So, the only reason I knew we had a 3-day weekend was that I've learned all major holidays in Korea are numbered in red on the calendar, lol. My teacher completely failed to mention that we had one in October, but no worries, I figured it out pretty quick! Which is when I decided to join a group of friends from Daegu who were going hiking.
Now that it's "fall" here, hiking isn't as gruesome as it was during the summer. My first hike ever was in Daegu, but it was a short one in the spring. My second was here in Gumi, but the humidity about killed us from the summer heat. This third hike was my favorite. PERFECT weather for being in the mountains!
So Friday evening I headed to Daegu to stay the night with my friends. Our original plan was to take the earliest bus possible Saturday morning to Sokcho since it was a 5 hour bus ride, but that bus was sold-out. We ended up taking the 11:30 one, which put us in Sokcho too late to head to the mountains. Instead we checked out the beautiful beach & went out for dinner at a small Korean restaurant. Dinner provided much entertainment due to Kristin's declared admiration by our old Korean man who was serving us, lol. He brought her a cup of coffee after we had finished eating and told her "I love you." Eventually he brought the rest of us coffee, but not not with the same love he had for her, haha!
our human pyramid on the beach
the girls...jumping pic!
When we first arrived in Sokcho we found a cheap place to stay. Well, the result of such a cheap place to stay was that we later discovered the room was full of mosquitoes and bed bugs, gross! I managed to only get a few mosquito bites, but some of us weren't so lucky. Needless to say, first thing Sunday morning we moved to another place which was much nicer and only a couple bucks more.
Sunday morning after grabbing a bite to eat & some coffee we caught the bus to the mountains. Once we arrived we immediately noticed the massive amounts of people. Considering that Monday was a holiday and that the leaves were beginning to change color in the mountains, EVERYONE decided to go hiking. Never in my life have I seen thousands of people battling to hike a mountain. But there they were. And we filed right in line with them.
Buddha statue
One of our friends had previously been to these mountains so she advised us which paths were the best to take. We decided to do the 900 steps path and another path after lunch to see the caves. We were hiking at a decent pace, bumping elbows, passing ajummas & small children...until we got to the part where the steps begin. Hiking just isn't the same when it's stop & go. I mean I like a break now and then, but this was ridiculous! Apparently parts of the paths on the stairs could only handle one-way traffic, so each line took turns...people coming down, people going up.
in line for the 900 steps
our 500 best friends, lol
We also had our own personal competitor, Kristin, who insisted on being the first to reach the top. So we may have done a bit of cutting in line in the midst of trying to keep up with Kristin & sneak in front of her from time to time. :)
A few hours later, we were at the top of the 900 steps. The view was incredible! Of course we did the touristy photo session, but then we found some rocks to sit down on & soak in the view around us. The wind was cool & the sky was clear. A perfect fall day to be outside, especially in the mountains.
By this time in our hike we were all starting to get hungry so we headed back towards the bottom for lunch. Of course the food selection in the mountains consisted of only Korean food, so I had to settle on noodles. I'm just not a fan of the traditional style foods they commonly serve in these type of restaurants. Some people love bibimbap, but I eat it enough at school. And I broke up with kimchi a LONG time ago! lol.
After a late lunch and a bit of relaxing, we noticed that it was nearing the evening which meant that we might not have time to do another hike before dark. We finally agreed to just come back early in the morning to do the other hike. That was until we realized that the 3pm bus we wanted to take Monday afternoon was sold out. We were then left with the choice to leave at 10:40am or 9pm. Since we had to teach Tuesday morning, we chose to leave Monday morning, even though we were disappointed we didn't get to hike the second trail. :(
Had it not been such a long line during the first trail, we would have had plenty of time to do two paths. To get to the summit takes 11 hours, one way! So we knew we didn't have time for that. You have to plan on camping or lodging in the mountains to do that hike. Maybe another time...maybe, lol.
Oh and I almost forgot...we literally got trampled by Koreans while leaving Seoraksan. Once we decided that we were out of time to do another hike, we headed towards the buses to leave. There we discovered a line of more than 100 people waiting for the buses. Well, kind of a line, because usually lines don't exist in Korea. However, we did have the joy of witnessing some Koreans getting kicked to the back of the line for trying to cut in front. All of a sudden we just heard angry screams, then we noticed what was happening.
However, when it came time for us to near the front of the line, somehow Maggie and Kristin got mixed in the middle of pushing and shoving. Which resulted in Koreans yelling at them because they thought they were cutting. When actually, they were just trying to survive the mob of people. You would have thought this line determined if you were going to heaven or hell the way the Koreans were pushing! Eventually we made it on the bus, only for me to have a mild claustrophobia panic attack due to Koreans suffocating me on the bus. Finally a man was kind enough to open the window so that I could breathe. Not kind enough to give me his seat, but atleast he did that, lol.
silly faces at dinner the last night in Sokcho
Alright, I think that about puts me up to date on my blogging. No major plans for this weekend, maybe a Lantern Festival in Jinju, but I really need to start saving money. The exchange rate for WON to USD is lower that it used to be and I need to send some money home, not cool! I'd like to get one more hike in before the true cold winter sets in, so if I can find one that doesn't cost a fortune to travel to or take 5 hours like the last one, I will definitely be doing that soon.
XOXO,
Amanda
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