| Our Trip to Maisan (Ma-ee-san) Traveling the "Korean" way |
| At the beginning of June 2003 one of the teachers at our school proposed a trip to one of her favorite areas in the country, Maisan (horse ear mountain-but there are actually two) and its nearby temple Tapsa, famous for its numerous stone towers. Our driver was our sub-director, Mr.Kim and before we knew it two other teachers had decided that they wanted to join in on the fun as well. So late one Thursday night the six of us piled into Mr.Kim's car and off we went... |
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| This is the man that greeted us as we stepped out of the car. Pictured on an immense billboard in the parking lot, he advertises the region's claim to faim: ginseng. |
| The teachers we were traveling with knew we liked to hike so Ms Kim (no relation to Mr.Kim) joined Dave and I and the three of us made our way up the female horse ear (how one descerns between a female horse ear and a male horse ear is beyond us). |
| The sign at the entrance to the trail. It was obviously not taken very seriously by the hikers (thank goodness!). |
| Us and Ms.Kim with a Korean hiking group that we met along the way. One of the members spoke pretty good English and later sent us this photo that he had taken. |
| Next stop: the famous Tapsa or Tap Temple. The stone towers you see were built in the 1800's. They have proven to be amazingly resilant to inclement weather, war, etc. as about 80% of the original number remain today. |
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