Although we had to work on Thursday, half of the day was filled with fun. We (the English teachers and all of the kids) dressed up in hanboks (a traditional Korean dress) and made tteok or rice cakes for the afternoon. It was fun, although the hanboks were a little bit uncomfortable. Apparently back in the day Korean men and women wore them all the time. I can’t imagine wearing such stiff elaborate clothing day after day! I’ll bet they were miserable.
My class and I making rice cakes!
All of us rocking the hanboks!
For the four day weekend David and I decided to take a longer trip. The idea of seeing the fall leaves in all of their glory led us to take the bus to Sokcho (a city on the northeast coast of the country) and explore Seoraksan National Park. While Sokcho is right on the beach, the park itself is filled with craggy peaks. It’s huge—you could spend a good week hiking all of its extensive trails. We only hiked for two and a half days. When we got there David was very disappointed because all of the leaves around us were still varying shades of green. After getting our hotel room we embarked on a six hour hike up to Cheondang Falls. The trails were relatively crowded—mostly with older Korean couples and toward the beginning there were actually several restaurants and giftshops where you could refresh yourself. About two hours in the refreshments disappeared and it was relatively a wilderness. The only wildlife we saw on our trail were a couple of adorable Asian chipmunks. Apparently most of Korea’s wildlife has been killed or driven off of the peninsula.
A Korean Chipmunk!
As we ascended the trail the colors of the leaves slowly started to change. At first they were subtle changes; a hint of red and orange at the tips of certain leaves. The higher we hiked the more brilliantly the colors began to show. Once we reached the falls the trees above us were a beautiful example of fall’s best displays. There were the dark red Japanese maples, bright yellow ginko trees and auburn orange oaks. David went a little camera crazy, but at least we were able to capture some of the beauty around us and share it with you. =)
We got back to our hotel and ate some really delicious fried pork before opting for an embarrassingly early bedtime (Korean TV is no reason to stay up…). The next morning we were up by eight and ready to take the other trail up to Madeungryeong peak. On our way there we ran into this really friendly British hiker named Rupert and hiked a few kilometers with him to a ridiculously high Buddhist cave. We also met some very friendly Koreans on the trail who let us try their fermented fish (it was a little too chewy for my enjoyment) and gave us directions. While the cave was hard to get to, it really wasn’t all that spectacular. There was a monk chanting mantras inside, and all I could think of was how sorry I was that he had to climb up and down the mountain every day. He must have killer calves!
From the cave we proceeded up the mountain range. The Korean man who’d fed us the fish had called it the “stegosaurus’s back” and that’s exactly what it was. The trail was almost a straight climb up to the first peak and then it dipped up and down for about five successive peaks. Although it was only 3.5 kilometers long, the final peak was nearly 4000 feet high. That’s a lot of climbing. By the end of the day my knees and feet weren’t very happy with me, but the view from the mountaintop was certainly worth it.
At the end of the knee-grinding descent we stopped at a restaurant by the Biseondae boulder and had a few refreshing beers to celebrate our victory! We decided to stick around the park until the moon rose and admire the natural beauty bathed in the light of a full moon. David took advantage of the ghastly night landscape.
A river of rocks in the moonlight.
Our final day at Seoraksan was an easy going one. We were both still very sore from our mountain scaling the day before, so we decided to explore the Sinheungsa temple close to the park entrance. We still had plenty of time when we finished with the temple so we did the easy 2.1 km hike to the Heundeulbawi boulder. It’s a 16 ton rock perched on top of a flat boulder and a small group of people can make it rock back and forth! We enjoyed playing Superman up there for a little bit.
We took the bus back to Sokcho and spent an hour resting on the beautiful beach before we caught the bus back to Seoul.
The bus back was the only time I’ve really had difficulty with the language barrier so far. David and I got on the bus and sat in our seats only to have an older Korean couple come up and show us their tickets. They had the exact same seat numbers and time that we did! They called the conductor over and he looked at the tickets and made us get out of our seats and off the bus! We had no idea what was going on when they took our bags out of the bottom and sent us back into the terminal. It took them a while to find a translator, but when they did she told us that our tickets were from Incheon to Sokcho, not vice versa. Apparently the woman we’d purchased our tickets from had gotten it mixed up! How frustrating! The next available bus back to Incheon was a 8:50 at night (six hours later). So we took a bus back to Seoul instead and took the subway to Incheon. Frustrating, but I’m glad it worked out anyway.
Today we’re taking it easy before another week with the kids. Tedious chores such as laundry and cleaning are calling my name!
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