Naejangsan National Park Hiking in Korea is pretty much the best thing ever. Every time we go to a new national park, we are always saying “Wow! That was amazing! That has been the best hike yet! We have to come back during the fall!” But I think Naejangsan National Park currently tops our list as the most scenic national park yet! Our day at Naejangsan started out with an early morning KTX train ride from Cheonan to Jeongeup. The trains have been filling up quickly recently (probably because of the nice weather) so we have had to start buying our tickets further in advance. This means we are gambling a little bit on getting good weather (we mainly have to worry about rain). On the morning of our Naejangsan hike, lady luck didn’t seem to be on our side. There were low-lying clouds and they were causing a misty rain. This wasn’t enough rain to stop us though, so we threw on our handy-dandy Seattle rain jackets and started up the mountain. About halfway up the first peak we decided to take a quick break and when we turned around the low lying clouds were lifting out of the valley and it was a stunning view. We had never seen anything like it. We stood there quietly for about five minutes just watching nature show off and enjoying the silence of the mountains. After we snapped out of our momentary trance we continued upward. Little did we know, it would soon be 90 degrees and we were lucky to have such a cool morning. We made our way across a lot of peaks with a few being Yeonjibong Peak, KKachibong Peak, Sinseonbong Peak, and Janggunbong Peak. We ultimately made our way across the Yugunchi Pass to two gorgeous temples. The first temple we passed through was Baegyangsa Temple. The second temple was Naejangsan Temple. Both temples had amazing backdrops. Before we knew it, it was nearing 5:30PM, and we were starting to cut it close on getting back to the train station on time. The remaining part of our hike was done at a world record pace, and even with our extravagant effort we still ended up being the two foreigners running through the parking lot, in our boots, with our bags, clawing to get our bus passes out and continuously looking behind us to see if the bus was coming up the road. I am happy to report we made it with two minutes to spare. Suwon We had May 22 off, (Holler!) which was Buddha’s birthday. There isn’t a whole lot to do with a Wednesday off, so we decided to revisit the Hwaseong Fortress in Suwon and compare it to when we visited it in in the winter. What a difference the color green makes. We tried to capture some of the same photos we did during the winter so we could see the side-by-side comparison. Muuido During the weekend of May 26th, we decided to do a little bit of an easier hike. I had somehow hurt the bottom of my foot on our Naejangsan hike and it needed a bit of a rest. We decided our “easy hike” (meaning we could wear tennis shoes) would be on an island off the coast of Incheon known as Muuido Island. It’s an easy getaway for the people of Seoul and Incheon. Currently, they are building a bridge to Muudio Island (which I think will sadly change the dynamic of the island) but as of right now you have to take a relaxing 5-minute ferry ride from the mainland to Muuido. I actually wished it had been longer. The island itself was amazing and we hiked from one end of the island to the other end. At our hiking destination we were able to catch a bus back to the Muuido Ferry Terminal so we could go back to the mainland. We had some time to spare before we needed to head back to Cheonan. We decided to spend the late afternoon in Seoul where we could enjoy the Gyeongbokgung Palace’s night showing. We decided to walk to the palace from Seoul Station to enjoy the city’s night energy. The Gyeongbokgung Palace’s night showing was beautiful and it and made for some great pictures. Mudeungsan National Park Before we knew it, another weekend was here! We just had to make the best of it with another hike. My foot was feeling better and there were train tickets available! We booked some tickets to Geongju so we could hike Mudeungsan National Park. This park is full of history! The hike started out relatively flat, but by Korean standards, we soon started to head straight up a mountain and across many others where we got some great views of Geongju and the surrounding mountains. We ultimately stopped to have a quick lunch and then we started to head into the super historical part of the park. There we some rocks that were like a billion years old. Ok Ok maybe not a billion years old. But still they were formed over 70 million years ago and that is old as dirt (err or in this case..rock). The first set of rocks we saw were called Seoseokdae Rock. The rocks were stone pillars that ran about 50 meters in length. It is claimed the line of rock pillars looks like a folding screen, and really we can’t argue otherwise. We made our way up a few other peaks, including a 1,100 meter mountain known as Cheonwangbong Peak. We took our celebratory photos and moved onto crossing the Baekma Ridge to Ipseokdae Rock. These rocks had some ancient writings on them, which were neat to see. Also, somewhere along this part of the hike, I got stung four times by a hornet that got folded up in my sleeve. Can you say ouch! Seoul Forest On Sunday, we ended up in Seoul to have a relaxing day. We started out at the Seoul Forest. This is a huge park in Seoul that has over 595,000 square meters of land. We made a large lap around the park enjoying the mix of nature and the city. Next, we headed over to a graffiti tunnel somebody posted about on their blog. It was bright and colorful and we took our time ogling the street art. Then, we went to the Figure Museum in Seoul. We believe this is somebody’s personal collection. And man O man did they have every figure thinkable! Finally, we ended our day at the largest library in Seoul. It is called the Starfield Library and it is just full of books! There were cafes galore and we were awestruck by the size of the library inside a mall. It’s definitely a bookworm’s dream come true. Here is a little G-DRAGON for anybody who likes a little edge to their K-pop. It's called CROOKED. Enjoy!
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