We finally decided to make it official. We have committed to hiking all 22 national parks in Korea. These last few weekends allowed us to get four more national parks in and can we say that they were absolutely amazing! I don't think there is a better goal than this out there for us! Juwangsan National Park Since we are now committed to hiking every national park in Korea (22 in all), we decided it was time to visit Juwangsan National Park. So yet again, we were up early on a Saturday, ready to conquer another mountain. We really didn’t have any expectations for Juwangsan National Park. We never really hear much about this park, so we went in with the attitude that it would just be another “hike.” Wow, were we wrong! This park was gorgeous! There were huge boulders everywhere and plenty of amazing trails! We started our hike at Daejeonsa Temple. The temple was gorgeous and had an amazing background with rocks jutting out of the mountain. Next, we weaved through the forest to a place called Nahanjeon Hall. It was a little temple right in the middle of the forest. We then took a little detour that led to a small waterfall and cave. We figured we would go check it out since it wasn’t that far off the main path. We wandered down the path for a little while and before we knew it we came across an amazing boardwalk! It went through a whole field of boulders and sheer rock faces bursting out of the ground. We had no idea we would see anything like this! It was breathtaking! The official name of this area is called Yongchu Gorge. We also got to see a pretty cool waterfall called Yongchu Falls. Water was flowing pretty heavy that day since it was raining a bit, so we got a pretty good show at the falls. There was another set of falls we got to see called Yongyeon Falls. Both sets of falls were really pretty. To tell you the truth, I have no idea why this park isn’t pushed more. I mean, I guess it would be relatively hard to get to on public transit, but there are so many tour groups that go to all the national parks, it seems like people would be flocking to this park. But then again, all the national parks we have seen have been amazing, so I guess people just get dispersed everywhere. We continued on with our hike, really not coming across any super strenuous parts. We walked across a small boulder field but that really was the hardest part of this hike. Otherwise we just hiked a nice ridgeline and got to see amazing views of the jutting rocks as we hiked along the ridge. Ohhh and since it was rainy, there wasn’t many people on the trail. Along the ridge we heard a huge crash and we both looked up to see a huge wild boar running away. We are guessing he was taking a nap, and since there weren’t many people out on the trail, nobody had interrupted his nap. It was really scary to see but really really cool at the same time! Another national park done! Sobaeksan National Park The next day we decided to head over to Sobaeksan National Park. We knew absolutely nothing about this park, but it had good weather and was decently close to Cheonan. It was a gorgeous hike and quite a climb to the main peak, and it ended up being foggy towards the top, but all the same it made it that much more beautiful. The ridgeline was gorgeous! As we made our way along the ridge and down the mountain we saw so many awesome sights, including Pig Rock! This park had a lot of wildlife and beautiful plants so we spent more time than normal appreciating our surrounds. There were so many beautiful pictures we had a hard time picking our favorite ones! Sobaeksan National Park.... in the books! Taebaeksan National Park The next weekend we decided to tackle Taebaeksan National Park. This park is the newest family member to the Korean National Park system. Before it was a national park it was actually a provincial park. It was made a provincial park on May 13, 1989 and I guess you can say upgraded to a national park on May 12, 2016. Another interesting fact is that this park is mainly hiked during the winter. It has a marvelous ridgeline that is absolutely spectacular in the snow. I do have to say though, it wasn’t too bad of a view in the summer. The climb up was not bad at all. When we reached Munsubong, we saw the ever so famous Cheonjedans (or alters). From what we have read about Taebaek, it was and still is a pretty holy mountain, so there are plenty of alters to see. The ridgeline after the summit was amazing and was minimal effort. We saw some spectacular views and had some time to enjoy ourselves on the “easy” part of the hike. We decided to alter our hike a bit to see one of the temples on the mountain called Yulisa Temple. There was a pretty big climb then a sharp drop into a valley in order to get to this temple. The climb out of the valley was a doozy. We had to backtrack a bit back to the main trail. But it was totally worth it! The trail down wasn’t too bad at all. We saw another temple called Manggyeongsa and some more great views. Another hike down and one more hike closer to our goal of seeing all 22 national parks! Odaesan National Park The next day we opted to go see Odaesan National Park. This park has soooo many temples and they are gorgeous. It wasn’t the best hike in the world, but if you are in the mood to see lots and lots of temples this is the place to go! Our first temple we stopped by was called Sajaam Temple. It was a pretty good climb up to this temple. It was stair after stair, but as always, the destination of the climb was totally worth it. It was a really gorgeous temple. It was built with a tiered roof structure, which was something we hadn’t seen before. Next we made a much smaller climb to Jeongmyeeolbogung. It wasn’t as an impressive temple, but it has a significant importance among the people of Korea. I am not 100% sure of the reason of the importance, but there were plenty of people making the hike to this temple to see it. So we joined in and made the hike up to the temple. Finally, we had to make the climb to Birobong. This was a really long hike up, but of course, we felt amazing at the top. The rest of the hike was kind of uneventful really. There was a nice ridge followed by a fire road like path down. Alas, another national park under our belt! Oeam Folk Village And finally! We made it out to the Oeam Folk Village in the small town of Asan, which is right next to Cheonan. As of the date I am writing this blog, we’ve been there twice now! It is an old folk village in Asan and people actually still live there! The first time we went there, Casey and I went by ourselves. On our second time out, we went with one of our fellow teachers and her dad (who is an English professor at a college here). Her dad runs the foreign language department so we got to see all the students who were studying Korean. It ended up being a field trip for the kids in his department. It is a really pretty area and there was plenty to see. The pictures below are from our first trip there! And here are the pictures of the same place a month later!
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