SPOILER ALERT! We did it! We hiked all 22 national parks in Korea. It was quite the adventure and we loved every moment of it. We actually finished our mission earlier than we thought so we were stoked that we still had about a month left to keep exploring the beautiful country of Korea. Jirisan National Park Jirisan National Park is the largest national park in Korea and also has the tallest mountain on the mainland. We wanted to do a longer hike throughout this park so we left Cheonan bright and early to make sure we would have time to complete our loop. There are checkpoints in this national park (and shelters if you want to do a really long hike) and we wanted to make sure we got to all the checkpoints in time so we didn’t get turned around or stuck in the dark. It is worth mentioning that there is sooooo much hiking in this park, and we just did one of many trails. There was definitely a chill to the air as we started our hike on this last Saturday in September. We were super excited to finally have made it to Jirisan and we optimistically started up the path to the second tallest mountain in Korea and tallest mountain on mainland Korea; Cheonwangbong, which stands at 1,915 meters (or about 6,283 feet). We started at the Baengmudong Information Center and headed straight towards the Jangteomok Shelter. Unsurprisingly, we just kept going up and up and up. Since the weather within the last week had significantly cooled down, we could see the leaves were starting to change from green to their amazing autumn colors. Once we made it to Jangteomok Shelter, we had one more push to Cheonwangbong. It was pretty much a 1.7 kilometer (1 mile) out and back to get to the highest peak on mainland Korea. The sights along this ridge were absolutely stunning. The trees were glowing with color and the slightly overcast day made this sacred mountain feel…well…sacred. We didn’t wait in line at the top for a picture with the summit stone since it was quite chilly (and the wait was about a half an hour), but we still got some amazing photos nonetheless. The walk back to Jangteomok Shelter was just as gorgeous as the walk to Cheonwangbong. Once we reached the shelter, we took a minute to enjoy the views off the backside of the mountain. We knew we didn’t have much time though because we had to make it to Seseok Shelter, which was 3.4 kilometers (a little over 2 miles) away, before they closed the gate to get down the mountain. This part of the hike is part of a longer hike that people do of the entire ridgeline. If we had more time or stayed in Korea longer, I would have loved to have done the whole ridgeline. It was gorgeous the entire way. I can see why the shelters sell out (especially during the fall season), there is just nothing else like it in Korea. We made it to the Seseok Shelter around 3:30 and then made the steep climb down the mountain. I am so glad we went up the other way. This way was a 6.5 kilometer climb of steep stone step after steep stone step. We ran into some people who were heading up to the shelter for the night and they just looked winded; except this elderly couple who were heading up. They were dressed in relatively normal clothing, trucking up the mountain, with just a few plastic bags, looking totally fine. Way to go! I hope I’m half as motivated as you in my later years! It was just starting to get dark when we finally made it to the bottom. The timing couldn’t have been more perfect, and now we just had one more national park to visit before we completed our mountain mission. Daegu The next day we rewarded ourselves with a “slow” day and headed off to the city of Daegu. We had been through Daegu before on our second trip to Korea when we hiked Palgongsan Provincial Park, but we didn’t have time to spend in the city. This time we were determined to see the city and we did just that. Our first stop was at Bullo-dong Ancient Tomb Park. This had been a place we had wanted to visit so we were stoked to have actually made it. This specific park was just recently excavated (1968). The park itself dates back to the Three Kingdoms Period, which was a time when the modern North and South Korea was divided into the three kingdoms known as Baekje, Silla and Goguryeo. Per Wiki, the dates of the existence of these kingdoms were 57 BC to 668 AD. Hand in hand (AWWWWW) we strolled through the park enjoying the sunny day. Next we decided to head to Apsan Park where we actually rode a cable car up to the top of the 600 meter mountain instead of hike it. I know this comes as a shocker, but when we planned our trip to Daegu one of the main things we wanted to do was watch a baseball game. There would be no way we would have time to climb this mountain and make the baseball game, so cable car it was! The view was awesome and the cable car ride was fun. Whenever we go back to visit Korea, I would really like to explore this small park. Finally, we made our last stop at the baseball game! The Samsung Lions (currently based out of Daegu) were playing the SK Wyverns (currently based out of Incheon). We accidently got the most amazing tickets (which came with a built in table), but sadly the Samsung Lions lost 8-4. Still, it was fun to see all the cheering and we were more than happy to experience a baseball game in Korea. Oh, and in Korea you can bring your own food and drinks into the stadiums, but even if you don’t, the food prices are nothing like the food prices at a US baseball game. Andong The next weekend we were determined to hike our final national park, but as luck had it, a typhoon was scheduled to hit the Korean peninsula. We debated cancelling the rental car, but decided to gamble and get the car anyway and hope that our scheduled trips to Andong and Dadohaehaesang National Park would work out. The Saturday when the typhoon was hitting we decided to go check out Andong. There was a lot of rain that morning, but nothing Casey couldn’t drive through, and the typhoon was supposed pass over Korea by noon. We slowly made our way to Andong where we planned to first visit the Hahoe Folk Village. It was still raining when we pulled into the Hahoe Folk Village parking lot, so we decided to go to the Hahoe Mask Museum before we wandered through the actually village. For some reason unknown to us, Andong is famous for masks. The museum was great, and we learned more about masks than we could have ever imagined! When we finished the mask museum we decided it was time to go check out the Hahoe Folk Village. It was still raining, but not too hard, and since a little rain never hurt anybody we decided to go explore. It was actually not too bad at all. There was pretty much nobody there and the views of the old houses and gardens were great! AND we had Andong-jjimdak, which is an AMAZING chicken dish that we easily put down! We made a quick drive across the river to Buyongdae Cliff. We parked the car in a parking lot and had a short walk to the top of a cliff. The view was of the Hahoe Folk Village. On a nice day you can take a ferry from the Hahoe Folk Village to the base of the cliff where you can walk up, but since the rain was such a factor that day, the ferries weren’t running. Still, I’m glad we could make it to the top of the cliff, even if we had to drive to it. After a bit of a drive, we stopped by Gyeongsang-buk City Hall. There isn’t much to say other than that this is the most beautiful city hall we have ever seen. It was nice to walk around the grounds since the rain had finally blown over and it was the perfect temperature. We decided to head over to our last planned stopped in Andong which was Wollyeongo Bridge. This bridge is a large wooden bridge, which is supposed to be gorgeous at night, but it was still just as gorgeous during the day. On our way to the bridge we passed a large festival, which we found out from the numerous signs, was the Andong Mask Dance Festival. We couldn’t pass up this festival, so we pulled over and went to check it out. It was really enjoyable actually, and this year the Thai masks where the main attraction, which were gorgeous. After about 1.5 hours of wandering around we decided it was time to get back to Cheonan. Dadohaehaesang National Park Luckily for us, the next day was a bright and lovely day! It was the day we would hike our final national park, Dadohaehaesang National Park. We got up sometime around 5:30 AM to make the looooong drive to the southern islands of Korea. This is a national park that is spread out among many islands but we had a specific spot in mind. We went to the area of the park located in Goheung and we were doing a hike on Palyeongsan Mountain. It was all right on the coast and consisted of 8 peaks that offered great views atop each one. We arrived in the parking lot and were beyond excited. We walked around the parking lot looking for a small shop that would sell our hiking scarf for this park. There was nothing, but we still hadn’t lost hope. We walked over to National Park Office that happened to be in this parking lot. With the help of our trusty Google Translate App, we asked the first park ranger we saw if he had a hiking scarf we can buy/have. He reluctantly told us they just had a big function and all the scarfs were given away. Casey and I both share a sad look with one another, and thanked the park ranger for his time. We started to walk to the trailhead while searching on our maps where there may be another area selling the scarfs or where another ranger station was where we could ask for a scarf. Then we heard, “Ya, Hey, Ya! “ We turned around to see the same ranger running towards us. He slowed down when he got to us and he said something around the lines of “This scarf, mine. You have.” We were speechless. We asked him if he was sure, and he said yes. We thanked him over and over and then we parted ways and we started our hike. We now owned all the hiking scarfs for all 22 national parks! We started up the first mountain and when we get to the top we are greeted with an amazing view of the ocean and the surrounding rice paddies. We continued along three more ridges that offered just as amazing views the entire time. It was just amazing! The final four peaks offered just as many spectacular views as the first four. Our legs didn’t even get a chance to feel tired since we were so in awe of the views the entire time. Gwangju We had a weekday off of school for Hangeul Day, which is the day that Korea celebrates the creation of the Korean alphabet. King Sejong created the alphabet in 1443 or 1444. Before that, Korea was using Chinese characters. We read somewhere that the Korean alphabet is the only alphabet in the world that exact date of its creation is known. That’s kind of neat if you ask me. We took the train down to Gwangju to explore the city where there was a major uprising against martial law from May 18 – 27, 1980. There is so much history about this uprising, but if you want to learn a little bit about it, I would suggest watching “A Taxi Driver.” It is a Korean movie recently made, but it has subtitles if you rent it from Amazon, Netflix, or iTunes. It gives a pretty good overview of the uprising and what the people went through. You can watch the trailer here. We first went to the May 18th National Cemetery. It was a gorgeous cemetery and it allowed us to reflect on what Korea had to go through to get where it is today. We then stopped by 5.18 Memorial Park. We actually were trying to get to the area where the actual uprising started but we missed that stopped on the bus and didn’t have time to correct our mistake because we had to catch a train. And just like that, we hiked all Korea’s National Parks! We were so excited to have actually finished our mission! What a success! OH, and below are all our amazing hiking scarfs! Just a small reminder of all the miles we hiked! And, here is a song by Jennie called "Solo." Enjoy!
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