You land at Incheon just after dawn. The windows of the terminal glow the color of old brass. Jet fuel and salt hang in the air. I shoulder one bag—thin laptop, small camera, fountain pen—and keep walking. Seoul flickers on the horizon, but I turn east before its neon can catch me.
The highway follows the Han River, silver in the low sun. Mountains rise, round and blue, heavy with pines that smell of warm resin. Past Hongcheon the road thins, curves tighten, engine hum grows hollow against granite walls. A thin mist lifts from dark water. Time slows. In the folded hills of Gangwon-do, a wooden sign—just CASCADIA—points up a narrow lane. I feel I have crossed a border not yet drawn.
Where the land speaks
The clubhouse crouches into the slope, limestone cool under the palm, corten panels streaked like wet iron. Step closer and water hits the ears first—steady, patient, the pulse of the place. Paths climb in quiet terraces, stones set so true they feel found, not laid. Above them pines sway and drop the soft hush of needles.
Three courses stretch like brushstrokes: Stone. Water. Tree. On the Water Course a par-three sits by a roaring fall. You play across to an island green. Spray salts your lips, wind drives mist against your face, thunder booms behind you. There is no sound of traffic, no tower, only gravity and the clean strike of iron on ball.
Art, held like breath
Inside, morning light catches Jean-Michel Othoniel’s glass knots, turning them to liquid amber. Barry McGee’s jagged line rides a white wall like pulse on a monitor. Floors breathe a soft pine scent. A barista pulls espresso that smells of dark earth after rain. I drink slowly. The only noise is the creak of a leather chair and the distant rush of water outside.
Food as medicine
Supper arrives in earthen bowls hot enough to sting the fingers. Baeksuk chicken swims in ginseng broth so clear you can see jade onions resting at the bottom. The steam carries a sweet root scent that fills the head and loosens the chest. Doenjang stew lands next, deep brown, alive with twenty-year soy paste that tastes of forest floor and campfire smoke. Kimchi pops like river gravel between the teeth—chili heat, lactic sparkle, touch of the sea.
Here, food is doctor. Yak-sik dong-won: medicine and meal share one root. After the last spoonful of purple rice layered with perilla oil my joints feel oiled, mind rinsed. Sleep comes fast and clean.
The silent internet
I came to test the edge between being online and being free. A slim satellite dish rests on the balcony rail. It hums so softly the wind drowns it. Morning e-mails fly off, light as dry leaves. Lid shuts. Silence again. I climb a ridge trail. A hawk wheels above the seventh fall. A temple bell drifts through cedar trunks. Pages in my notebook fill quick, ink drying in the cool air.
Why liminal matters
At Sarteri.com I speak of the liminal—spaces that live between city and wild, doing and being, last sentence sent and first breath remembered. Cascadia is that threshold. Cross it and work sheds its pomp, becomes muscle and bone, because you do the same.
Rest, write, repeat
Suites face hush and green. Some hold cedar-lined saunas; crack a ladle of water on the stones and steam rises sharp with wood and salt. Others float bathtubs under high windows, sky pouring in until water and cloud are one sheet of blue. Sheets smell of sun-bleached cotton. You wake before the alarm, lungs wide.
Pack light: notebook, pen, spare shirt. Cascadia waits at 1759 Palbongsan-ro, Bukbang-myeon, Hongcheon-gun. Staff move like river water—present, never loud. Bring what you cannot leave; set down what you no longer need.
Homeward
Westward the road widens, city lights sharpen, traffic hum thickens. Yet the valley stays inside the shoes—the feel of cold stone underfoot, pine needles on wind, thunder of water. For a while the mind keeps that older rhythm: short sentences, long breaths. The phone finally vibrates. I smile. I have crossed the threshold and returned, lighter than I left.
Liminal Retreats are not escapes. They are returns—to craft, to the self misplaced, to the page waiting before the world grew loud. Cascadia holds the door. Walk through.
