Baegot Hanul Park, Siheung: Palms at the Edge of the Empty City

If you’ve spent any time looking into Siheung, you’ve probably come across Geobukseom — the artificial turtle-shaped island developed as a marine leisure complex that never quite filled in the way the plans imagined. The broader area carries that energy: ambitious infrastructure, wide roads, a skyline of new towers with the ground floors still figuring themselves out. It’s the kind of place people write off before visiting. What they tend to skip over is the 12 kilometres of coastal park running along the West Sea beside the Baegot district — or that it might be one of the better places to spend an afternoon within reasonable distance of Seoul.

A Park in an Unlikely Place

Baegot Hanul Park traces the shoreline from the old Wolgot fishing harbour all the way toward Oido, the walkway and cycle path maintaining an unbroken view of the water throughout. On clear days the Songdo skyline floats across the bay — towers and cranes and the flat shimmer of the tidal flats — and the mountains of the peninsula rise behind it in layers. There is no admission, no gates, no particular ceremony to arriving. The park simply begins.

Sections of the promenade are given over to public art installations: large green Hangul letterforms stand on the waterfront like open-air typography, a mosaic-tiled information kiosk glows in patchwork colour, and a tall latticed tree sculpture in white steel rises over a low fountain basin, its branching form visible from some distance across the flat parkland. A-frame timber structures dot the grass embankment closer to the water, fire-pit seating arranged around them in a half-circle, facing the bay. None of it feels particularly coordinated — the park reads more like a loose accumulation of intentions than a unified design — but that looseness gives it an unhurried quality that planned destinations rarely manage.

The Seawater Pool

The part that earns the longest queues in summer is a seawater pool at the southern end of the park. It is genuinely strange in the best possible way: a sprawling, kidney-shaped expanse of pale turquoise concrete at multiple stepped levels, with artificial palm trees rising from brick-paved circular platforms and orange rounded seats scattered at intervals like oversized pebbles. Thatched shade umbrellas line the adjacent terrace in rows, iron café chairs arranged beneath them facing the pool and the sea beyond. The whole ensemble reads like a resort prop installed directly onto the West Coast of Korea — which, in a sense, is exactly what it is.

The pool draws its water from bedrock aquifers 150 metres below the surface, blended with tap water, and refreshed weekly. At a maximum depth of 0.7 metres in the adult section, it functions less as serious swimming and more as somewhere to stand in water and look at the horizon while the city skyline of Incheon sits across the bay. The scale of the scenery does something to the artificiality — the plastic palms stop looking absurd against the real sky.

The facility operates in summer only, with timed sessions and a capacity of up to 1,000 visitors per session; admission fees apply and payment is by card only. Hours and exact operating dates vary by season, so confirm before visiting. Aqua shoes are required.

The Hill Side

Adjacent to the main park sits Baegot Saengmyeong Park — a smaller, quieter space with a different register. Where Hanul Park is open and horizontal, Saengmyeong rises: a grass-covered hill with stone steps running up the centre to a shelter at the peak, the sides overgrown with wild grasses and low scrub in a way that reads less like a planned garden and more like something that has been allowed to happen. Korean pines cluster at the base of the hill, and a long wooden boardwalk cuts through them. There are information boards, but the atmosphere is more ecological than informational — a rougher texture in an otherwise manicured stretch of coast.

Sunset, and What Comes After

The park faces west, which means the light changes significantly toward the end of the afternoon. The sun descends directly over the water, throwing a path of reflection across the bay and silhouetting the Songdo towers in a way that is harder to compose badly than most things. A “Sunset Park” installation at the northern promenade — a flat-roofed white façade with an arched passageway and yellow awnings, framing a pair of small paintings of the bay — makes the obvious explicit. It was built for exactly this light.

For those looking to extend the day, Geobukseom Island — a small artificial island developed as a marine leisure complex just off Siheung — is a short distance from the park and hosts Wave Park, a large indoor surfing facility with a wave pool measuring 220 by 240 metres and a full range of surf lessons for all levels.