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Published: November 5th 2012
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630AM
If you look close you can see Venus. This past weekend was JAMMED packed with all sorts of things. Jammed to the point where I was exhausted, seriously. I had a few things planned but didn’t realize how much one was going to be and I didn’t plan on another. Haha.
First thing is Friday… Fortunately Friday was the most relaxed of the days this past weekend. I went to a really good Mexican place (I’m pretty sure I mentioned in a previous post) called Las Margaritas. Their burritos are amazing! So my lady friend and I went there for dinner. That was about the extent of my Friday. Friday needed to be a short night for two reasons… 1. The week kinda drew on me and I was a little tired, 2. I needed to get up at 5:45 AM to hike up a mountain! Haha… Yeah.
So, Saturday… Let me take a deep breath…. Haha. Ok. 5:45 AM comes early no matter what, especially on a Saturday! Mr. Kim, our Jack-Of-All-Trades guy at my school invited me and another one of my coworkers to go for a hike on a mountain in Seoul. So of course I said yes! I always take advantage of Korean
hospitality because they know where all the good stuff is, plus I always learn a thing or two from them. Anyways, Matt (my coworker) and I had to meet Mr. Kim at a certain subway station at 730 AM and from my place it was about 45 minutes to get there. Once we met up with Mr. Kim we just let him show us the way. Up to this point the only information I had about this upcoming adventure was we were going hiking on a mountain, and the mountain is in Seoul. Come to find out the mountain is
Dobongsan (도봉산) and it’s in the far northern part of Seoul (about another 2 hour subway trip with transfers and all, haha). After our journey to Dobong, Mr. Kim tells s it will take somewhere between 4 and 6 hours to go to the top and then come back down! Hahaha… My jaw dropped. I had no idea what I had gotten myself in to. Haha. Anyways, I was there so let’s do this! It turned out the trail we took to climb the mountain was roughly 3.3 kilometers long… Not too bad. But the elevation
Dobongsan Northern Seoul
A look at Northern Seoul on our decent... climb was 726 meters!!! Haha… That may be ok from some recreational climbers/hikers but for me it was a CHORE! Never the less, we made it to the top in about 2 and a half to 3 hours or so. Which I think was pretty good. There were sections of the “hike” where we actually had to climb using rope and these railing things that were sunk into the rock face. Haha. It was a work out and a half, to say the least. But, alas, we made it to the top.
Once at the top we sat down for a snack that Mr. Kim’s wife had prepared for us. We had tangerines, baked sweet potatoes, persimmons, and… Hmm, I forget what it was, but it was good. At the top of Dobongsan there was a Korean man selling
Makgeolli (막걸리referred to in English as "Korean rice wine") out of this HUGE hiking back pack that he must have lugged all the way up the mountain himself! I got a kick out of that. After about a half an hour it was time to make our way back down the mountain. Mr. Kim assured us
that going down will be much easier because we were going to be taking a different trail. Yeah, well, it was hard as hell! Haha… By the time we were half way down the mountain my knees and ankles were KILLING me. The constant pounding of coming down was taking its toll. Eventually we made our way to the bottom. It was a great experience and I took a lot of really nice pictures, but was I exhausted.
After we exited the park, Mr. Kim took us to this makeshift restaurant for some chicken soup concoction. It had massive chunks of chicken, potatoes, all sorts of veggies, and the broth was spicy! It was pretty damn amazing! And of course Matt and I had some mekju (beer) to celebrate out accomplishment. After our meal it was time to head back… But instead of heading home like a normal person would do after climbing a mountain, this guy decided to meet my buddies Dave and Jon in Gangnam. Haha…
I knew Dave and Jon were going to be in Gangnam, but what I hadn’t anticipated was being up so early to hike, then being down at 3:00 to meet
them. So that’s what I did. In Gangnam we went to this German beer hall, called
Octoberfest, that just so happened to have a special running that week which ended that day… $10 all you can drink… Ugh. Haha… And this wasn’t just some local cheap beer it was really good stuff, strong stuff. So by 1030 I was pretty ripped. Haha. Dave and Jon, and another friend who met us out later in the evening (Jeff) wated to go bowling, but I just didn’t have it in me. I needed to go home. So that’s what I did. I was BEAT!
Sunday I slept in until 1100 or so, and it felt AMAZING! My legs were killing me, as one might imagine. I met up with my lady friend and we went to an aquarium in Seoul. It was a really cool place! I have a ton of pictures below so take a look. After the aquarium, we headed over to Shincheon (only 2 subway stops from the aquarium) to get some lamb at my lamb place. Of course the meal was fantastic, as always. After dinner we decided to watch a movie. It was a Korean movie
with English subtitles. I was pretty good.
Anyways, that was pretty, much my weekend. As busy as it was, it was great. Check out the pictures below to see what I saw. Enjoy!
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