Sejong travel guide: Government city wins over travelers with gardens, 'padak'

Say "administration" and most people picture rigid bureaucratic culture and stuffy offices — everything a vacation is not. If you believe a travel destination must be a "city of love," a "fashion capital" or at least a coastal or historic hub, a city built from scratch to house government ministries should be the last place you book for a weekend trip.

For visitors, the city defies expectations on arrival. Sejong is an easy city to travel in, where the plain traditions carried over from Jochiwon, Sejong's older town center, sit comfortably beside the tidy greenery of a planned city.

The city's designers ran a central green axis north to south through the downtown core, and the National Sejong Arboretum anchors it, cooling the urban heat island effect and handing residents a forest they can reach on foot. Sejong Lake Park sits next door. Together they provide a feast for the eyes, and the Sejong Traditional Market satisfies the palate.

Sejong landmark

The Sejong National Arboretum is the country's third national arboretum, after the Korea National Arboretum in Pocheon, Gyeonggi Province, and the Baekdudaegan National Arboretum in Bonghwa County, North Gyeongsang Province.

It is also the first built inside a city. The other two sit deep in forested or mountainous terrain — one in the middle of Gwangneung Forest, the other in a mountain of Baekdudaegan valley — while this one stands in the middle of traffic and apartment towers. The downtown skyline rising just beyond the treetops makes the point better than any brochure.

The arboretum's symbol is its Four Seasons Conservatory, three glass greenhouses shaped like an iris and joined like petals. One holds Mediterranean plants, one tropica and another holds rotating special exhibitions, so visitors can see plants from different climate zones year-round. A structure that size could easily be intimidating, but the sweeping curves make it feel intimate instead. The entrance between the "petals" leads into a circular central lobby, with a door to each greenhouse on three sides.

The Mediterranean greenhouse is showing "The Five-Color Garden Painted by Henri Matisse," a special exhibition that threads the work of the Fauvist master (1869-1954) through living plants, through the end of the year. About 50 works paying homage to Matisse stand among hydrangeas, staghorn ferns, nasturtiums and geraniums — art planted rather than hung. The centerpiece is "Five Colors Matisse Loved," a space where blue architecture, a red waterway, yellow pots and pink blooms stand out against the green.

The installation was built for this exhibition alone, yet it reads as though it had always been there. Fittingly for an exhibition made of plants, the arboretum reopened it as a "Second Season" on Sept. 19, reworking the space around autumn species and adding new pieces now that summer has gone.

The special exhibition greenhouse is running "Garden Marble: Gardens of the World" through Oct. 11. Gardens from around the world unfold along a path laid out like a board game, among them traditional Korean and Japanese gardens and a recreation of the Majorelle Garden in Marrakech, Morocco, the walled retreat that became famous as Yves Saint Laurent's muse. Squares underfoot list arboretums worth visiting, which is one way to plan the next trip while still on this one. Sejong has made these art-and-garden hybrids a hallmark, and they set the place apart from its sister arboretums.

Outside the glass, the Korean Traditional Garden provides a quiet contrast after the exotic foliage indoors. Its best stretch is the Palace Garden, a full-scale recreation of Juhamnu Pavilion and Buyongjeong Pavilion from Changdeok Palace, the loveliest of Seoul's royal compounds.

Nearby sit a Byeolseo Garden, a traditional retreat garden drawn from Soswaewon Garden in Damyang, a modest private house garden modeled after an ordinary Korean home and a bonsai garden.

Sejong Lake Park lies beside the arboretum. Its water covers more than 320,000 square meters, which makes it the largest artificial lake park in the country, bigger than Ilsan Lake Park. An 8.8-kilometer walking trail and a bike path ring the shoreline, and five artificial islands break up the surface, including Stage Island with its floating performance platform and Water Play Island, where children get into the water each summer. Grilled pork ribs followed by a slow lap of the lake is the standard Sejong weekend.

The Presidential Archives building stands at the north end of the park, holding the documents, photographs and video left behind by the country's past presidents. Visitors can sit in a replica of the presidential reception room, and the cases display the crafts and mementos that heads of state exchanged during summit diplomacy.

The paper trail runs from a 1988 planning report on the Seoul Olympics to the decree that imposed the real-name financial system, modern Korean history in its original ink rather than in a textbook. It is an easy stop midway through a walk.

Market food in hometown of 'padak'

The Sejong Traditional Market, in business since the Jochiwon days, is an essential stop.

This is where "padak" — fried chicken topped with shredded green onions — was invented, a dish now sold in every corner of the country. In old Jochiwon, ordering fried chicken simply meant padak; that was the default.

Imitators elsewhere pile raw scallions on the chicken and drizzle it with mustard sauce. The original does neither. Shredded green onion goes onto the chicken the moment it leaves the fryer, then the box lid comes down. Trapped heat wilts the onion and infuses the meat with its aroma, and no sauce is required. Buying padak and whatever else looks good at the market, then spreading it out to share potluck-style, is reason enough to visit Sejong.

This article from the Hankook Ilbo, the sister publication of The Korea Times, is translated by a generative AI system and edited by The Korea Times.