 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Seoraksan: temples, mountain views and...a typhoon! |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Wednesday, Sept 10 2003 marked the beginning of Chuseok or Korean Thanksgiving. Happily, for us travel minded people, the holiday was three days long bringing us up to the weekend and giving us 5 days off work. We took one more day for good measure and off we went, to the north eastern corner of South Korea and the country's most famous national park, Seoraksan. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Tuesday was spent traveling. Wednesday began with a very early visit to a seaside temple and then into the park for some trekking. First stop: Heundeul Rock. The rock that actually teeters as you push. With all the tourists giving it a go its amazing it hasn't rolled down the hill yet! | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| From Heundeul Rock we continued up and up... and Korean hiking trails go straight up whether it be by metal stairs or over boulders. In this case, stairs seemed to be the way to go; there must have been over 1000 of them! | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The rock behind us is called Ulsan Rock and it was the objective of this particular trail. If you think the flag is cheezy, you should have seen the congratulatory medals you could buy on the top. Korean entrepreneurship knows no bounds! Storytime: The Rock is named after a city in central Korea. Apparently when the Great Spirit was making a famous mountain range in modern day North Korea he called all beautiful mountains to come take part. Sadly, Ulsan Rock arrived too late for a good spot so headed back home. On the way it passed by Seoraksan and seeing the beautiful views it decided to stay. |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Ahhh... a chance to sit down at last! After hiking out of the park and down a good stretch of road we finally found a campground. This was our site (the tent was still in Dave's pack). We actually had some space; usually tents are placed centimeters apart but then again everyone was probably visiting their families for the holidays. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
 |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||