Pohang: the steel city on the Sea of Japan

Home to the world's largest integrated steelworks complex, Pohang is also a departure point for Buddhist temples among the surrounding mountains.

The center, steel city on the Sea of Japan, is visited comfortably by taxi or local bus.

The POSCO steel plant, one of the world's largest integrated steelmaking complexes, transformed Pohang from a fishing village into a global industrial center in a few decades.

Just minutes away, the Yeongildae Beach, with its sunrise view over the Sea of Japan, remains popular for the traditional Korean New Year observation of the first sunrise of the year.

Continuing inland, one visits the Bogyeongsa Temple, surrounded by twelve waterfalls along a nature trail through the mountains.

As evening approaches, local restaurants serve fresh raw fish, a specialty of Korea's east coast facing the Sea of Japan.

The POSCO complex in Pohang, founded in 1968, transformed South Korea from an importer to an exporter of steel in just a few decades, becoming a symbol of the twentieth-century Korean economic miracle.

Yeongildae Beach attracts thousands of Koreans every January first as they gather to observe the year's first sunrise, a ritual of good omen deeply felt in the country.