Bukhansan Mountain is situated quite accessibly via a simple bus ride within Seoul city. Bukhansan has several different peaks to choose from when hiking the mountain and our destination was to reach the Baegundae peak, which is the highest peak of Bukhansan mountain, elevation at 836m.
Seems not so bad compared to our Inca trail, but mind you at least for the Inca trail we practiced a few hikes throughout the year. Since this trip was early in the year, and Winter lasts forever in Toronto, suffice to say we went in with whatever cardio training we had from the previous year - which isn't much to talk about haha.
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| Delicious street food - sweet savoury omelet sandwich |
We left our guesthouse at 7:00am, taking the subway and a bus to get to the national park. But along the way, we also picked up some breakfast and snacks for the hike. Our breakfast pre-hike was quite delicious, something that I haven't tried before, A sweet savoury omelet sandwhich. It was such a blend of flavours, and I thought in my head: I must make this when I'm back in Toronto! It was also only 2000 won. We got three of them and we ate them earnestly on the bus ride to the park.
Other snacks that we purchased were kimbap, 4 rice balls, fruit, korean eggs (cooked) and something else that I didn't know what it was called, but it looked good. We weren't sure if we needed more food so we when we saw that there were stands just before reaching the park, we thought to purchase more snacks. Unfortunately the owners weren't there, so we had to make do with what we had.
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| Bukhansan National Park |
Once at the park we learned that we were too early; the Information booth did not open until 10:30am. There was a large map though that was posted by the Information booth and we tried to gage how to hike it. Of course, all of this was written in Korean, so we had no idea which was which. This was not good. But then like a stroke of luck, a Ranger passed by and she came and helped us out by giving us a map and also giving directions and a route for us. Yay! We were ready to go.
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| Ranger mapping out our route for us |
We thanked the woman ranger and began our journey up the mountain. It was a long and arduous journey. Up hill a lot of the way. But it was also quite the view. Lovely landscape, nature at its finest. I wished we had a mountain in Toronto we could just hike up on any random day. But to get to one we'd have to travel far to get to one - i.e. Mount Tremblant or Blue Mountain. As we neared the peak, we had ropes where we had to pull ourselves up. Thank god for those body combat classes at Goodlife, otherwise I would not have made it.
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| Eating Rice ball while resting |
There were some areas where I had to walk on what looked like limestone? on the mountain, it was like a 45 degree angle. For obvious reasons, I had no pictures of that, but I'm sure plenty can be found on the web via an easy google search :P
The slanted angle and my fear of heights, didn't mingle too well. At one point it had gotten even steeper and at that point, my friends asked if I wanted to stay back here, keeping in consideration of my heights fear.
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| Friends being silly on the hike :) |
However, I was determined to go on. You’re not on the peak unless you’re up on the peak. I would conquer this.
Finally, we reached the top (well, a good 2 meters from there, as this was the first lookout point before the peak), with legs shaking and heart pounding, we sat there, finally able to rest. Here we busted out our food and ate it… it wasn’t much haha. Compared to all the Koreans who literally brought real food, even hotwater for ramen along with a sitting mat! we looked pretty ill prepared, eating our kimbap and taking in the sights. I think someone even asked us if that was all we brought. LOL. We must have looked very sad with our little snacks.
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| A temple resting area along the hike |
One thing that was noticeable was that I had so much water still! I had a 2 L filled in my hydration pack, and going all the way up here, I still had 1.5L. Well, at least I'll have water going back down, though according to the ranger it shouldn't take more than 2.5 hours? Give or take. There was a fork in the path to which would lead us to an information centre and a road that had a bus station. Good, I had thought then. That didn't sound too bad.
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| Playing match the symbols - where are we? |
My back was tired, and I hadn't been the only one. Looking at my friends, they too had that look of weariness. We had hiked for about 5 hours, so it was natural to feel tired. Now... the descent.. well, after going to the peak first!
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| That's where we're headed! (still no where near the peak yet) |
We walked and walked, and if I had thought going up was tough, going down was just as bad. It was very rocky. My legs were like jelly at some point. We all had to grip the ropes heading down too. My poor hands (I didn’t have gloves) were scraped pretty raw. It didn't help that there were some really fast descenders - did I mention Koreans hikers are very quick on their feet? lol I almost got jabbed in the hand by hiking sticks.
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| Rest stop (and Observation point) just before the Baegundae Peak |
It took a long time - much longer than what we remembered the ranger telling us it would take - but we finally reached an information centre. And it was there that we found out we had gone the wrong way. We had literally taken a wrong turn somewhere and walked completely the opposite direction.... The woman at the information centre told us that if we wanted to walk our original route, we would have to walk another 2 hours the other direction.
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| Rockface near the Baegundae Peak |
My friends and I looked at each other for a moment and shook our heads. No, it was too far of a distance. And the sun was starting to set. Was there an alternate route to follow?
The woman nodded and said there was another one. If we continue along this path we were on, we would get to a bus station within a half hour.
Well then. Obvious choice.
We followed the new route and within a half hour, we reached a bus station and civilization as well! Once we arrived back at our guesthouse, we showered and rested until it was 9:30pm when my friend Madeline woke me and my other friend Susan up to go get dinner.
Exhausted we left the guest house, and found a Korean bbq place in the Myeongdong area to eat. The food was alright, not as good as I imagined it, but it was likely because it was just a random place chosen instead of one that was known for its food. At any rate, we were all so tired it didn’t matter. As long as we were full, it was all good.
We walked a bit around the Myeongdong area again afterwards, and then finally headed back to our guesthouse. We freshened up and then went to sleep pretty quickly.
All in all, the hike on Bukhansan was an amazing experience. It was tough, really tough at some points, but when you reach the top, it feels as if everything you worked for to get there was well worth it :)
Hallasan Mountain is the highest mountain in South Korea (elevation of 1950m), and it is situated on an island called Jeju.
To begin the retelling of the story of our hike up Hallasan mountain, I'd have to backtrack a few days before the actual hike.
After our Bukhansan hike, the next day we had taken a flight to go to Jeju island.
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| Yakcheonsa Temple |
On Jejus island, we picked up our rental car and drove to Yakcheonsa Temple, where we were planning to stay overnight to experience what a templestay would be like. Along the way to Yakcheonsa Temple, we stopped by a restaurant for a snack by ordering pancakes; a seafood one and the other a mugwort pancake.
After we had finished the snack, we picked some honey roasted peanuts and 2 bags of chips for the
At any rate, he told us to quickly eat something since we hadn’t had a dinner dinner and to come to do the evening ceremony at 6:30pm. He also gave us a schedule we were to follow.
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| Sleeping quarters at the Temple |
He quickly showed us where we would be sleeping (it was a nice spacious quarters, although our bed was really a mat and blanket along with a wooden block for a pillow). Then he told us to go eat (the kitchen was just a walk away from our sleeping quarters) and that we should change into these traditional temple clothing. The clothing included pants, a vest and a long jacket.
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| Dinner at the temple! Yum! |
We ate dinner but while we ate there were some really nice elder Korean ladies (50s I would guess) that took the time to befriend us and told us what we needed to do – basically wash our own dishes haha. They were also nice enough to give us rice cakes (mugwort rice cakes), and also carve us a pear!
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| Our schedule at the Temple |
We thanked them for their graciousness and then quickly finished our food, changed into our clothes and went to do the ceremony.
In our panic, or at least in my case, lol, my clothing was all the wrong size!
We were running late, and it was so funny, imagine seeing three girls in pink traditional temple clothing rushing up the steps to the temple to a ceremony, and there was a group of people there (students perhaps), trying to take a picture.
Once we entered the temple, the monk showed us how to bow at the service and then he moved to the front podium where the other monks were while we stayed where we were. From that point on, we would follow another lead monk – monkey see, monkey do!
The service – just the bowing part was done and our monk took us out and brought us to his office and we chatted over gaoshan (a Taiwan tea) for at least an hour.
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| Inside the Temple |
We learned that our monk studied buddishm in Korea as well as the Univeristy of British Columbia. He travelled quite a bit as well, to Burma, Quebec, New York and Toronto! His English was pretty good as well. The monk also gave us some pretty important information in regards to our hike up mount Hallasan (something we originally planned to do on our day 3 on Jeju island). He said that there was a lot of snow up the mountain at this time of year and that we should buy Eisens (ice climbing shoes). These were basically ice-climbing grips that you attach to your hiking shoes so they give you grip as you are hiking on top of ice. We were surprised to hear that there would still be snow and ice up the mountain, but we trusted the monks words. He told us to head to e-mart to buy our eisens. We said we would the next day when we leave the temple to our airbnb place.
Finally, the monk called it a night and then said that we had to be up at 4:30am to do another ceremony.
Pretty exciting, but also we knew it would be tiring all the same lol.
We headed back to our quarters and freshioned up and went to bed. Note: The floors to our quarters were heated!
Day 2 on Jeju Island
3am. OMG. We were so tired. We went to do the ceremony at 4:30am. It was so cold. Dreadfully cold. I kept thinking that I should have grabbed my jacket. The pink temple clothing was not offering much warmth. I looked over to Susan and Madeline, and they too were freezing. But we knelt there, did our bows no less, and after perhaps an hour and half service, we finally returned back to our quarters.
At 6:30AM, we got up again and went for breakfast. It was about 6:45am when we finally sat down to just start our breakfast when our monk came by and told us to meet him at the front at 7am for our morning hike.
Never did we eat so fast. When we finished we went to look for him, but didn’t see him, so we wandered around the temple and took pictures. Finally after hearing my suggestion, we went to check to see if he was at his office.
We decided to take a picture of susan by the bell and then suddenly he popped out. He asked if we were ready. We nodded.
Off we went on our hike.
The hike was nice and scenic, we got to the coast and saw the water, took a few pictures and then started to head back. Our monk had to abandon us at a 3rd of the way because he had to rush to a meeting (and because we were too slow hahaha).
We got back to the temple and wandered around taking pictures, and had to keep in mind we had to meet up with him at 9:30am.
At 9:30am, we went to his office where he showed us how to bead a Buddhist necklace. It had to have 108 beads – the significance of this number is because there are 6 organs, and because of the sins of the 6 organs, we need to multiply them to 36; and because there is past present and future, it is 36 x 3, which is 108.
Once we finished beading we did a little meditation.
We had to end it early because our monk was meeting someone. But it was really funny because then we realized how the cultural barrier was; our monk who spoke so reservedly towards us in English, but when he spoke in Korean, it was completely different! He was very happy and enthusiastic and quite loud spoken. It was very funny and surprising.
Our monk told us then to come back around 11:20am, and to wander around the temples in the meantime.
We wandered, took pictures and then returned there at 11:20am but saw he had company. We returned again around 11:30am, and still it was the same, he still had company. Finally, we saw him at 11:40am and then he said we should grab lunch, that we wouldn’t have too much time for meditation.
We went to eat again, had the bimbimbap food, and also in addition a new white sugar snack.
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| Eisens! |
We thanked the head chef lady and then thanked the monk as well before we headed out. As we headed towards our new place to stay in Jeju Island, we also took a stop at the World Cup Stadium centre to go to the e-mart that the monk mentioned. There we picked up our Eisens. We drove to our airbnb guesthouse stay and left our luggage there as we went to see our sights of the day.
We drove out and saw two waterfalls, - Cheonjiyeon Falls, Cheonjeyeon Falls/Seonimgyo Bridge, and Jusangjeolli Cliffs. Finally we went to also try the black pig for dinner; it was a Korean bbq! It was so good, delicious!!!!
After dinner, we headed back to our airbnb stay.
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| Black Pig - a delicacy on Jeju Island |
We showered, brushed teeth and got ready for bed; tomorrow as going to be an early day – 6am wakeup! And climbing another mountain, mount Hallasan!
Day 3 on Jeju Island
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| Ginseng shots at a restaurant |
We woke up at 6am (more like cracked our eyes open) and heard and saw that it was thunderstorming. Sigh. No mountain climbing today. We went back to sleep. We were up again at 8:30am. It was still thunderstorming. We discussed and mourned the fact that our day’s itinerary was now ruined! Boo. Susan cries out that it was her fault, she said that the weather so far had been so good! She had jinxed it. We checked the weather forecast for the next day and saw that it was going to rain too tomorrow, but not as heavily, more like a drizzle. For me I was thinking and regretting about not having my raincoat on me. Oh well. I have garbage bags.. I will have to make do!
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| Ginseng Chicken |
The day’s itinerary had to be changed, and so we decided to do indoor things, i.e. visit the alive museum and also the Seogwipo Olle market. Before heading to the market, we took out our dirty laundry and threw them into the washing machine at our airbnb place (“where the wind dwells”). We
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| Seogwipo Olle Market |
After lunch, we headed back to our airbnb place and took out our laundry to dry inside the house (we found some drying racks).
We then went to the Seogwipo Olle market first since we wanted to buy all the food for the “tentative” hike up hallasan mountain the next day. I bought there two rain ponchos (since I didn’t bring my raincoat), and madeline and susan bought two ponchos as well.
We bought lots of items! Jeju oranges, tangerines from the previous day, bread, etc. The place reminded us of the st. Lawrence market place, full of fish, fresh vegetables, bread, eggs, ramen, and chocolate.
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| Alive Museum! |
After the market we headed to the alive museum which turned out so much entertaining than we all had anticipated. We ended up spending nearly 4 hours there!
Instead of going to the “Carbon dioxide Spring” spa we had intended originally, we ended up just going home, but not before picking up mcdonald’s bulgogi burgers and also a fresh batch of fried chicken!
We ate the food and then prepared to head to bed; the next day was going to be a long day.
Day 4 on Jeju Island - The Hike is on!
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| Hallasan we go! |
Hallasan mountain was a go! I wore my rain poncho, as did Susan and Madeline, just in case it started raining.
The hike up was pretty tough. At first when we first encountered the ice, we thought we could just bear through it, I mean we all live in Canada, and the bloody weather is terrible. 70% of the time we walk on ice/snow anyway. But of course, the ice/snow was on even ground, not a slope. Eventually we gave in and strapped on our Eisens, and wow, it made a huge difference! The grip was much better. We should have put them on earlier lol. While the grip was better, the climb itself was still very tiring. Already exhausted from our last hike (Bukansan mountain), this one was also a difficult one because of its slow incline. The gradual incline was exhausting. My ankle was also in a lot of pain, and I had to take a few advils throughout the hike. Madeline’s right knee was causing her a lot of pain as well. Susan’s whole body just hurt (in her words “broken”). At one point, I thought about just not proceeding ahead because there was also a cutoff point that we had to reach a checkpoint in order to get to the summit. We started the hike at 9:00am. We had to reach the checkpoint by 12:30pm. From the starting point to the shelter was 7.3 km uphill! With my ankle in pain, I didn’t know if I would be able to keep pace. I told the others to just go ahead, and if I bump into them great, but if not, then we would just meet at the parking lot (at the beginning of the trail). I took my time, watching my own pace, no rushing. I could turn back at any time since there was only one path up and one path down. This of course meant that there were a lot of hikers on the trail. Lol Lots of traffic.
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I proceeded the best I could and somehow I ended up catching up with the others. My ankle still hurt, but I think after a while the ankle’s pain became a bit more manageable. As long as I kept a certain pace, it didn’t hurt as much.
We all made it to the shelter, ate some of the food that we had packaged (left over fried chicken, -- I know, so ghetto! Tangerines and oranges, water) with a few minutes to spare! It was 12:24pm when we crossed the shelter and proceeded to the summit. Phew. 6 minutes to spare. Wow. Cutting things close. As we crossed the checkpoint, we were told by the gate watcher that we needed to reach the summit by 2:00pm. We nodded and proceeded.
The rest of the hike was just exhausting.
We hiked and we all successfully reached the summit; at 1:56pm. Wow. 4 minutes to spare. Cutting things close again. We were told then that we needed to start making our way down by a service worker there. So we ate our bread that we had brought up and took some quick pictures and started to make our way down (the same path we came up from – what goes up, must come down!).
The trek down was both fun and painful. At somepoint of the hike down, we started sliding down the path using our ponchos as the sled. Hahaha. We really know how to entertain ourselves. We played some music on our ipods as well.
The hike down although it was a lot easier than the hike up, it was still very hard on the knees. There were many rocky areas that we didn’t even notice when we hiked up. But going down, every rocky area felt like an eternity of pain. Everyone was tired; surprisingly, I was faring a lot better going down than going up. The pain in my ankle was still there, but I found my footing so much better on the way down than up. I guess I don’t like ascending :D.
When we finally reached the checkpoint (shelter). Madeline had to go to the restroom, so Susan and I sat there to rest and eat some tangerines. As we were eating, a service person told us that we should start going down now, they were closing up the checkpoint. Ai! It was 4:00pm. We told them that we were waiting for our friend in the restroom and so he let us wait there. While waiting, I ate another tangerine. Ha.
When Madeline came out, we started to head down again. The walk felt like a continuous path of rocks. I was still doing quite well, throbbing ankle aside. Madeline and Susan were in a lot of pain. I felt for them, but unfortunately there was nothing I could really do. Except maybe offer words of encouragement of “we’re almost there!”.
Finally, we reached the bottom of the mountain!
It took us nearly 9.5 hours to hike a 19.2 km (to and back) trail up the mount Hallasan.
We ended the day with going to the carbon dioxide spring that we had wanted to visit yesterday but didn’t have time for.
On our way there, it was quite scary as we encountered a terrible fog. We barely could see the line that separated the two lanes from oncoming traffic! Thank god when we finally did a turn, the fog was gone.
The carbon dioxide spring was amazing. It relaxed our muscles a lot from the long hike and the fizziness of it was a new experience.
The drive home thank goodness wasn’t so bad, no terrifying fog encounter. We got back to our place and then had to pack. Susan by this point was feeling a bit unwell. The cough that she had at the beginning of the trip took a turn for the worse. She kept coughing and she had started to run a fever. We told her to rest and she did; though she would sporadically wake up to talk to us in the middle of our conversations (between Madeline and I). It was weird.
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| Descending Hallasan mountain... Are we there yet? (Madeline and Susan in the pic) |
Anyway, Mad and I packed our bags, and folded most of Susan’s cloths for her (except for the ones that were damp still). We were all so exhausted. So much that we didn’t even eat dinner.
I was suppose to help mad put the dirty clothes from the days hike to dry but I too fell asleep. Good old mad, ended up hanging them to dry while we slept.
Overall, our Hallasan mountain hike was amazing. The view when were near the top, was breathtaking. It was like we were on top of clouds. Such a beautiful sight. All the hardwork to reach the top, again, was worth every sweat and pain. lol.
