Scouring the land

Make no mistake for those who know me well, know that I am an advocate of adventure.  I'm also an advocate for documentation of adventure in a skillful and craftful manner (I mean photography, a world in which I do not fully understand but am beginning to consider).  One reason why Korea is a perfect match for Pete Freeburg is because it caters well to my obsessions.  I love being married, check (wife is here).  I love traveling, check.  I love hiking, check.  I love taking pictures, check.  I love awkward moments with people I cannot communicate with, check.  I love trying to observe cultural complexities and mysteries that seem to make no sense, check.  Korea houses many of my opiates.

Korea's national sport is Taekwondo.  I know this because I see gyms all over the place and nearly all of my students practice Taekwondo.  They even wear their uniforms to school to prove it.  I am convinced that one of my students has his Taekwondo uniform sewn onto him, because I have never seem him in anything other than that uniform for weeks.  The reason I'm discussing Taekwondo is because hiking, as it appears, is more popular than even their national sport.  Boo ya.  I love hiking, too.

Korea is a very mountainous penninsula such that you do not have to look very far, nor travel very far to see mountains to hike them and enjoy their beauty.  North Korea is actually more mountainous and scenic in that dimension, which is why prior to the Korean War, North Korea was actually more prosperous than their democratic counterpart on the basis of natural resources.  North Korea had more natural resources and factories (such as ore and so forth), which made it appear that they were the prevailing country, where as South Korea was doing miserably.  It was up until the 60's or 70's when South Korea realized they needed to funnel their energy into a working economy to prosper, specifically in technology development.  To this day, North Korean leaders have also lost their minds, which in no part aids an already failing economy. 

Regardless, I knew that hiking was popular in Korea but I just didn't know how to get my hands on it.  I could see the mountains and I knew if I got on the right subway or the right bus, I could get to them. I just have the problem of not being able to talk to anyone who knows the answers.  **Introduce a legitimate functionality of Facebook as a powerful networking tool.**  There are many Facebook groups that cater to foreigners in Korea, one that I found (with direction from Holly Bonnema and Kaley Eastman) is called Seoul Hiking Group.  This group does a lot of hiking and adventure type things on the weekends and are very cheap.  So cheap, in some instances they are free.  Boo ya.  It is also a great way to meet some other cool (and sometimes lame) foreigners in Seoul.  

                                                         Suraksan and Bulamsan

The last weekend of March we got our first taste of hiking in Korea.  We went to Suraksan and Bulamsan, about 1.5 hours away from our apartment but about 25 mintues via subway outside of downtown Seoul.  So it is relatively close.  We met some great people and had some amazing hiking.  It was really awesome.  One problem, I might add, is that whenever Kelly and I plan to do something fun outdoors on the weekends it usually is very cloudy and hazy.  This is OK, but usually 9 out of 10 times the next day in which we are not planning anything, it is really sunny and about 10 degrees warmer.  Korea is playing hard to get...and I like it.  We are very much anticipating Spring and Summer, as it will be a completely different experience.  While it pains me to say this, I cannot upload any photos on this blog of that trip because I shot all my pictures in RAW, rendering the file size very large.  They are, however, up on the Picasa Web Album.  If you are not too lazy to click on the link on the right of the blog then you can see them there! :)

                                            Yeosoo, Suncheon Man, odong do, Youngchi San

This past weekend I went with the Seoul Hiking Group to southern Korea for a day of hiking.  We left a subway station in downtown Seoul at 11:30 p.m. on Friday night and rode a bus for about 5 hours through the night.  We started a sunrise hike at 5:20 am and hiked until around noon when we had lunch.  It was so nice to get outside of Seoul and see some more landscape of Korea and some smaller towns. 

What makes this particual trip so appealing to many hikers is because there are some areas of the mountains that are completely covered in Rhododendron flowers.  In full bloom,  the hills appear to be purple.  It was very beautiful for us even though they were not in full bloom. Still, there were many blooming flowers.

 

After lunch we went to this island that was completley tourist-ized.  It was a beautiful island, very small but developed.  It was more of a big park but covered in trees.

The shoreline of this island.  The island itself takes about 30-45 minutes to walk around.

This is the singing fountain.  I have a video of it, but I can't seem to find it.  The fountains were, at one point, in rhythmical coordination with Queen's, "We Will Rock You."  Remember cultural oddities I try to observe?  That was one of them.  Why Queen with a musical fountain on a tourist island?

After the island we went to a nature reserve.  It was once a huge bay but has since dried up.  It is now, according to our hiking leader who organized this trip, the 5th largest swamp in the world.

The view of the wetland from the highest observation point.

Once again, all of the pictures are on the Picasa Web Album.  If you want your life to be changed forever, if you want something to tell your grandchildren, if you are looking for ways to acheive world peace, then I suggest you check them out.