“There are other memories, not only flowers from the fire but little sprouts that suddenly appear when I go on trains,” wrote poet, and avid train lover, Pablo Neruda. In Temuco, Chile, the National Railway Museum was built in his honor and is laced with his poetry, as his train travels were often the windows for his words. I had imagined the five-hour O-Trainto be quiet and pensive like my muse for this trip—the Bergen Railway. Instead, it turned out to be filled with a bipolar pop music playlist and cheery train attendants who also doubled as the hosts of a game show aired throughout the train. Rain and fallen branches on the tracks meant a two-hour delay in Buncheon, where we were scheduled to transfer from the O-Train to the V-Train. To kill time, we bought fresh dongdongju and apples from the 55-year old convenience store named Hwang-su Super, until cheering from hiking-gear dressed ajummas and ajusshis signaled the V-Train’s departure. The V-Train, only an hour long, served as the highlight of the trip, where we rode with the windows down as it wove in and out of tunnels built into the soft mountain hills, wet with raindrops and trickling valley rivers. Though supposedly most beautiful in winter, the occasional white flowering perennials speckled like snow showcased the mountain’s appeal even off-season. Once in Cheoram, we walked around the Coal Mine History Town—a preserved collection of buildings from the ‘40s to the ‘60s made even more realistic by the gray weather. Inside a few of the buildings, life-size replicas from the not-so-distant past, remain with written explanations about Cheoram’s history. The plaques on the walls were not half as interesting as Kim Geun-bae, our bus driver and Taebaek-teacher abroad Bus 4 to Taebaek Market, who welcomed every passenger with a personalized hello and provided a detailed account of every building we passed. “It’s such a pity to me all the sights that are missed out on, just because people don’t know.” A hearty Taebaek special of hanwoo beef cooked over yeontan coals at Hyundai Silbi carried us over until our arrival atRockitsuda, a contemporary-style pension in nearby Jeongseon county. Over hot cups of tea, owner Kim Jae-il exclaimed, “Oh, the beauty of Taebaek—I felt it during winter train rides here.”