Mt Bukhansan

So I didn't think the day I voluntarily agreed to climb a mountain and actually go through with it would ever, ever come however Saturday 17th October 2009 was that day, and the mountain was the Baekundae Peak in Bukhansan National Park, apparently the world's most visited National Park. Bukhansan is situated just north of Seoul, South of Munsan so is fairly 'local' - despite this fact it somehow took us 3 hours to get there - longer than it took to actually get up and down the peak itself. Baekundae Peak is the highest peak in the park at 837 metres (above sea level??) and climbing it was possibly the most terrifying experience of my life and the closest I have actually come to death.

To cut a very dull 'Why it took us three hours to get there' story short I'm going to cut to the chase and explain that thanks to the detour via Seoul and having to take a bus from Seoul, we managed to meet this great Korean dude called Sonny who became our voluntary guide for the journey. I don't think he realised what he was letting himself in for. Essentially he gave us our route, and helped us navigate our feet into the right place. The first half was steep but dealable. The second half was hell, the rough terrain turned into sheer rock face which we had to pull ourselves up with the aid of ropes and steel fencing that was attached to the mountain, luckily there were several Koreans around to give us a much needed boost, and to grab us so we didn't slip and splat ourselves on the ground. It was like rock climbing but without the harness. The views we got from the top were worth it, incredibly beautiful, we could see all of the National Park, and most of Seoul that was stretched out infront of us. The route down was far less stressful and thanks to our Korean guide, we were able to go through a 'No Entry sign' (all the Koreans were doing it) and through Guknyeongsa Temple and see The Grand Buddha, a giant Buddha that sits within the temple grounds and is an incredible sight. After the hike, we headed to one of the outdoor restaurants for Korean Pizza, Barbecue Pork, beer and Soju with Sonny to say thankyou to the poor guy for the stress we put him through. We then went to another retstaurant (now sure how this happened) where we had more soju and beer, this very bizarre almond jelly salad and a potato pancake... again traditional Korean dishes. The salad was great, it was the most salad-like thing I have seen since arriving in Korea although the Almond Jelly was rather odd... Climbing the mountain was amazing and I am going to go back at some point and climb one of the other three peaks. We also had and idea of climbing Seorokasan, which is towards the East coast - its a great adrenalin rush and it made me feel amazed... if a little pained the next day!

I'm a happy climber....

In climbing mode....

The team! Our Korean friend Sonny, Me, Kyle, Amanda, Shauna, David, Jenny and Jesse!!

Rewarding ourselves with food a, beer and Soju....

Mountain Climbing

When my new friend Rebecca dropped it into conversation she was going hiking on the Saturday, i immediatley said i'd join. Why I'm not so sure, I mean I am so not the hiker type, however this is Korea, Koreans are big on hiking and I wanted to embrace everything and hiking is not something you would want to even consider doing by yourself. Rebecca was heading to some mountains alongside Michelle - who lives nearby in Geumcheon and works for the Wonderland school in Geumcheon, where as I work for the Wonderland school in Munsan. Me and Rebecca headed towards the meeting point - me dressed so unsuitably like a hiker it was hilarious, I mean an present I don't even have a rucksack. On arrival and whilst in awe of the Korean hikers we decided to purchase one of the key items of kit that is worn... a neckscarf. Handily a neckscarf that had a map on it! So after purchasing the neckscarf of joy, we sat down by a nearby fountain and waited for Michelle who was doing battle with Seoul in an attempt to find the USO office and book herself onto the DMZ tour. There were lots of people wandering around, mainly hikers and a few randoms casually going about their daily buisness: old people lugging loaded carts; women nattering and a group of korean teenage boys complete ith guitars sitting on some steps, they were of course the most intriguing - what was going on with the guitars?. Sure enough they soon sat down and started singing chorus repeats of the Dylan classic 'knocking on heaven's door' - they literally song 'Knock Knock Knocking on heavens door' about 20 times before moving swiftly onto an interesting version of Creep by Radiohead - they did Thom Yorke proud I must say! Anyhow by this point Michelle had arrived - in proper hiking gear - she outdid both Rebecca and I with both a pair of proper books (as opposed to my peach primarni plimsolls) and even a hiking stick! Unsure of quite direction to head in we decided to follow the direction we had seen the professionals head in and went up spme stairs through the middle of guitar kids and soon found ourselves amongst some trees! The Hike had begun, on a rather steep incline, as we grabbed trees inorder not to find ourselves on our arse we soon came to a path and indeed a fork. For reasons that it looked more exciting - there was a well! - we turned left and started to wander through trees, past war trenches, machine gunner look outs and burial grounds for about an hour - we even stumbled upon a whole selection of outdoor gym equiptment!. There were certain things that made us feel we were quite headinng in the right direction - number one being the gym equiptment and number two being that we didnt lay eyes on any other professional hikers... but we carried on. after an hour or so we came to an edge point near a road - okay. hmmm this was not right - we were supposed to be climbing a mountain! We took a few moments rest in which i descovered Lindt chocolates didn'y travel will in korean heat and decided we were just in the wrong place - we saw more mountain up the road so after a quick stop in the local library to use the bathroom we headed up another bit of mountain. It felt right, we even saw other hikers -one guy even told us the temple was just 1km further along! However alas no, we eneded up (despite crossing a road) exactly where we started right at the beginning, we had essentially just walked in one massive circle. And to get out? We decided to cut our losses, at this rate it would be dark before even found the right path! Knowing we couldn't really go down the way we came - we went another route and ended up in the middle of a HUGE construction site - having to play the 'we're from England and we are lost' when asked what exactly we were doing... we then found a road (eventually)with a bus stop (phew) and luckily rebecca can read basic Korean so we figured out what bus to get to the nearest subway. On arrival we headed for the old british classic - Pizza Hut before jumping back on the subway and to our apartments. So that was it - my first Korean hiking experience. It may have not been actual hiking but it was certainly fun and if you ever fancy getting slightly lost up a mountain Michelle and Rebecca are certainly the people to do it with!