Ansan Botanical Garden

This is a city-run botanical garden where you can walk beneath palm trees even in midwinter. Ansan Botanical Garden, inside Seongho Park in Sangnok-gu, opened in 2001, and its three pyramid-shaped glasshouses are divided between tropical plants and plants from central and southern Korea. Admission is free and it is close to the town centre, so locals drop in for a stroll, and with the tomb of the Silhak scholar Yi Ik and the Seongho Museum right next door it makes an easy half-day outing.

Three glasshouses

• Hall 1, Tropical Garden: around 100 species of tropical plants, palms included. A small pond with water trickling over stones, a water wheel and parrot cages add to the fun.
• Hall 2, Central Korea Garden: 177 species in 11 groups of wildflowers from central Korea, from familiar irises to flowers of the hills and fields, with something different in bloom each season.
• Hall 3, Southern Korea Garden: wetland plants and edible plants.

The glasshouses were built as glass pyramids, modelled on the conservatories of well-known gardens abroad. Potted azaleas and pine bonsai are dotted around them, and there is greenery to see in every season.

Outdoor gardens

Outside are a rose garden with four varieties, an orchard of fruit trees and a wild plant garden. The plant succession garden, which shows how grasses and trees gradually colonise bare ground, is something few botanical gardens have. There is also a small pond for a loop after the glasshouses.

Yi Ik's neighbourhood

Seongho Park takes its name from the pen name of Yi Ik (Seongho, 1681–1763), a scholar of the practical-learning (Silhak) movement of late Joseon. In 1705 he went to sit the state examination but was turned away because his application was not in the proper form, and when his elder brother died in prison the following year he gave up on an official career and devoted himself to scholarship. His Seongho Saseol sharply criticised local administration, finances, the examination system and the military, and proposed reforms. His conviction that all learning must be of practical use to society became a main current of Silhak thought.

His tomb (a Gyeonggi Provincial Monument) and the Seongho Museum are within walking distance of the garden. He is buried together with his two wives, and beside the tomb stand the Cheomseongsa shrine and the Gyeonghojae ritual lodge. Continue to the nearby Danwon Sculpture Park and Nojeokbong Park to see most of the green space in Ansan's old town centre.

Tripto tips

• Opening hours: 09:30–17:30 from March to November and 09:30–17:00 from December to February. Closed on Mondays and on the days of Seollal and Chuseok.
• Admission and parking: free, with a free car park.
• Groups: groups should book a week ahead, or a month ahead in the busy season, through the Ansan City parks department.
• Getting there: it is about 800 m in a straight line from Hanyang Univ. at Ansan Station on Seoul Subway Line 4 and the Suin–Bundang Line.
• Time needed: 1 hour for the three glasshouses and outdoor gardens; about 2 hours if you add the Seongho Museum and Yi Ik's tomb.
• When to go: the glasshouses make it a good rainy-day or cold-day option, and the rose garden is best from late spring to early summer.