Back to the first South Korea trip (I will catch up eventually, I promise!).

Monday, May 3

Breakfast had to wait a little while, because the hotel didn't serve anything but coffee, and all the restaurants served a traditional breakfast of exactly the same thing as dinner. I didn't really want fish, rice, and spicy vegetables for breakfast, so I found some snacks in a small store nearby.

My next disappointment of the day was that I went to the trail leading into the main national park, only to be told by a gate guard that this trail was shut off. The trails are apparently so overused during the summer that, in order to protect them, they have to shut them off for the rest of the year. He didn't speak English or Japanese, but I managed to get him to point out on the map which trails were okay for me to go on. Basically I had to hike some 3 miles on the road to the west (there was no shoulder or anything), or go around to the main entrance, which could be reached by bus. I chose to take the bus. I followed the instructions of the guide book, which were not very helpful. I took the bus to Sokcho, and then waited some 40 minutes in Sokcho for a bus which finally came and took me to Seorak-san national park. However, I realized that I should have gotten off the bus to Sokcho halfway there, because I just ended up taking the bus back the same direction I had come from halfway. So when I went to Sokcho, I had driven past the park entrance, and then much more. So I wasted a good part of the day just getting to the park. It took about 3 hours.

At the park, I took a ropeway up to the top of one of the higher mountains, and there was a beautiful view there. You couldn't hike very far from the ropeway, and it was wet, so I took the ropeway back down, and went for a hike to some waterfalls about 45 minutes away. It was nice hike, and there weren't many people around. It was actually getting to be about 5pm by this point, and I didn't know what time the last bus to my place was, so I left after the hike. This time I asked a park ranger how to get back to Osaek, where I was staying. It only ended up taking about 1.5 hours, though I had to change buses several times. I also picked up some bread on the way back, though it was really gross, unlike the whole grain bread I had found in Gyeongju.

The dancers were not at their hotel when I went there. I figured they had already eaten, so I had dinner by myself, which isn't that fun.


Tuesday, May 4

I woke up and found out that Sex and the City was on TV, so I watched that for awhile, as it was the most interesting thing I had seen on TV in a week. I ate breakfast in my room (a peanut butter and jelly sandwich), and headed out to the buses. This time, the dancers were ate the bus stop at the same time I was, so we headed to the park together. They were lucky that I was there, because I actually knew what I was doing. They had spent the previous day relaxing in the spa, and hadn't gone into the park proper. We made it to the park in an hour, and I was much happier about that.

They headed up the cable car, and I headed up a mountain famous for it's Tottering Rock, a giant boulder that any single person can rock back and forth. It is about half way up the mountain. On the way up the mountain I kept getting passed by groups of 20-somethings wearing identical shirts and carrying team flags. Near the rock, they were doing different tasks as a team. I found out later they were involved in team-building activities because they were all new recruits to Samsung.

After getting a picture of the shaky rock, I hiked up the rest of the way to the top of the mountain. The path up was mostly a giant metal staircase, which left me feeling a bit dizzy when I looked down it. At the top of the mountain was a small lookout platform over some cool granite formations on the mountain, and a small table full of things you can buy to commemorate your hike up the mountain, like a medal or a photo. There was also a guy with a loudspeaker pointed right at the group of us on the platform, screaming in Korean about the mountain and why we should buy his junk. I was not impressed, but the Koreans didn't seem too upset that there was a guy standing five feet from them using a loudspeaker device. I decided I didn't like this type of hiking, and I found a small path away from the top that led to a rock where I ate lunch. A couple other Koreans came and sat near me and had a picnic. They offered me some of their food, but I had lunch, so I politely declined. Maybe if they had spoken English I would have talked to them more.

I did met a couple people on the mountain who talked to me in English. The most memorable was a woman who I met on the way down the mountain. She lived in America with her family. I guess they had immigrated there several years ago. She understood everything I said to her, but I didn't understand half of what she said. She didn't really seem to understand sentence order, which made things difficult to say the least. She was headed up the mountain, and I was headed down the mountain, so we parted ways. I figured that would be the last I saw of her, but I was wrong.

Halfway down the mountain, I ran into the dancers. They were resting at the Tottering Rock. They told me about a path I didn't know about from the top of the cable car, so I decided to go hike there. It had a good view of the mountain I was on currently, which looked pretty cool when I had seen it from the ground. They hadn't brought anything to eat, so they were starving, though there were tons of restaurants on the trails. I told them I was going to head back to the hotel soon, but if they wanted to have dinner, I would like that. They said that would be fun, and headed up the mountain. On the way down, I stopped and bought a caramel thing on a stick from an old woman selling them (one of many women doing this). It was quite messy and so I stopped to eat it. While I am waiting, who should come down the path but the Korean woman who lived in America with three of her friends. They were really funny, and decided that it was a bad thing I was travelling by myself. They said I should come to Seoul with them that evening and stay at one of their houses. I was impressed by this gesture of welcoming, but I had already paid for my hotel room, and I didn't imagine it would be comfortable for five of us in a tiny car with my giant pack, and whatever luggage they had. So, I ended up declining, but I promised to call my friend when I got to Seoul and she said she would give me a tour. She was on vacation visiting friends in Seoul, so she didn't have anything to do particularly. I got her phone number and they wandered back to the parking lot and drove to Seoul.

As for me, I took the cable car to the top of the mountain again, and this time the view was much better. I also walked up the short trail to the peak, where there were nearly 360 degree views of the park. It was worth paying for the cable car again. I took the bus back to the hotel again, and I fixed the computer in the hotel. It was apparently broken, but I didn't really do much except clean it out. They let me use the internet for free, and they had actually done my laundry early that morning for free, too. They were really nice, but I was also one of the only people at the hotel.

The dancers weren't back to their hotel yet, so I went to the hot springs baths and took a dip. It was very nice. They had lots of baths: carbonated water, a tea bath, scalding hot bath, wood-soaked bath, and a bath full of rocks. I really enjoyed it, and it was relaxing. After the bath I found the dancers, but they had already eaten. I guess they never ate lunch and were starving when they got back to Osaek, so they had gone straight to a restaurant. It was too bad, but I understood where they were coming from. Also, they were a group of friends already, whereas I was looking for friends. Still, it would've been nice to not to have had to eat alone. This place was too much of a ghost town already. It's a little freaky eating by yourself in a restaurant, even more so if you are the only one in the restaurant.