 November
4, Seoul
National Museum. This museum is claimed to be the biggest in South
Korea. It is located in Seoul and the closest subway station
is Ichon of Seoul Line 1 and 4.
It's big alright. When we visited, there was another special
exhibit happening in the east building for another fee. We just
settled with the normal exhibit, and with the small park outside
the building. |
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November 11-13,
This trip is for Seoraksan
National Park.
We stayed at Sokcho for the first night after a 4:30hr bus ride
from Incheon. The next morning, we took a local bus (#7 or #7-1)
to Sinheungsa Temple. The last time we were here, it was raining
really hard. We couldn't do anything but see only part of the
temple. This time, we had full sun. It was a bit warm and we
were ready to conquer the third highest summit of South Korea.
This is a 10+km trail to the summit. It passes a very scenic
valley with a bunch of waterfalls and beautiful rock formations.
Higher up the mountain, there were already snow and ice patches
on the trail. The colours on this side of the mountain was also
gone.
6:15hrs of hiking when we reached the shelter. It was such a
relief. There weren't so many people up there so we got a nice
corner spot. This shelter is different from what I had before
from Deogyusan National
Park. The heating system is different and the location is
on a nice plateau. Not good for wind though. The sleeping room
is on the lower level of the shelter but we could still hear
the wind howling through the night. The leg-room may also not
work for people over 6' tall. We were short people so we did
ok on this trip. We had a good night. Oh crap we forgot to go
outside for the sunset.
Ok, so we'll go after the sunrise then.
Our morning was covered with thick fog. We didn't have sunrise,
and we didn't have good views. All we had was the mad wind.
Our descent was via the Osaek route (Namosaek). It was a pure
forest hike. No views. We reached Osaek gate in 3hrs. Osaek
is also a tourist destination, mainly because of the shorter
approach to the summit of Seoraksan (about 4hrs) and the famous
Osaek Hotspring. This small town was dead when we arrived. My
wife went to the hotspring while waiting for the bus back to
Sokcho. The bus only comes every hour. The stop is beside the
National Parks Office, about 15mins walk from Osaek trailhead. |
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  November 25-26. So, we decided to go back to Ganghwa-Do Island where we spent our first landed time here in Korea. This Island is somewhat far north from Incheon but it is somehow part of Incheon.
From the Incheon Bus Terminal, we took a route to downtown Ganghwa and it took us over 2hrs to get there. I first heard that it would only take 1hr to get to this Island from the terminal but the bus ride took us forever. The bus took a lot of stops and the traffic... god the traffic.
When we finally arrived, we walked around the downtown
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 area to look for a place to stay. We found a bunch of Yeogwan (similar to Minbak) but somehow we
ended up staying at a "love motel". From the moment we entered the building, there seemed to be
a calling for "getting some". The front desk was darkened by a black light, the stairs were
surrounded by neon lights, mood music on, and best of all, our room had a condom dispenser, and
free porn... PORN!!!
After checking-in, we took a walk-about and we visited the Goryo Palace Site and one of the Gates.
It was quite an uphill walk to the gate. The town below would've been a nice sight if it wasn't for
all the black smoke coming from the field... in addition to the already polluted air.
The next day, we went back to the bus station and we took a ride there to Mt. Manisan. We met a
couple of guys there who were worried about us getting lost. They wouldn't leave us alone the
entire hike. They also told us that it would take us 3hrs to complete the hike, so we kinda rushed.
Well, it only took us 1:45hrs roundtrip.
After this hike, we went to Jeondeungsa Temple (pictures and report are from my previous visit).
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2006
Journal : March | April | May | June | July | August | September | October | November | December