Let’s Wander Where the Wifi is Weak

This past weekend, I got out of Seoul and went to Seoraksan National Park with the Seoul Hiking MeetUp group and some friends from my Gaelic Football team (more on how the hell I managed to get into such a sport next week). Roughly a three hour bus ride from Seoul (although probably closer to 2.5 if you don’t have a driver whose right foot is made of lead and keeps it mostly on the brake even on straightaways), Seoraksan is a World Heritage site and is incredibly popular amongst tourists and Korean citizens alike.

The itinerary for the weekend was largely dependent on the individual and what it was they wanted to do. We arrived at 3 AM Saturday morning and at that point you had three options: Option A) Head straight to the pension and pass out until 10 AM, then spend the majority of the day doing some light hiking, going up the cable car to the top of one of the mountain peaks, relaxing at one of the Korean restaurants eating and drinking makkoli while waiting for the people from….Option B) Begin the roughly 12 hour, 14km hike upon getting off the bus. Yup, that’s right. You better have your head in the game and plenty of power food and water in the backpack because the hike is no joke; well if you don’t think that’s no joke then just wait for….Option C) The roughly 17 hour, 19 km hike along the Dinosaur ridge trail.

Anyone care to place bets on what option I took? Yup, you guessed it, Option A WINNER WINNER CHICKEN DINNER!!! I was actually considering doing the 12 hour hike for a little while on the bus, but I had already decided earlier that week that I wanted it to be a relaxing trip and considering I came wholly unprepared for a 12+ hour hike, I decided it best not to deviate from my original course. Hiking for a few hours during the day would be good enough for me, but i’ve sworn to the Old Gods and the New that I would return and conquer Seoraksan one step at a time. In reality, I will likely be 6 hours in and still on the ascent, gasping for breath and begging the passing ajumma’s with walking sticks and children on their backs for “mul”, wishing I had actually bought a pair of hiking shoes or brought more than a single banana to eat.

As it turns out, option A was a solid choice because I got to spend most of the day hanging out with the real MVP of the trip, baby Jigu……

Now I don’t know much about babies, but I know this baby girl is awesome. Jigu is the daughter of Warren, organizer of the trip and head of the Seoul Hiking Group and his wife, Britta. Warren did the 17 hour hike (which he has done around 50 times) while Britta and Jigu opted for the more laid back group, although I have no doubt baby Jigu would have been more than up for a 12 hour hike. This picture was taken at the pension on Saturday morning as Jigu proceeded to crawl around the room and wake people up with her curiosity. On the entire 3 hour bus ride and roughly 7 hours in the pension, she only cried a handful of times and never for more than a minute or two. The rest of the trip she was full of laughter and smiles, or in this case, a quizzical/mean-muggin look on her face as to why I was not fully awake yet.

Most of my Saturday was spent exploring the area that the cable car takes you up to with Britta, baby Jigu and three other friends named Samir, Corey and Daniel (two of which I had just met on the trip). Part of me was regretting not going on the hike for the simple fact that I was certainly missing out on some epic views, until I got up to the peak that the cable car takes you up to. Hot tamales Batman! A two minute ascension that would take 6+ hours for the same view?! To hell with the Old Gods and the New, Seoraksan part dos – Saari and Cable Car reunite is how I see things going down upon my return:p Jkjkjk.

All jokes aside, the views were absolutely stunning. It’s trips like these that make me wish I spent a preposterous amount of money on a high quality digital camera but until that day comes, my iPhone 6 will have to make do. Here are some photos I took from the entire day…..

A Saturday well spent wouldn’t you say? After the cable car adventure, the six of us went to get some Korean food and the boys threw in a few bottles of makkoli (a tasty alcoholic beverage that will sneak up on you if you’re not careful) for good measure. The next few hours were spent hiking the end of the trail that people were coming down from which is where the last two pictures were taken.

Unfortunately, no other photos were taken by me during the making of this weekend but I will go ahead and quickly summarize. From about 6:30-7:30 the entire hiking group ate at a fairly sub par Korean buffet restaurant before proceeding to pick up a lot of snacks and booze of various sorts for the evening. About half the group stayed in pensions and the other half camped, but we all got together for a few hours by a campfire to celebrate a day of hikes (or lack thereof), birthdays and soju. The majority of Sunday was spent on the beach tanning, surfing, swimming, throwing the frisbee around and drinking coronas. The weather for the entire weekend was absolutely gorgeous so that made each moment all the better.

So you made it through all of that mumbo jumbo?! Wow, well hats off to ya! Plenty more where that came from so come check in next week when i’ll be talking about how I managed to start playing Gaelic Football, in Seoul, with a bunch of Irishmen. Until then, eat well, work a bit, play more, but sleep twice as well as you eat, that way you can keep doing all that and everything in between.