Sokcho Tourist & Fishery Market and dakgangjeong
Sokcho Tourist & Fishery Market and dakgangjeongPhoto: Bernard Gagnon / CC0 1.0
About 450 shops, with fish in the basement, dried squid and the chicken alley where dakgangjeong, sweet-chilli fried chicken, is sold by the box. Mansuk Dakgangjeong’s main shop is beside it, 10:00–20:00 by a secondary listing. The cruise lines’ own tours all stop here, and the market joined a national cruise-linked programme in 2026. Mostly covered: the rain pick.
- Short enough to be certain of: 1 hr 40 min door to door, so even a tender day works.
- It is not only a photo stop: squid that is vanishing, pollack that already has, and a chicken alley that queues for an hour.
Why Sokcho Tourist & Fishery Market and dakgangjeong is famous
Squid that is vanishing, pollack that already has, and a chicken alley that queues for an hour
The Sokcho Tourist & Fishery Market, formerly the Jungang Market, has about 450 shops: fish on the basement floor, dried squid and pollack upstairs. In the chicken alley, dakgangjeong, fried chicken glazed in a sweet chilli sauce, is sold by the box to take home. Mansuk Dakgangjeong, whose main shop is beside the market, is the name most visitors know. In March 2026 the market was chosen for the second phase of the national K-Tourism Market programme, with cruise-linked events. The city has run a free shuttle here from the cruise terminal on recent ship days. The ship lines’ own tours all stop here.
The two fish that built this port are both in trouble. What people eat in Sokcho now is partly what is left, and partly what the refugees invented.
Hamgyeong refugees bring sundae, naengmyeon and sikhae; squid stands in for pork intestine
A record 160,000 t landed in the East Sea; Goseong alone 20,000 t
At Jungang Market, now the Sokcho Tourist & Fishery Market
The reference year for the decline that follows
On a ten-hour call: sundae in Abai Village at lunch and dakgangjeong from the market to take aboard. Add raw fish at Daepo Port if the taxi budget allows. Carry won; stalls and the Gaetbae machine may not take a foreign card.
Three places, three different answers
The one the queue agrees on, the one people who live here use instead, and the one nearest your ship. Opening days change; check before you build a day around one.
The best-known dakgangjeong name, by the market; 72 Cheongchohoban-ro (addresses vary between listings). Boxes about ₩17,000–20,000. 10:00–20:00 daily, no closing day found (secondary).
Open in Google MapsClosest to the berthJungang Dakgangjeong중앙닭강정In the market’s chicken alley itself, for a box to carry back to the ship. Hours not found.
Open in Google MapsSokcho Tourist & Fishery Market and dakgangjeong and your ship
Both pins on one map, so the distance is a fact rather than a feeling.
Where the 1 hr 40 min goes
Counted from the moment you step off the gangway. The hour before all-aboard is not in this bar; it is already set aside.
20 minutes each way is the measured figure for on foot via the gaetbae, 20 min; taxi ~9 min, about ₩5,800; or the free city shuttle on ship days, not the optimistic one. If your ship is late, cut the 1 hr in the middle. Never cut the hour at the end.
Routes that already include it
Each one is a finished day we have walked and timed, with this stop in it. Read the route rather than assembling it yourself.
What to put beside it
Each of these still lands you back aboard with the hour to spare.
2 hr 55 min for bothOjingeo sundae lunch in Abai Village
Ojingeo sundae is squid stuffed with rice and vegetables and steamed, the refugees’ substitute when pork intestine was short.
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3 hr for bothAbai Village and the Gaetbae ferry
The quarter built in 1950 by about 6,000 refugees from North Korea’s Hamgyeong Province, on the sandbar beside the terminal.
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3 hr 20 min for bothSinheungsa and the Unification Buddha
The Jogye Order head temple just inside Seoraksan’s Sogongwon gate, rebuilt on this site in 1648.
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