Seoraksan National Park, South Korea

Seoraksan National Park is a beautiful mountain range in Eastern South Korea. Our bus ride took about 5 hours to reach it. Once we arrived in the general area, the traffic became horrible, as many people had flocked to the park to get out of the city for the weekend. We arrived in the afternoon and walked to the park entrance, as it was faster than sitting in traffic. We passed a huge statue of Buddha, some beautiful trees, and split up. A few people took the cable car to a waterfall hike, but most of us (including Jay and myself) took the Ulsanbawi rock course.

This hike was not steep at first and led us up along a river to a huge rock that can be wobbled if pushed (this was easy to recognize due to the large crowd of people lining up to push it). This area was strange in that suddenly there was a large group of people, places to sit, and a small store selling food and souvenirs. We watched the rock-pushing for a while longer and then continued on towards Ulsanbawi.

From here the trail got steep, with hundreds and hundreds of steps (some rock, some steel, some so vertical that we were really climbing ladders). It was very cold and windy and it got colder as every bit of progress we made took us a little bit more out of the rock's shelter from the wind.

We finally made it to the top and admired the gorgeous view while attempting not to be toppled by the wind. The rock formation was beautiful and, although we've seen similar formations on other mountains in Korea, it still stuns us with how very different it is from mountains in other parts of the world.

We made our way down quickly, pausing only for freshly baked waffles filled with honey near the wobble-rock, and soon made it to the bottom - just as it become too dark to see where we were going.

Once everyone had returned, we took a short bus ride to our hotel for the night and set out to find dinner. Jay and I went to a traditional Korean restaurant where he had bulgogi and I had duenchang jjigae. We went to sleep, ready for another hike the next day.

In the morning, we were cold but surprisingly not in any pain. Apparently going hiking every weekend, rather than destroying our knees actually gets our bodies into a mildly decent state of fitness. Hurray! Either way, the hike for the second day was much easier than the Ulsanbawi course. We walked along a rocky river for a while, enjoying the trees (just losing the last of their fall leaves), the water and the rocks, not to mention the crisp, fresh air.

The end of the walk was not as impressive as Ulsanbawi, but it was relaxing; a short waterfall over rocks and some small pools of water. Some people stopped to have a snack, others turned back to explore unknown parts of the park before lunch, and some (including us) took pictures until our hands were numb. We then headed back for lunch before getting back on the road for a long bus ride back to Seoul.