunrise of the year.

It's under two and a half hours from Seoul by KTX, and it pairs naturally with Gyeongju, forty minutes south.

What to see

• Homigot. The "tiger's tail" cape, the easternmost point on the mainland. A giant bronze hand rises out of the sea here, with its pair on the shore — the Hands of Harmony. On 1 January, tens of thousands of people stand on this beach in the dark. The rest of the year it's windswept and empty and better for it.
• Guryongpo. A fishing port with a preserved street of Japanese-era wooden houses from the colonial period, when Japanese fishermen settled here. It's small, atmospheric, and became widely known as a drama location.
• Yeongildae Beach and the Space Walk. A free steel walkway sculpture on the hill above the city that you can actually climb — a roller-coaster-shaped structure with a view over the port.
• Bogyeongsa Temple and the twelve waterfalls of Naeyeonsan valley, inland.

What to eat

Pohang has two national specialties, and one of them only exists in winter:

• Gwamegi (과메기). Half-dried saury or herring, cured in the winter wind, eaten wrapped in seaweed with raw garlic, chili, and a leaf of lettuce. It's oily, powerful, and available roughly November to February. Guryongpo is its home.
• Mulhoe (물회). Raw fish in an icy, sweet-spicy broth, eaten with noodles or rice stirred in at the end. It's the summer counterpart to gwamegi and Pohang's version is the benchmark.
• Daege (snow crab). The east coast crab season peaks from winter into spring, and Pohang's Jukdo Market is one of the main places to buy it.
• Jukdo Market. The biggest traditional market on the east coast, packed with raw fish, dried seafood, and a whole street of hoe restaurants.
• Beef. Pohang's butcher-restaurants (sikyuk-sikdang) serve local beef bought by weight at the counter and grilled at your table.
• Bunsik. The city has a genuinely famous old snack shop selling hand-cut noodles and steamed sweets, and a strong market-food culture.

Practical tips

• Getting there: KTX to Pohang Station (about 2h20m from Seoul). Buses run from the station to Homigot in around an hour.
• New Year's Day at Homigot requires booking accommodation months ahead and expecting traffic.
• Gwamegi is seasonal. Don't plan a summer trip around it — order mulhoe instead.
• Jukdo Market's raw fish restaurants work like Noryangjin: buy downstairs, eat upstairs.
• Combine with Gyeongju. The two cities are 40 minutes apart and make an easy two-day pairing.

Each restaurant below has a video on its EatHub page — useful in a market city where the good rooms look exactly like the ordinary ones.