In the heart of Daejeon, where ribbons of the Gapcheon River wind beneath the city’s many bridges, an unspoken energy hums through the air. It is a city of crossroads—where Korea’s ancient roads once met and where today the bullet trains of KTX Daejeon Station fan out like spokes. Here, history and technology blend in quiet harmony: the historic fortress walls of Uam Historic Park standing sentinel only a few kilometers from the gleaming silos of KAIST and the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI).
It was on an early spring morning—when the magnolias along Dunsan-dong began to shiver with pale pink blooms—that Hye-jin first crossed paths with Min-jae. She moved with the calm grace of one intimately acquainted with time itself. A graduate student of Korean literature at Chungnam National University, Hye-jin carried in her hands a slim leather-bound volume of Hwang Jin-i’s verses—a tribute to the complex beauty of Joseon-era poetry. Her raven hair was swept back with a silver pin fashioned like a Goryeo crown ornament, and her eyes held an ancient wisdom beyond her 24 years.
Min-jae, in contrast, seemed carved from the modern pulse of Daejeon. An engineer at the Daejeon Government Research Complex, he wore the neat uniform of a lab technician: crisp white coat, rectangular glasses, and an ID badge clipped to his chest. Each morning he biked along the Expo Bridge, past the site of the 1993 Daejeon Expo, where once a million visitors strolled marveling at innovations from across Asia. Though his world was one of circuits and semiconductors, his heart pulsed with an unacknowledged longing for something intangible.
It happened as the 7:45 train from Seoul drew in. Crowded commuters spilled onto the platform at Daejeon Station. Hye-jin stood near the southern exit, consulting a paper map of the Hanbat Arboretum—her destination for morning contemplation. Min-jae, caught in the crush, jostled her elbow. The book—Hwang Jin-i’s verses—slipped, pages fluttering like startled birds.
“I am so sorry,” Min-jae murmured, stooping to gather the scattered pages. The world seemed to shift in that instant: her poetic volume cupped in his hands, the soft morning light glancing off the old hanbok-style pendant she wore at her throat.
“It’s no trouble,” Hye-jin replied, her voice steady. She recognized him at once—the young engineer whose name she had seen on the published papers from ETRI. But here, on this platform in Daejeon, they were simply two strangers joined by a single moment.
He handed her the book. Their fingers brushed. The collision was electric—an ancient spark kindling anew.
“Thank you,” she said, closing the volume. Their eyes met. In them glimmered hopes neither dared name.
Without quite knowing why, Min-jae found himself guiding her toward the stationary bicycles that lined the station square. “May I accompany you to the arboretum?” he asked. The question was nearly absurd—they were not friends, and yet in Daejeon’s quiet dawn, it felt inevitable.
Hye-jin hesitated only a heartbeat before nodding. As they pedaled side by side along Yuseong Creek, their breaths mingled with the fragrant smoke of samgyeopsal grilling at nearby stalls. Under the budding cherry blossoms, they spoke of everything and nothing: the legend of Geumgangsan mountain spirits, the annual fireworks at Expo Science Park, the ache of Seoul’s crowded streets.
By the time they reached the Hanbat Arboretum—an oasis of maples and plum trees—Min-jae realized he had never felt so profoundly understood. Hye-jin’s eyes reflected a depth that matched the tranquil koi ponds, and her smile warmed him more than the first shafts of dawn.
When they parted at the arboretum’s gate, neither spoke of meeting again. Yet as Min-jae watched her silhouette recede, he carried her presence like a secret echo through the rest of his day among circuit boards and laser etchers.
Over the next weeks, the city of Daejeon became the stage for an unfolding drama neither Hye-jin nor Min-jae could have scripted. They met by chance near Daejeon Station and, soon enough, by design at the KAIST campus café. He was working on a breakthrough sensor; she was cataloging rare Joseon manuscripts donated to the university library.
Often they strolled the terraces of Daecheongho Lake, where the gentle breeze carried hints of rice paddies beyond Chungcheongnam-do’s edges. They shared tragedies too: Hye-jin confessed that her elder brother had perished in a factory fire in neighboring Sejong City; Min-jae revealed his mother battled a chronic illness. Yet they also celebrated small victories—the brilliant petal of a lotus opening at sunrise in the arboretum, the first cherry blossom festival at Tubonduri Multi-Purpose Hall.
One evening, under the neon glow of downtown Daejeon, Min-jae took Hye-jin to the famed Yuseong Hot Springs. There, in the milky, healing water revered since Silla times, they shed more than their outer garments. Hye-jin spoke of the Yi Sun-sin’s legendary courage; Min-jae shared his dream to develop medical diagnostics that would save lives, inspired by his mother’s struggle. Their hearts, raw and open, hovered between them like fireflies against the warm night air.
When he brushed a stray strand of hair from her face, Hye-jin closed her eyes. In that instant the city—a collage of electronics labs and ancient pavilions—faded. Only the two of them remained, floating in the moment between heartbeats. Min-jae leaned in, and their lips met with the tenderness of first snowfall.
Daejeon’s skyline shimmered behind them: the twin towers of Dunsan Landmark City, the spire of the Science Museum, and beyond, the receding silhouette of Gyeryongsan Mountain standing guard. In that kiss, they pledged themselves to one another, even before they could speak the vow aloud.
Yet fate, that oldest editor of human affairs, had other pages waiting.
Their love grew like a lotus rising through muddy water—beautiful, fragile, and determined. Hye-jin and Min-jae visited the yearly Daejeon Science Festival, dancing arm in arm beneath the glow of rocket-propelled exhibits. They sampled bibimbap at Jung-gu’s bustling alley markets and explored the Daejeon O-World zoo at sunset.
But beneath the laughter lurked an unspoken dread. Min-jae’s research grant had been awarded by a consortium in California’s Silicon Valley. He was to leave in two months to lead a team on a pioneering biotech project. For the good of humanity, for the legacy of his mother’s battle, he could not refuse.
Hye-jin understood his ambition—she admired his selflessness. Yet when he told her, her hands trembled around the stem of a gerbera daisy he had given her at Expo Park. Under the rows of illuminations from the city’s historic 1993 pavilion, she pressed her forehead against his shoulder, tasting his scent like the water of Yuseong springs.
“How will Daejeon feel without you?” she whispered, voice cracking.
“And how will I breathe without you?” he answered.
They made a promise beside the Gapcheon River: exactly one year from that day, under the cherry blossoms at Hanbat Arboretum, they would meet again—regardless of distance, time zones, or the barriers of the world.
The day of his departure arrived with a gray chill. At Seodaejeon Station, they clung to one another as the train’s whistle mourned. On the platform, a final hush fell. Min-jae brushed a kiss upon Hye-jin’s forehead. “I will return,” he vowed. “I will love you beyond oceans.”
And with that, he stepped aboard. The train lurched forward, carrying him away from the city they had claimed as theirs. Hye-jin watched until the tail lights of the train swallowed him, until only the echo of the whistle remained amidst Daejeon’s hum.
The morning Min-jae’s Korean Air flight lifted off from Incheon, Daejeon felt suddenly hollow—as if its very pulse had been plucked and carried across the Pacific. The Gapcheon River, usually alive with fishermen’s lanterns and students’ laughter, flowed on indifferently; the cherry blossoms at Hanbat Arboretum continued to drift like pale snow. Yet in Hye-jin’s chest there throbbed a silence far more profound.
Daejeon, city of crossroads, was left behind. She returned each day to her routines—archiving Joseon calligraphy at Chungnam National University, guiding visitors through the ancient stone walls at Uam Historic Park, and supervising lectures at the Literature & Art Museum near Dunsan-dong. When the midday sun warmed the tiled roofs of Yuseong Hot Springs, she found herself pausing beside the steamy pavilions, fingertips tracing the smooth wood railings, wondering if Min-jae had conjured this place from memory as well.
Meanwhile, Min-jae—hundreds of miles away in California’s Silicon Valley—rekindled the same ember of longing with every sunrise that gilded his apartment window. His laboratory, sheltered within the gleaming domes of Stanford Research Park, buzzed with the promise of tomorrow: sensors that could detect illness in a single drop of blood, machine-learning algorithms that could predict outbreaks before they spread. Yet when he peered at the laptop screen—a prototype displaying her name in Hangul, “혜진”—his heart contracted. Across thousands of miles, under the same moon that hung over Gyeryongsan’s peaks, they were each tethered by an invisible chord.
They had promised to write every week. Hye-jin’s letters were handwritten scrolls of calligraphy ink, sealed with a pressed magnolia blossom from Expo Park; Min-jae’s came as long emails, punctuated by satellite-quality photographs of California poppies and the sunset behind the Golden Gate Bridge.
In her apartment overlooking the neon-lit streets of Jung-gu, Hye-jin arranged each letter on the windowsill as though gazing at a gallery. She read his words aloud—softly, in the hush before dawn—listening to how his syllables echoed her own memories of Daejeon Expo ’93, when steel dinosaurs once guarded the entrance to the World Fair’s Crystal Pavilion. She wrote back about the humming night markets where she lingered over tteokbokki, about the Jeongwol Daeboreum lantern festival at Hanbat Arboretum, where villagers released paper boats upon the water, sending prayers downstream.
Min-jae printed her letters and taped them beside the whiteboard in his office at ETRI’s Silicon Valley outpost. Each time he solved a vexing circuit-board glitch or perfected the alignment of a photoelectric sensor, he traced her cursive loops with his fingertips and whispered, “For you, 혜진.”
By Chuseok, the harvest moon shone full and golden over the Korean peninsula and beyond. In Daejeon, her family circled the low wooden table—rice cakes, grilled mackerel, kimchi meticulously folded into gleaming rows. Hye-jin lifted her gaze at the window, hoping Min-jae might teleport across time zones to join the feast. In California, he watched the same moon hanging heavy in an inky sky, his soju glass filled with American whiskey in a makeshift “Bokbunja cocktail.” He sent her a photo, a grin beneath starlight.
When the first pale buds of Seollal arrived, Hye-jin wore her hanbok in delicate shades of mint and rose. She performed the ancestral rites before an altar of jeon—savory Korean pancakes—and barrel-aged makgeolli, her heart in two lands at once. She closed her eyes and heard Min-jae’s voice in the rustle of hanji paper, felt his breath in the winter wind.
But obligations weighed upon them both. Min-jae’s research team demanded ever-longer hours; breakthroughs came at the expense of sleep and the quiet joy of morning letters. Hye-jin took on extra lectures to fund a restoration project at the National Science Museum’s Korean ceramics wing. Each evening, as Daejeon’s streetcars rattled past her window and the lights of Dunsan Landmark City shimmered like distant constellations, she wondered: Was love enough to bridge continents?
One April afternoon, barely a month before their anniversary promise, the letters stopped arriving. Hye-jin’s inbox remained empty for days, then weeks. She visited the post office on Daejeon Station’s ground floor, cradling her last inked epistle. The clerk shook her head: “Nothing for you, Miss Kim.”
Her world contracted to the size of a single room. She revisited every corner of Daecheongho Lake, sat in the silent grove of black pine at Expo Science Park, watched the white cranes above Munji Reservoir hoping for a sign. Her parents counseled patience; her professors urged focus on her career; the archivists whispered, “Perhaps he is busy with duties there.”
In Silicon Valley, Min-jae wrestled with a corporate bid to purchase his lab’s patents. Boardroom battles replaced benchside tinkering; legal teams drowned out the quiet seeking in his heart. He had mailed his responses—thick envelopes of ardent longing—only to learn they were returned overseas with “address unknown” stamped in red. The apartment keys he had given the building manager expired. No one forwarded his mail.
His evenings echoed with the hush of a lost promise. He wandered Golden Gate Park’s blossoming magnolias, the petals reminding him of her seal, now perhaps wilted in some Daejeon drawer. One night, beneath the bridge’s steel cables, he whispered into the wind: “Find her, somehow.”
When Hye-jin finally received an email notification—an automated reply from her own address—she almost laughed at the absurdity: “Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently…” Her breaths came in ragged sobs. She folded into despair, convinced the chasm between them had finally swallowed their love.
Min-jae, crestfallen, considered abandoning his project—to fly back to Daejeon, to knock at her door, to demand the truth in her eyes. But every ticket he priced online reminded him of the cost of a broken promise: the project, his mother’s treatment fund, the dreams of thousands who would benefit from his sensors. Heartbroken, he wrote one final email, his words stark as winter branches: “Forgive me. I must finish what we began. If you wait, meet me next year at Hanbat Arboretum.”
He sent it to her university address and never logged in again.
Hye-jin read that message beneath the ancient zelkova trees at Uam Historic Park, each word a blade twisting in her chest. Was this his farewell or his vow? She did not know. Her tears fell into the dry leaves of history.
Yet in Daejeon’s cafes and research institutes, their love story—though now paused—continued to pulse like a secret current. The stone lanterns at the arboretum glowed each night, waiting for two souls who had promised to return. Across the Pacific, Min-jae closed his laptop and stared at a blank page, certain that somewhere, his Hye-jin was writing her own ending.
The year’s first snow fell quietly upon Daejeon like pale confessions drifting from a locked heart. On the streets of Jung-gu, dustings of white settled upon kimchi-stained rooftops and the neon signboards lining Culture Street. At Chungnam National University, Hye-jin paused mid-step, her breath ghosting in the air, as if the city itself had pressed “pause” upon her life.
Ever since that last, aching letter from Min-jae—his valedictory plea forging a promise that neither truly believed—an emptiness had hollowed out days and nights. In her small atelier within Dunsan-dong, where she restored ancient manuscripts by the light of a single hanji lamp, she traced her fingers over the brushstrokes of old calligraphy, searching for meaning in the loops and lines. Yet each page felt colder, as though the ink had frozen with memory.
She tried to lose herself in her work: cataloguing a trove of Baekje-era relics recently unearthed at Gongju, lecturing eager students on the evocative power of Kim Su-young’s poetry, and helping to stage an exhibition at the Daejeon Museum of Art that juxtaposed contemporary sculptures with relics of Silla gold. But every time she caught sight of the Hanbat Arboretum beyond the canvas of her window, her heart clenched with the hope that Min-jae’s silhouette might emerge from among the skeletal branches.
Meanwhile, on the far side of the Pacific, Min-jae felt the tremor of completion beneath his fingertips. After sleepless months of refining algorithms in a makeshift lab above Palo Alto, his sensor device—the H-J BioProbe—had passed its final round of clinical trials. The breakthroughs were unprecedented: a single drop of blood could now forecast viral infections days before symptoms appeared. International journals clamored; venture capitalists lined up.
Yet on the eve of his corporate buyout—when board members toasted his triumph with vintage champagne—Min-jae excused himself to the rooftop terrace. Below, Silicon Valley’s lights resembled a constellation turned inward, brilliant but isolated. Amid the clinking of glasses, his gaze drifted across the continent to the mountains of Gyeryongsan and the winding banks of the Gapcheon River he’d left behind. His victory tasted hollow without Hye-jin’s laughter to share it.
He recalled the promise sealed beneath cherry blossoms, the tremor of her voice as she spoke of her love for Daejeon’s history, the way her eyes reflected the first distant glimmer of dawn. And he knew: to truly triumph, he would risk everything to find her again.
On a chilled morning in December, he boarded a flight from San Francisco to Incheon International Airport, clutching a single object—a tiny bamboo box filled with snow-sprigged hanji paper, folded into cranes. Each crane bore a word: “Hope,” “Return,” “Forever,” “Daejeon,” “혜진.” At the immigration desk, his passport stamped, he felt the steady rhythm of his heart: one, two, three… and it was time.
A few hours later, beneath the gleaming arch of Daejeon Station’s atrium, he stepped onto Korean soil for the first time in a year. His cheeks burned not with jet lag but with the ache of anticipation. He surveyed the scene—the lines of taxis gliding past, the ginkgo trees along Dunsan-ro shimmering like gold coins, the soft plumes of steam rising from Pro rail kiosks serving jeon and makgeolli.
He sent a brief message to a mutual friend: “Prepare her.”
That night, as the city slept under a quilt of snow, Hye-jin returned home—her coat heavy with frost—from the closing reception at the Daejeon Museum of Art. She reached into her pocket for her phone. A text glowed:
“Meet me where our story began. 7:00 PM. Hanbat Arboretum.”
No signature. Her pulse thundered. Under the streetlights, she whispered, “Min-jae?” Tears crystallized at her eyelashes.
Bundled in layers of wool, she set out on the tram to Daedeok Science Town, then transferred to the bus circulating the arboretum’s rim. Each minute stretched, a taut string above a canyon. Finally, she stepped through the low wooden gazebo—its eaves heavy with snow—into the heart of the Hanbat Arboretum.
There, beneath the gnarled boughs of an ancient zelkova, stood Min-jae. His white coat dusted with snow, the bamboo box cupped in his hands like a sacred relic. The snowflakes drifted down, settling on his dark hair, on the creases of his coat.
For a long moment, neither moved. Then Min-jae knelt, placing the box upon the bench. He opened it, releasing the paper cranes into the air. They fluttered upward, a miniature storm of hope.
“Healer of bodies,” he began, voice low against the hush of snowfall, “you are the only one who ever healed my soul.”
Hye-jin’s breath caught. “Why did you come?” she whispered, stepping forward.
“Because love,” he said, standing to pull her close, “is the greatest discovery of all.”
They embraced beneath the zelkova, their hearts louder than the winter wind.
The thaw that followed their reunion felt miraculous. As snow relinquished the city, Daejeon bloomed anew: the Expo Science Park pathways burst with daffodils, the crystal pavilion reflecting sunlight across the Gapcheon’s glassy surface, and cherry blossoms once again lining Hanbat Arboretum in pink lantern-like blossoms.
For Hye-jin, the world realigned. She led Min-jae through her favorite haunts: the hidden library of Daedeok Library, where she taught children to write Hangeul in swirls of ink; the battered teahouse at Sicheon Reservoir, where she found solace in green tea and quiet conversation; and the lantern-lit alleys of the Jeongwol Festival, where they released paper boats bearing wishes of love and longevity.
In return, Min-jae brought her backstage into the world he’d built abroad. He showed her the patents filed in her name alongside his, the medical centers in Seoul now adopting his BioProbe, and pictures of his mother—smiling at last—as she held up a vial, marveling at the device that had foretold her treatment’s success.
Together they wandered the terra cotta corridors of Gyejoksan Mountain Fortress, tracing ancient stones with gloved hands. They studied constellations from Roche Observatory atop Gyeryongsan, recalling how, as children, they’d dreamed of touching the stars. In every step, they reasserted their bond—threads weaving between present and past, science and poetry, flesh and spirit.
By spring, they had forged a new life in Daejeon. Min-jae opened a small innovation hub in Daedeok Innopolis, a boutique lab where he and local researchers refined the BioProbe for diagnosing agricultural pathogens—ensuring safe harvests across Chungcheongnam-do’s rice paddies. Hye-jin became the curator of the new Daejeon Archive of Literary Arts, preserving digital facsimiles of Joseon-era texts for posterity.
On late summer evenings, they dined beneath lanterns strung alongside the Expo Bridge, sampling nakji-bokkeum and savoring the lullaby of the river below. In autumn, they led walking tours through the gold-hued pines of Uam Park, regaling travelers with stories of King Sejong’s invention of Hangeul and the legend of Jaji Pass. They spoke before conventions in Busan and Daegu about the seamless fusion of art and technology.
And always, they returned—hand in hand—to the zelkova at Hanbat Arboretum, where snow, blossoms, and sunlight had each borne witness to a love unbroken by distance.
On the first anniversary of Min-jae’s return, a quiet ceremony was held at the base of Gyeryongsan’s Cheonwangbong Peak. Friends and family—doctors who had saved his mother, archivists who had guided Hye-jin’s restoration work, colleagues from ETRI and KAIST—stood in a circle. They had watched in awe as two lives, once poised on opposite shores, converged into a single current.
Min-jae and Hye-jin exchanged vows in the hush of dawn. He spoke of patience as a forge that tempered his determination. She spoke of faith as the ink that wrote their future. They pledged to nurture each other’s calling: that his inventions would heal bodies, and her words would heal hearts.
When the officiant—a respected monk from the Tongdong-sa temple—pronounced them bound, a thousand paper cranes cascaded down from the zelkova’s branches, each crane carrying a prayer for joy, prosperity, and undying love.
The city of Daejeon exhaled a soft sigh, as though the mountains, the river, and every ancient brick had been holding their breath.
Years drifted onward. Their children learned to read beneath the gilded roofs of the National Science Museum wing Hye-jin helped curate. The BioProbe they developed together saved lives from Seoul to San Francisco. On clear nights, the couple revisited Roche Observatory, their wedding bands gleaming like twin stars above the dark expanse.
And always, the heart of their story beat at the Hanbat Arboretum. Travelers would pause beneath the gnarled zelkova, spotting a bronze plaque bearing two names: Kim Min-jae and Cho Hye-jin, “In love beyond oceans, in promise beyond time.”
So if ever you find yourself in Daejeon, chase the scent of magnolia along Dunsan-dong, follow the murmur of the Gapcheon River, and step through the wooden gate of the Hanbat Arboretum. There, when the light and shadow tremble together, you may glimpse two figures entwined in a vow older than memory—reminders that love, like this city of crossroads, endures across every chasm and binds every wandering soul home.
If you want to read other stories from South Korea click here.
If you want to read stories from other places click here.
For more information check these posts:
- South Korea: The Hanbat Arboretum
- South Korea: Uam Historical Park
- UAM Historical Park: A Piece of History
- The Best Spas and Korean Hot Springs in Fall & Winter
- Daecheong Dam — Where Your Eyes Can Rest in Silence
- Adventures at O World
- Cycling From Seoul to Jeonju – Part 1 of 2
- Cycling From Seoul to Jeonju – Part 2 of 2 – Daecheong Lake
- Part One: The Best City in Korea?
- South Korea: Ancient Tombs Of Bullo-Dong
- Hiking Gyeryongsan National Park, South Korea
- Hiking the main peak at Gyeryongsan, Gwaneumbong
- Exploring the Scenic Trails of Gyeryongsan National Park: A Hiker’s Guide
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