Seoraksan National Park!

Happy October!

It is Monday night here in Korea and I'm finally home, showered, and have time to rest after a long and tiring weekend at Seoraksan National Park!

Friday night, I didn't do much after class. I had to pack still, do some laundry, and clean my apartment so I didn't have to do it all when I got back later Monday. I also wanted to get to bed early because we had to wake up very early to get to the bus on time.

Saturday, I woke up at 5:15 and just finished getting everything together and walked with Rachel and Christine to the subway station. On our walk over, I just kept thinking of my dad telling me, "Morning is the best time of the day" which I'm still not sure if I agree with at 6:00am and it's cold out! We met another teacher, Heather, at her subway station and proceeded to our Adventure Korea group meeting spot in Seoul.  It was about a 4 hour bus ride to Sokcho, which is on the East coast. We had Bibimbap for lunch, which is rice mixed with a bunch of other stuff. I like our school's version better, but it's still a good dish. After that, we entered the park. There a ton of different trails to do and so our group split into 3 groups, one group that would do a 5 hour hike, one that would do a 3 hour hike, and one group that would do about an hour and a half hike to a waterfall and then have time to take the cable car up to one peak. All four of us decided to do the cable car so we'd be able to see the top and have time for the waterfall. It was pretty easy and the weather was really nice out. At the top of the cable car, it was a 15 minute walk to the highest point which involved basically climbing on all fours to get up there. We were so high that at one point I thought it was getting foggy out, until I realized it was actually a wispy cloud that was moving past us! After everyone was finished, we headed to our hotel to shower and eat dinner. By this time it was really cold and the heat wasn't on in our hotels (which consists of just floor heating) but luckily after dinner they were on. That's pretty much how you heat your apartment here, is under the floor heaters since its common for Koreans to sleep on the floor just on mats. We went to bed pretty early because Sunday was the day we were hiking for 11 hours!

On Sunday, Heather, Christine and I had to get up at 6 to have breakfast and then had to drive to our starting hiking point. We started hiking about 7:30. The tour guide guy said it would be about 4 hours to the top, and 6 hours down, since we were a different way back than the way up. The "top" was the highest peak called Daecheongbong. The first twenty minutes was all completely uphill but then it actually wasn't that bad, it was a lot of horizontal than just straight up which was nice. The colors were gorgeous!! I kept taking more and more pictures and none of them could do it justice. It was one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen. It was so nice to be away from the city and smell natural fresh air and see the fall colors. It ended up taking about 11 hours so we were pretty beat by the time we got back. If you didn't want to go hiking, you had the option of just hanging out at the beach in Sokcho, which Rachel did.  We all took nice hot showers, ate the Korean version of ramen in our room, and hung out before going to bed.

Monday was the easiest day, we had the option of going on a 3 1/2 hour hike or a 2 hour hike, so we opted for the 2 hour since our legs were pretty sore (and we got to sleep in more then!). It was only a hike to another waterfall and it wasn't very strenuous so that was nice. It was also a lot warmer by that time! We had lunch and headed out around 1:00pm. Since it was the end of the long weekend, there was more traffic on the way home so it took longer to get home, so we got back around 7:00ish or so. Now, I'm writing this after reorganizing everything and unpacking. I think I'll take it easy with going running the next couple days while my legs rest up (especially my calves and knees).

I think Sunday was my favorite day so far in Korea. The Seoraksan mountains were unbelievable and the leaves were extremely pretty. I had a lot of fun and it was definitely worth it. I have to take advantage of doing things in the fall before it gets too cold because this is the only fall I'll see in Korea.

So, a four day week ahead which will be nice! I updated my flickr, I couldn't put up all the pictures I took because I'd reach my maximum limit for the month just in this one weekend (unless I want to pay and upgrade my account but I don't plan on doing that!). Again, the pictures don't do it justice, but there are still some pretty good ones in there!


Have a good week,

Love, Meghan