Naejangsan National Park

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We were up at the crack of dawn, 6 am. Not that I really slept because the room was too hot (as always), and the walls were paper thin, so I could hear some drunk girls chuntering away and also someone hacking up a lung. When we were leaving the room, we saw the bus driver coming out from the room across from us, so that was the coughing culprit. He really needs to cut down on the fags. We headed over to the other pension and got some breakfast. I had a huge headache last night, and it was still lingering this morning, so it took me forever to eat some breakfast. After a bit of waiting around, we were on the bus to head to the national park. We drove for over an hour to get there, and I napped the journey away.

The traffic had started to get horrifically busy, the world and his wife had descended on Naejangsan National Park to see the autumn colors. Naejangsan became a national park in 1971, and its name means 'many secrets in the mountain'. We were dropped at the side of the road, as the bus wasn't moving because of the traffic. Apparently the traffic is backed up from the entrance to about 6 kilometres away. We weren't entering the park from the normal entrance, but from a different starting point. This place was meant to be a lot less busy, than going in the main entrance. We started near the Seorae Park Office. There were quite a few other hikers around, but it wasn't too bad.

We hiked for about an hour and a half to reach the peak. The first part of the trail, about 1.3 kilometres was pretty steep uphill. I was definitely sweating as we headed higher. We took a few breaks on the way to catch our breathes. I was trying to get as much fresh air as possible into my lungs to get rid of the headache I still had. You could tell it was prime hiking season, because at the first major junction there was a man selling ice creams. Gotta give them credit, there's no way I could be bothered to carry all those ice creams uphill to sell. Where the path forked, we headed right. This part of the path wasn't as steep and it was just under a kilometre to reach the peak, Bulchulbong. The first part of the hike had been under the shade of the trees, so we didn't really have much in the way of views. The second part was along the ridge line, and we got views of the other peaks, and the lake/reservoir below. The trees below were a real mix of colours, however, my camera is unable to pick up their beauty. Some things are just for the mind's eye.

The peak was a little crowded so we didn't stay long. We descended in a different direction, to the way we had come up. We hiked down for about an hour, maybe a little longer. The weather was beautiful, we were really lucky, as Warren was saying this time last year, the weather had been terrible and that it had rained when they'd hiked the same trail last year. We did a little detour to visit Wonjeokam, a small temple. The temple was originally built by Master Monk Jeogam in the 4th year of King Seonjong's Reign during the Goryeo period. The temple was a lot bigger back then, but it was burnt down during the Korean War. The, now smaller, temple was restored by Beommyeong, a Buddhist monk in 1961. It was pretty small, but cute. There was a big gold statue of Buddha to one side of the temple, and the buildings and the trees had lanterns hanging in them.

We continued further down to the end of the trail and Naejangsa Temple. The pathway leading to the temple was gorgeous. All the trees were covered with red leaves and there was a small stream with the hanging over it. Just perfect! This part of the park as heaving! There were, what felt like, a million people there, taking photos of the natural beauty. I love autumn, it's just so pretty, and I really wish that it lasted longer, especially here in Korea, as it is over in a flash. We took a look around Naejangsa, the temple, that was heaving too. It was a bit of a shame as parts of it were under construction. But we could see up from under the lanterns to the peak, from which we had hiked down. Naejangsa is believed to have been built by Yeongeunjosa, a Buddhist monk in the year 636 of the Baekje Dynasty. The temple complex had been huge, with over fifty buildings, but Jeongyujaeran (the 1597 2nd invasion by the Japanese) and the Korean War completely destroyed the place. The temple that is there now is largely the result of reconstruction efforts that took place in the 1970s.

We were running low on time and we had to get to the bus parking lot, which was 6 kilometers away from the temple. We headed to the area in front of the temple and bought some tickets for the shuttle bus, they were only a dollar or two each, and we joined the queue. The queue was fairly long, but it was moving well. There were loads of shuttle buses coming and going, and it only took about about ten to fifteen minutes of waiting. The bus journey took about ten minutes and dropped us off at the park entrance, we thought it would take us all the way, but it only took us half way. We then wandered through the little town by the entrance to the park, it was heaving there were cars and people everywhere. We found the way towards the bus parking lot. There was an even bigger queue here for the shuttle buses to get to the buses. The queue wasn't moving, so we ended up walking the three kilometres to find our bus.

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