 January 1. After the short new year's eve ceremony at the Jogyesa Temple, we went back to the war zone. We
popped our new year champagne in a parking lot then we fired our very own roman candles.
It was a very different experience compared to the "not-so-crazy" Canadian celebration. New Year's eve in the Philippines is a bit similar to Korea. Filipinos too are nuts about fireworks. The difference is they mostly use firecrackers. The louder the better.
When we had enough ashes in our hair and black smoke in our nostrils, we had a few more drinks, then we went back to our mansion. Our room was unbelievably small for all four us. There was no room on the floor so we all had to sleep on a twin-size bed... Cheers to a good welcoming 2007. |
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January 2-4.
This trip is for Jirisan
National Park. This is the last big trip on my priority list and I sure hoped that I've done it during the warmer weather. Winter hiking is beautiful too though, it's just not as pleasant.
We planned this trip to be a 3-day hike, with 2 nights stay at the shelters along the way. Unfortunately, my wife and I both had knee problems. We had to make an emergency descent after a night's stay at Seseok Shelter. We still had fun with the ice and the foggy scenery.
We stayed at a small town called Jungsan-Ri for the first night when we first arrived, then the next day we started our hike to the highest point of Jirisan, Cheonwangbong Peak at 1915m/6284'. From the summit we still had to hike for another couple of hours or so to our first mountain shelter. Along the way, we encountered some issues with our knees and they're still in vain the next day so we left the mountain.
I felt bad that we didn't finish our planned traverse. I was glad though that we didn't because the knees were awefully giving up on us. |
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January 7, after our painful trip to Jirisan National Park, we went for another hike to check the knees. The knees are fine.
This short hike to Mt. Anyangsan is a part of the three named summits in the area, with Mt. Samseongsan to the north and Mt. Gwanaksan to the NorthEast. |
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  January
13, we went to see a show at the National Center for the Korean Traditional Performing Arts in Seoul. There's about five performances here every Saturday at 5pm. Korean traditional dance, song, monologue, string ensemble and orchestra. These performances are worth seeing especially the orchestra.
To get here, we took the subway to the Nambu Bus Terminal Station of Seoul Line 3. The theatre is just a short walk away from the station. |
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| January 28. Once again we were back to Suwon, a city of famous Korean bathrooms just south of Seoul. We went to the popular Hwaseong Fortress. This fortress is a short cab ride away from the subway station. There's a pathway along the walls that run up and down the hills and it offers a good relaxing walk. If you happen to walk by one of the three ticket booths then you'll be charged about a buck for the park's fee. There is also a trolley that could take visitors half way around the fortress, from the main gate Paldalmun to the archery place. It was too bad that archery was closed at the time. |
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2006
Journal : March | April | May | June | July | August | September | October | November | December