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Published: June 12th 2011
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So all of the hype for Seoraksan was well deserved. It's definitely the coolest place I've been in Korea so far! The bus took 4 hours, but it was worth it when our buss pulled up one block from the beach. Seoraksan National Park is located next to the town of Sokcho which is right on the Sea of Japan. We had a great time relaxing on the beach and then some of us paid for an extreme speed boat trip. Safety was NOT the number one priority and at several points I was pretty sure the boat was going to tip over. So obvioiusly I loved it.
Our hostel was up in the mountains and the view from our windows was absolutely spectacular. On Sunday we hiked for about 6 hours. It was a lot of hard work! But it's hard to feel so awesome about yourself when you see all the little ajummas (Korean word that sort of means "grandmother") doing the same thing...and having zero problems with it. We hiked to the base of this cliff called Ulsanbawi. We wanted to climb the stairs to the top, but Koreans love hiking so there were just too many
people up there.
What's really weird about hiking in Korea is that every so often you'll run into a rest stop of sorts. They have bathrooms, restaurants, and gift shops. It's nice when you need a new bottle of water, but sort of disconcerting at times.
Sunday night we went back to the beach and set off fireworks like the locals do. There are a lot of light houses off the coast and it all looked beautiful at night.
On Monday (Korean Memorial Day), we went back to the park. We hiked out to a river, then spent time climbing around on all of the boulders. The people who were smart enough to bring their swimsuits got to jump off this enormous boulder into a really deep part of the river. I was extremely jealous! We also took a cable car up Mount Seorak where youcan hike a little further up and then there's another cliff to climb. It looks like people are climbing a narrow staircase, but there are actually just small, strategically-placed bits of concrete that you use to sort of rock climb. Yet another place to get schooled by ajummas. And the old man
who carrier his cart up every morning to sell tokens at the top.
Right before we left Seoraksan we went on this Viking Ship carnival ride right on the beach. My friend Carly is convinced that it goes higher than regular viking ship rides, but I don't think that's true. But I could be wrong since I was focusing more on her hilarious screaming than the ride itself.
The bus back was a brutal 5 hours that involved only 1 rest stop (1 hour in) and some off-roading in the Korean countryside. And then a subway ride to a different part of Seoul. And then a 45 minute bus ride back to Dongtan. But, all in all, completely worth it.
On a different note, the first floor of the building we've moved into is going to be rented out to a business, but until then we get to use it. It's currently the game room where they've hooked up a large TV, Dylan's Wii, and put all of the chairs accumulated from the various apartments. We were downstairs on Thursday playing some Mario Party when we noticed some Korean girls out the store-front windows. There's a restaurant
across the street and one next door and they're both quite popular, so we run into a lot of Korean people right outside our building. But these girls were watching us play video games and taking pictures of us through the glass. We invited them inside since it's quite strange to have people stand behind glass and take pictures of you. Kind of like you're in the zoo. But then, as we're playing the video games, they starting sticking their iPhones in our faces to take more pictures. It was bizarre. And hilarious.
That's all for now. Hope you're all well!
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Mom
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Dad is SO PROUD!
...and very jealous of this adventure!