Sorak-san (May 26-29)
A few weekends ago my friends and I took a long bus ride up Korea's Eastern coast to Sorak--san, Korea's largest and most beautiful national park.
We left Busan Friday night around 11 o'clock. It was a seven hour bus ride and we expected to all sleep on the bus and wake up around 6:30 in Sorak-san refreshed and ready to explore the park. It was a great plan. We didn't count on having a bus driver who was trying to set a land speed record. We were in a full size bus and the guy was averaging 100 km/hr (this is from one of the Canadians in the front and I don't know what the conversion is from metric...I don't want to know, it was fucking fast). And the route was along the coast so it was curvy and switchback-ridden the entire time. All of us were being jostled back and forth. No one got any restful sleep.
And our plan of arriving at 6:30 was a bit off too. We arrived at 4:45 am. We were half and hour from Sorak-san with nowhere to stay. We considered sleeping in a park and someone suggested a rice paddy (that was lack of sleep talking). We managed to find two cabs that took us to the park and a nearby hotel. It was really nice and as we found out, pretty expensive too. But with 8 people in one room, it tends to bring down the price a bit. We found our room, claimed beds and spots on the floor and tried to fall asleep.
Some of us, though, were past the sleep stage. We had been up long enough that we weren't tired anymore. Someone suggested a sunrise hike and five of us took off. We walked from the hotel and found a huge riverbed which we crossed to find some really beautiful hills and pools, discovered what may have been a North Korean landmine (more than likely a bee hive) and a troublesome fence that we all had to fight our way over. And all of this in the rain.
The rain was the theme for the weekend. We went back to the hotel a bit damp, woke everyone up and after a quick breakfast left for the park. By this point it was raining pretty steadily and everyone but me bought silly-looking rain ponchos. I was betting my rip-off North Face jacket could handle the rain, and it did successfully for the first half an hour of hiking. After that it just got too soaked and I was cold and wet the entire day. My poncho-clad friends didn't do much better, hiking in a plastic bag can get pretty hot and eventually everyone chose to be wet and cold instead of humid and sweaty.
It was awesome though. When you enter the park you are greeted by an amazing 5o foot tall Buddha statue. Continuing on through the park we passed over a few rivers and through a really beautiful forrest to the base of a mountain. We decided on the short uphill hike instead of the long flat one. The hill we started on turned to a rocky mountain and then to a really frightening cliff. We were all panting getting up to the cliff face and found we had no view because of the thick fog. You could tell though that we were high and with my fear of heights I'm glad I couldn't see out. If I had been able to, I probably wouldn't have taken the stairs to the cave.
Cold, slippery industrial metal stairs were anchored into the side of the cliff. They were the only thing keeping you from (at least) a hundred foot drop. With both the rain and the fog the stairs freaked all of us out, but no one was turning back after the hike up. We took the stairs up another 5o feet to a cave in the side of the cliff. The cave was no more than 20 ft deep, 15 ft tall and was used as a Buddhist shrine. Inside was a golden Buddha statue, food offerings and traditional paper prayers hanging from the ceiling. An old couple oversaw the shrine and the man would etch your name into a small medallion for a few bucks. It was pretty amazing and would have had a spectacular view if not for the fog. We spent 2o minutes there then slowly made our way back down the stairs and hiked back to the bottom of the mountain
Cold, exhausted, and soaking wet we returned to our hotel and after a stop at a small market to purchase our dinner (Pringles, cookies and beer) we stayed up late playing poker and fighting over who got to sleep where. We woke up the next day and caught the afternoon bus back to Busan. It was a much longer ride with the driver actually following the speed limit and we arrived back home late Sunday night. Besides the drunk Korean guy on the subway yelling at Jake for wearing a Viking helmet, the trip back was pretty uneventful.
Despite (or maybe because of) the long travel times, bad weather and cramped accommodations, it was an awesome trip. Check out the pictures below...
We left Busan Friday night around 11 o'clock. It was a seven hour bus ride and we expected to all sleep on the bus and wake up around 6:30 in Sorak-san refreshed and ready to explore the park. It was a great plan. We didn't count on having a bus driver who was trying to set a land speed record. We were in a full size bus and the guy was averaging 100 km/hr (this is from one of the Canadians in the front and I don't know what the conversion is from metric...I don't want to know, it was fucking fast). And the route was along the coast so it was curvy and switchback-ridden the entire time. All of us were being jostled back and forth. No one got any restful sleep.
And our plan of arriving at 6:30 was a bit off too. We arrived at 4:45 am. We were half and hour from Sorak-san with nowhere to stay. We considered sleeping in a park and someone suggested a rice paddy (that was lack of sleep talking). We managed to find two cabs that took us to the park and a nearby hotel. It was really nice and as we found out, pretty expensive too. But with 8 people in one room, it tends to bring down the price a bit. We found our room, claimed beds and spots on the floor and tried to fall asleep.
Some of us, though, were past the sleep stage. We had been up long enough that we weren't tired anymore. Someone suggested a sunrise hike and five of us took off. We walked from the hotel and found a huge riverbed which we crossed to find some really beautiful hills and pools, discovered what may have been a North Korean landmine (more than likely a bee hive) and a troublesome fence that we all had to fight our way over. And all of this in the rain.
The rain was the theme for the weekend. We went back to the hotel a bit damp, woke everyone up and after a quick breakfast left for the park. By this point it was raining pretty steadily and everyone but me bought silly-looking rain ponchos. I was betting my rip-off North Face jacket could handle the rain, and it did successfully for the first half an hour of hiking. After that it just got too soaked and I was cold and wet the entire day. My poncho-clad friends didn't do much better, hiking in a plastic bag can get pretty hot and eventually everyone chose to be wet and cold instead of humid and sweaty.
It was awesome though. When you enter the park you are greeted by an amazing 5o foot tall Buddha statue. Continuing on through the park we passed over a few rivers and through a really beautiful forrest to the base of a mountain. We decided on the short uphill hike instead of the long flat one. The hill we started on turned to a rocky mountain and then to a really frightening cliff. We were all panting getting up to the cliff face and found we had no view because of the thick fog. You could tell though that we were high and with my fear of heights I'm glad I couldn't see out. If I had been able to, I probably wouldn't have taken the stairs to the cave.
Cold, slippery industrial metal stairs were anchored into the side of the cliff. They were the only thing keeping you from (at least) a hundred foot drop. With both the rain and the fog the stairs freaked all of us out, but no one was turning back after the hike up. We took the stairs up another 5o feet to a cave in the side of the cliff. The cave was no more than 20 ft deep, 15 ft tall and was used as a Buddhist shrine. Inside was a golden Buddha statue, food offerings and traditional paper prayers hanging from the ceiling. An old couple oversaw the shrine and the man would etch your name into a small medallion for a few bucks. It was pretty amazing and would have had a spectacular view if not for the fog. We spent 2o minutes there then slowly made our way back down the stairs and hiked back to the bottom of the mountain
Cold, exhausted, and soaking wet we returned to our hotel and after a stop at a small market to purchase our dinner (Pringles, cookies and beer) we stayed up late playing poker and fighting over who got to sleep where. We woke up the next day and caught the afternoon bus back to Busan. It was a much longer ride with the driver actually following the speed limit and we arrived back home late Sunday night. Besides the drunk Korean guy on the subway yelling at Jake for wearing a Viking helmet, the trip back was pretty uneventful.
Despite (or maybe because of) the long travel times, bad weather and cramped accommodations, it was an awesome trip. Check out the pictures below...
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