Hiking in Seoul

Sorry about the lapse in time.  Work has now just got even more busy, but I'll talk about that another time. 

A group of us had decided that we wanted to go for a hike in the area.  Little did we realize how much of an experience that would be.  We found a mountain that is close to Seoul and one that can be accessed by public transport.  The closest mountain is a tiny cluster called Bukhansan.  In order to get there we have to take the subway to a bus.  The subway ride was fine, other than a man telling us to "go quietly" in Korean and my friend getting very angry at that, but the bus situation was much more adventurous.

There was a very long queue to get onto the bus and we finally managed to squeeze onto one of them.  It was the most crowded bus I have ever been on.  I began to feel claustrophobic, but luckily the ride was only 20 minutes.

We finally reached the mountain and followed the mass of people to base.  Everybody there was decked out in the most expensive gear they could find.  Koreans tend to go all out when they get into a hobby.  Everybody there, except for us, had hundreds to thousands of dollars worth of gear and they looked like they were getting ready to go hiking for a week.

Here is a picture of the bottom of the mountain.  The three people wearing skinny jeans at the bottom of the picture are with me.

We hiked up the mountain with the rest of the week-long hikers and I experienced something that I have never experienced before:  Hiking in a queue.  There were so many people there that you were walking in a line the whole time.  People were walking and then stopping constantly.  Most of the trail was also man-made  structures due to the over use of the area.  It was like walking up stairs the whole way. 

The mountain itself was pretty neat, and we saw that there were some Buddhist temples all over the mountain.  Here is a sign for one of them:

As it was october, we were able to see some foliage in our area:

We eventually followed everybody to the top.  I was half expecting the line to head into a starbucks, but the line dissipated into nothing.  The view was amazing at the top and you could see some good views of the city.

We headed over to another part of the summit and sat with the hundreds of others for a "quiet lunch".  It was funny to see what the other groups had brought to eat.  Koreans love their side dishes, so there were many dishes strewn about in the circles they have made.  Aside from all the kimchi, it is traditional to drink Soju, a hard drink, at the top with everybody.  I, with my constant dehydration, did not want to be involved in this tradition.  I probably would have seriously hurt myself coming down the mountain.

All in all it was a good day and a new experience.  I am happy to hike in the US where you see very few hikers on the trail.  I have been contemplating skiing here.  But  I hear that skiing is even more busy and dangerous than hiking.  I don't think I really want to risk it.

My Cats

A friend of a friend has headed off to India for six months and needed someone to watch her cats.  I gladly agreed to take on the responsibility.  I have wanted to have cats for years now, but I had never had the situation where I could have them.  Settling in one place for a year has opened up that opportunity.  I have had them for about a month and a half now and they have settled in fine.  They are sisters and are about two years old.  This means that they are full of energy and will try to use it all up around 3am.

Here are some pictures:

 Chemi

 Seri

Their names are Chemi and Seri.  Chemi, i guess, kind of means fun in Korean and Seri is short for Serious.  Seri isn't the smartest of cats and had eaten something that had almost killed her my first couple weeks having her.  We brought her to the vet and I guess it somehow passed.  She is fine now, but it was a scary week.
   I will have these cats for another 5 months or so until their real owner comes back from India.  I now know that having two cats in a cramped apartment is not a good idea and I do not wish it upon anyone, unless those people really like to sweep constantly.  I also regret buying a white velvety couch, which is now more of a sandy color with all of the cat hair on it.  Oh well!

Andong Mask Festival - First time out of Seoul

So a few of my friends and I decided that we were going to go to the Mask Festival in Andong.  This would also be the first time out of the megapolis of Seoul.  We headed out at 7am, which is a ridiculously early time as I usually wake up around 11am, and headed to the bus stop.  It took us three hours to get down there by bus, so it gave me plenty of time to catch up on all the sleep that I missed that morning.  During the times that I was awake for the trip, the views were amazing!  It was great to see mountains that weren't scattered with houses all over.
    The minute I stepped off the bus, I realized how nice and clean the air is.  I guess you become pretty inured to the smells wafting from every drain and garbage pile in Seoul.  We first get our return tickets at the booth just so we know when we are leaving for home.  While my friend Lauren was trying to get her ticket, an older woman rushes up to the counter and literally elbows Lauren out of the way like she was in a big hurry to catch her bus.  The woman selling the tickets proceeds to ignore the older woman and finishes with all of us in line.  After getting her tickets, the older woman then sits down and relaxes for her bus to come.  Older people here consider it a right to do whatever they want and say whatever they want to people.  Sometimes it is funny but it does kinda hurt to get elbowed by an old woman in the subway just so she can get out of the train first.
    So we head to the mask festival and were surprised to see all of the giant figurines:

The main stage had a series of events happening while we were there.  We saw Tae Kwon Do students, a group of older people dancing, and some young girls that were wearing something that every mom should have been in an uproar about:

We also saw a little amusement area where you could ride the most interesting carts.  They were robotic characters that would cart you around:

That's right!  You could have Hello Kitty and Winnie the Pooh cart you around.  They were so life-like it was scary.  I first thought that there were little people in there.


We then watched a series of dances in another area, all involving masks and all from different countries.  We then needed to satiate our hunger and headed over to the food court area.  We saw some amazing food choices and some not-so-great food choices like shark fin soup.  We decided to not eat at a place that was selling shark and headed to a place that was roasting a pig.  We had some amazing food that day.

On the far reaches of Andong is a little village that shows the historical life of Koreans.  We headed over and explored the area. 

As you can see it is a bit different from the modern city of Seoul.  There were also large rice fields that were surrounding the town on two sides.  The other two sides had a river meandering by.

Persimmon Tree

After such a great day.  We headed back on the bus and got back to Seoul around 11pm.

 

Cheonggyecheon Stream

Well hello and welcome to my new and improved blog!  Its really not that new and improved, but my friend did tell me an easier way to put up photos!  Sorry that it has been a long time since the last posting, but I have been very sick and work was very hectic this week.  I have about four posting that I'll hopefully be putting up this week.

  So back in September (ya a really long time ago now), my friend, Lauren, and I went on a weekend excursion to the Cheonggyecheon Stream.  I was really excited to go, because at this point I was getting a bit overwhelmed with the city life and just needed to be around something a bit more natural.  The stream itself isn't all that natural.  In fact, the Cheonggyecheon stream is man-made with some natural things residing in in.  The nice thing about the stream is that it is actually below the city street, so you can go to this nice natural (looking) place and not have to travel out of the city! 


On the way to the stream, we took a wrong way out of the subway and headed to another nice area of Seoul where we ran into these cool statues.

These statues are of a Korean family, but it looks like they have been compressed down to about 2 1/2 feet tall!  It kind of looks like one of those funhouse mirrors if you were a Korean 40 year old painted gray.


So we finally found our way and found the beginning of the stream.  It starts out with this odd looking structure (sorry it's sideways!):

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We then head on to the area where the water starts flowing into the stream:

The walk itself was very nice with some great cultural things to do.  I was able to sit in on a little drum circle thing.  And was able to watch some older women do some traditional dances:

There was even a clown there who was making balloon animals:

The walk goes on for quite a while and eventually goes into the Han River, the large river that runs through Seoul.  There was also some very nice art that was decorated on the sides of the river.  This one shows the precession of a parade with the Emperor and Empress:

Here is some of the art that the public can put up along the stream:

Overall the day was great!  It was sunny and a good walking temperature.  Here is one last picture of the stream as we headed further away from the main areas: