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Published: December 13th 2009
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Wolchulsan National Park
The clouds and fog take a brief break My wife and some of her friends have created a travel club, and this past weekend was our first trip to Wolchulsan National Park, in the South Western part of South Korea. This trip was recommended to us from our friend in Seoul, who also gives us "Bee Acupuncture", his son-in-law lives in the area (Yeongam), he is a professional photographer and wrote a book about Wolchulsan National park and the surrounding area, so he was our unofficial tour guide.
We arrived in Yeongam Thursday afternoon and met up with Mr. Bak, who would be our tour guide for the next day-and-a-half. Our first stop was a massage place, we all enjoyed massages, you start out by laying on a bed that vibrated with magnets, we had to remove any credit cards and our cell phones, we laid there for about ten minutes, next was the massaging chair for another ten minutes, from there you moved to an area where you would soak your feet in green liquid at 41 Celsius (105.8 Fahrenheit) for maybe ten minutes, after you are done you get a great foot massage, and end with another chair massage, this chair reclines, some took sports massages,
Massage Place
Myself and John P, background, and an elderly Korean lady like a full body massage. After our massage it is time for dinner which was Octopus soup (Yeonpo tang), to me it was ok, the side dishes were very good. After dinner we arrive at a 400 year old house that we will spend the night in, now this house has been modernized, for the most part, it did have two bathrooms, hot water boiler and lights, the room Pearl and I slept in was still heated the "Old way" with a wood fire (Ondol), the heat from the fire heats the floor, it kept it nice and cozy.
We woke early, 5:30am, the next morning to start our hike in Wolchulsan National Park, we had to use flashlights the first hour, the hike was kind of easy, but for me more difficult in some areas, you actually had a four-point (both feet and both hands) contact with the trail. There were lots, and lots, and lots of steps. Once the sun came up the day was cool and foggy/misty, Mr. Bak took us to some of the more famous sites in the park. The mountain is very rocky which makes for some interesting figures, once we reached the
summit of our first climb we stopped for some snack food, cheese, crackers, sausage, and fruit. We continued on through the fog, it was a very picturesque hike when the sun would break through and you could see mist blowing over the mountains. All said we must have hiked over four hours on an "easy" course with a distance of over five kilometers (little over 3 miles), we saw many famous rocks like; "Laughing Pig", "Couple Kissing" another nickname for this rock is “Gone With The Wind” , "Penis Rock", (no joke), and "Really Big Rock Face", the later was hard to view since a heavy fog was present. After our hike we visited a green tea farm which was very interesting, after the tea farm it was time for lunch at a small restaurant which had a set menu, so we sat down and brought us many side dishes, some Sam-Gap-Sal and Tofu, Fish and soup. We had to get a hotel room since the house we stayed at the night before was already booked; once we got a hotel room we did more sightseeing. We visited the birthplace of Wang-In, a 6th century scholar credited with introducing Chinese
writing and teaching methods to Japan, it was getting close to dinner time now and it was recommended by Mr. Bak's father-in-law that we must eat at this famous restaurant and try their meat soup (Najugam tang), it was great, actually I had two bowls. This restaurant was previewed on television many times, the “Bee-sting” man, Mr. Bak’s fater-in-law, was on the show.
The final day we were on our own as Mr. Bak already had plans, it started off on a downer, it was almost eight in the morning, no traffic on the streets, two blocks from our hotel there was a flashing red light, well a car runs through this light and hits an SUV, I don't think anybody was seriously hurt but the sound and sight was bad. A new co-worker, John P., of mine joined us on this trip and needed to get some gas, so we went to the closest gas station we use, now JP's car uses diesel gas....I'm sure you can see where this little story is going. After the owner of the station put in over a liter (approximately .26 gallons) of unleaded gas, he removed the nozzle and put in
Massage Place
Our guide, Mr. Bak, getting a massage over 20 liters (over 5 gallons) of diesel, well the owner tried to convince us that it would be ok since the ratio was low???? Well I told him that he would have to drain the tank, he did and it took over two hours. During that time we all, six of us, got into my car and drove to Mokpo about thirty minutes west of Youngam. In Mokpo we went to the harbor since it is a port town, we also did some walking around a small mountain to a temple (Youdalsan Park), for lunch we decided to eat fish; we got some fish stew and fried fish and almost ten side dishes. By now we had to go back to get John's car, after which we headed back home, we did make a few stops on the way, one was a "Twin Tomb" site, another was a black raspberry shop which was offering free samples of black raspberry wine, since John and I were driving we only tried one shot glass each, but the rest really enjoyed it, our final site seeing stop was Seonunsa Temple, it was very beautiful, we got to participate in a traditional tea
Massage Place
Massage chair, reminds me of the "Frazer" episode when they bought there dad a new chair. making/drinking class. After walking around the temple it was time for dinner, this area is famous for eel, so we had eel, grilled on charcoal fire, and many side dishes, it was one of our best meals one this trip, after dinner it was time for us all to go home.
The first trip of the new travel club was a success, there were some problems, but all-in-all everybody had a great time, hope you enjoyed the story and the pics.
Until next time.
"Hold 'em the road"
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Aunt Janet
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Ahhhhhhh, that looks so relaxing. Glad you had a great time and what a great idea to have such a club. Enjoy and have a safe trip to TN....Love ya....