Seoraksan National Park - the final hike!

As Seoraksan National Park, one of the most famous in South Korea, is located on the way back to Seoul, we stopped of course for another hike. This one was the toughest though, as we had to hike 1200m on altitude over a length of 5km (one way) what results in an average steep of 27%! Lonely Planet recommends to calculate around 4h for the ascent and 3h for the descent – but bi**h please! We climbed (runned) up in 1h 45min and down in 1h 15min what gives us a total of 3h – I guess there were not many people faster in the last couple of weeks, months or even years. Unfortunately though, we started too early and were to fast to enjoy the nice view this peak offers, as the sky was very clouded while we were on the top and just cleared up later in the afternoon, when we already had lunch and were relaxing in the hot springs (tja, chasch nid immer gwünne…) Luckily, this was the last hike for the next couple of days, as I had a hell of stiff muscles for the next days! (Not that I didn’t had any after the previous hikes, but this time it was the hardest one.)

De Bernhard Russi erklärt d Ideallinie

Gipfelstürmer

And with the drive back to Seoul on Friday, our journey ended after approximately 2400km and 44 hours in the car. We can truly look back to a great time in which we’ve seen a lot! South Korea is truly a great country to travel around and offers a lot, and as already stated in previous comments, you see hardly any Western what makes it quite special (at least from my point of view as I’ve never experienced this before like I did here). 

We will enjoy city life in Seoul for the weekend with the standard activities as partying, drinking, eating and having a good time before Beni will fly back to Switzerland on Tuesday. And then, the semester will already start soon… 

Approaching the DMZ and the Korean War

In Gangneung, our first stop on the next day was the Unification Park a bit in the South where tourist can step on a Korean warship as well as step into a North Korean submarine. Well, you might ask yourself why there is a North Korean submarine in South Korea: This submarine was spying on South Korea in 1996 near Gangneung when it ran aground as it was too close to the coast (pfff, rookies!) The North Korean crew was able to escape and hide in the nearby mountains first, however, was then killed by South Korean soldiers. Given the fact that this submarine was used in 1996, it seemed pretty old. I guess the North Korean Navy is not really up-to-date in terms of their military equipment (which is probably not too bad given the fact that I’m staying in South Korea for the next couple of months). But also the South Korean warship was not really state-of-the art as the Americans already used it in World War II as well as the Korean War. 

*sing* "We all live in a North Korean Submarine"

Cpt Ben ready to fire!

In general, while driving around, it became clear that North Korea isn’t too far away anymore as there was clearly more military infrastructure and soldiers around. And the further up North in the direction of the DMZ (demilitarised zone) we drove, the more intense it got. In Goseong, the northernmost point you can go to in South Korea, we were able to look into the DMZ and even saw some peaks that are located in North Korea. It was quite weird, as the scenery was actually beautiful and if there weren’t so many soldiers, guns and barbed wires, you could easily relax at the beaches and enjoy some days with hiking and camping out in the nature.

You wouldn't really thinking of the Korean conflict when looking at this picture...

Let's see if we can spot him...

But, as we all know, things are unfortunately different. The DMZ museum furthermore gave us a nice image of how the Korean see this war and we also came aware, that although this war in fact lasts since more than 50 years, there are still attacks every now and then were people are killed, e.g. a torpedo that was shot from the North Koreans and

destroyed a warship of South Korea only a couple of years ago.

In Sokcho, the town we stayed for the night, another challenge was waiting for us: eating a dead but still moving octopus! I have to admit that I really just ate a tiny bit and Benjamin all the rest – and no, in my opinion it was not really a culinary highlight as it had the consistency of  a rubber and was not that tasteful.

Sobeaksan National Park

In the afternoon, we drove up further North to the Chungjuho Lake and Sobeaksan National Park. As it was already around 4pm when we arrived, time was unfortunately to little to climb another mountain. However, there was an observatory nearby that we could even drive up with the car – but the road was so steep, that our faithful servant named Kia K3 came to the edge of his possibilities, haha – but definitely a very nice way to get up the mountains with AC on, as it was the first time we were not sweating. And nevertheless the fact that we just drove up like lazy tourists, the view we had at the top was still great, giving us a nice overview of the region.

The day was still not over yet and after another unidentified meal we drove further North and then eastwards to the coast where we slept in a city called Gangneung. And, while approaching the coast through the numerous tunnels, it was the first time that it rained! Well, I guess after almost two weeks, you really can’t complain about that…

Hahoe Folk Village

Hahoe Folk Village

The next day after the temple visit and hike, we visited another site where we were able to experience the Korean culture. The place is called Hahoe Folk Village and offers tourists a view into the traditional Korean life as the whole village, where 230 people live, is still kept in the traditional way with beautiful buildings – sometimes with histories back to the 15^th century.

Daegu and more temples and hikes

As it has been a couple of days ago since I’ve written my last blog post, I have quite a bit to tell, as the last week of our journey was very rich in variety.

In Daegu, the final destination of my last entry, we stayed only for one night (which was enough though to lose one of our Lonely Planets – luckily we had two with us, I guess we would have been pretty screwed without them!) as we had to keep up with our schedule because there was still a lot to see in South Korea!

Our main reason why we visited Daegu was, next to the fact that it is South Korea’s third largest city, the nearby temple named Haein-Sa, another Unesco World Heritage. It holds 81’258 woodblock scriptures, making it one of the largest Buddhist libraries of its kind. The blocks are named Tripitaka and the first set of blocks was built in 1087. 

Tripitaka

They contain an almost unbelievable number of more than 52 million Chinese characters and  it took the monks over 16 years to complete it. The temple itself is also one of the most beautiful ones in South Korea and thus, this is really a worthwhile visit.

The symbol for the temple could easily be understood wrong...

Next to the temple, there was also another opportunity to hike one of the nearby mountains, mount Gayasan (1430m) and get a view over this region. This time, there were clearly fewer hikers on the way than on Jeju and it was also not one of the “highway hikes” where you have a fence on your left and right. The climb was a pretty uncomfortable one though, not because of the steep itself, but because of all the thousands of insects flying around our heads for about three hours – oh how I hated them! Luckily they didn’t sting us, but we felt like cows standing in the middle of the meadow surrounded by insects.

Big City Beach Life

After the hiking on Jeju Island, it was time to relax a bit again at the beaches - I mean hey, we're still on holiday, right?! :) The clearest water we found so far was in Seogwipo, located at the southern end of Jeju Island. Unfortunately, there weren't any beaches. Consequently, we had to climb over some fences to get to the water. But at least we were rewarded with a nice swim. 

This experience was somehow quite describing for the Korean culture, or at least the impressions we gained so far: somehow it seems as all the cool stuff is fenced off. Both, swimming areas on little islands and mountain peaks as well as volcanos are most often surrounded by a fence. This is pretty contrary to what we are used to back home in Switzerland where you can go more or less everywhere you want. Maybe it is a bit exaggerated, but this methapor with the fence does make sence in some way if you compare it to the Korean (Asian) culture as they are "guided" in their life as well. Either through strong governments, few liberal and democratic rights (e.g. in China) or strong Confician beliefs and respect to the elder... Of course Korea is way more liberal and in some way more developed than China, however, their mindset still seemes to be "fenced" in some way and they rather stay on the way instead of exploring something new and maybe riskier (that's also a reason why entrepreneurship is by far not as big in Asia compared to the U.S.)

When referring of the USA, it brings me to another funny anectode we faced on our way from the Korean mainland when driving to the South: as the southern coast of the Korean Peninsula consists of thousands of smaller and bigger islands, relying and trusting too much on your navigation system in the car can be dangerous! As it happened on our way to Wando, there was suddenly no road available, even though the navigation system indicated so - it could be that an American would have driven on into the sea nevertheless as told by the voice, haha (and of course went on to a law suit with the company that built the navigation system ;). But luckily there was a ferry service who made up for the bridge that was still under construction and thus, we were able to continue our drive on to the next island.

Bridge under construction...

On our way to Busan we stopped for several beach stops and also to visit a green tea plantage. The plantage was very nice, the green tea ice cream tasted suprsingly good and of course, we were sweating as hell, due to 35 degrees and very high humidity, while walking around :)

On Friday evening, we arrived in Busan - and wow, this was pretty contrary to the "Korea" we have seen over the last couple of days! The Western influence was clearly obvious in Korea's second biggest city! People are dressed differently, you see different cars, brands, shops, restaurants and so on - and, there were clearly more Western people around as well, especially Eglish teachers from various English speaking countries. But we definitely enjoyed the days in Busan as it was a lot of fun with big parties, beach life and nice views ;) And the word "crowded" just reached a new level on Haeundae Beach as damn, I guess there were even far more people than on a busy day at Bondi Beach!

Welcome to the big city beach life!

But also cultural aspects were included during our stay in Busan as there was a very nice temple located just a bit up North, right next to the sea.

On Sunday, we also made a visit to the world's largest department store! Pretty impressive... I guess if you can't find it here, you won't find it anywhere in Korea :) And on the floors 11 to 14, they even had an indoor golf driving range! For further information on this complex, visit e.g. http://busan.for91days.com/2012/05/07/shinsegae-the-worlds-largest-department-store/ 

We are now on our way to Daegu and further North. We hope for some good weather (so far we have never had a day of rain or clouded weather!) as we plan to hike some more mountains and national parks.

Hiking, hiking, hiking...

As far as I can say, baseball seems to be sport number one in Korea to which people pay attention to, followed by soccer. However, the most popular sport among Koreans is definitely hiking! 
It's crazy how many people you see hiking around - and it's quite easy to spot them, as they are all wearing high-end hiking gear like they would climb in the Himalaya - nevertheless it's actually only a 'casual' climb they're doing. 
But it's very funny watching them in their colourful shirts, poles and big hats walking around. 

As we are not avoiding the sun as they're doing and as mentioned, it is very warm and humid here, we tend to wear a bit less than they do when climbing up :) But when passing them topless, they normally laugh and roll their eyes a bit. The cultural differences and preferences seem pretty obvious :)

The picture above was taken on the summit of Mount Hallasan, the highest peak in South Korea, located on Jeju Island, and actually another vulcano. The height is 1950m, and you have to climb around 1100m before reaching the top - and then of course down again! This makes a total length of around 17Km and took us 4.5h (and approximately 2 liters of sweat!) to hike, which was quite fast compared to 'normal' tourists. E.g. it took our roommate from Taiwan in the guesthouse 8.5h and cosequently, he looked 'slightly' exhausted when returning to the hostel later in the evening! I think he was writing mentally already his last will, haha.

The sunrise on the other vulcano the day before was nice too, however, the real highlight in my opinion were the tons of Koreans already showing up so early in the morning! I guess this shows a very distinct characteristic of Koreans: when they do something, they do it with a lot of effort and seriously! 

As a fact, the platform on the volcano was already quite crowded at 5.30am! Really insane seeing so many tourists so early in the morning!
And appology to those again who thought that they were the first up there at 4.15am and then had to find out that we were already there and thus, they came in only second, haha.

Following some more impressions from the East on Jeju-Island and the South (credits to Beni for the pictures - his doing a great job so far). 
In the afternoon we will head back to the mainland again... stay tuned - over and out!