Hiking is taken pretty seriously in Korea. You dress like you are climbing Mt. Everest and everybody carries poles and wears huge hats. It is pretty much the coolest thing ever. There is a really neat hiking group called the Seoul Hiking Group, and we have been following their hikes online for a while now. This group charters a bus and it takes you to a trailhead that can be hard to reach in just a day using the public transit system. One really cool thing that Casey and I love about Korea is the public transit system. If you want to do a relatively mainstream hike, you can take a train to a city, and then catch a local bus, and it will literally drop you off at the bottom of a mountain and close to a trailhead. When you are done with your hike, you hop right back onto the local bus and onto the train to take you back to your town. There are a bunch of really cool hikes that are harder to do in one day, and that is where the Seoul Hiking Group (and other hiking groups) come in really handy. Casey and I saw a post of theirs on Facebook for a hike up Mt. Gamak. Mt. Gamak is located in the northern part of Korea, and on a clear day you can see some mountains in North Korea from the summit. The hike also has one of the longest suspension bridges (Ungye Suspension Bridge) in the country. Casey and I looked into getting to Mt. Gamak by public transportation, but it would take about 3 hrs., and if we went with the hiking group it would take about 1.5 hours. We decided to use the group’s transportation to get to the trailhead faster. Meeting up with the Hiking Group meant we would have to be in Seoul by 8 AM at the rendezvous point. This meant an early morning for us. Our alarm went off at 5AM and we quickly put on the clothes we laid out the night before. We were out the door by 5:45 AM thinking this would give us plenty of time to walk to the Cheonan-Asan bus stop by 6:15 AM. About half way through our walk, we realized we were going to have to run to make the bus. We took off. We were running through the streets of Cheonan, at 6 in the morning with hiking packs and in hiking boots. After a 10 minute run, we made it to the bus stop (the correct one this time!) with about three minutes to spare. We arrived at the bus terminal in Seoul and found the Seoul Hiking Group right outside the meeting point. We waited around with them for about 10 minutes before the bus showed up to take us to Mt. Gamak. The drive to the trailhead was gorgeous. All the trees were still changing colors and it was neat to see so many small countryside towns. About halfway to Mt. Gamak, Casey realized we might be going through a town close to where his Grandpa (Chester Huffmire) who served in the Army, was stationed in 1968-69, after the Korean War. Before we left the States for Korea, I was looking through one of the scrap books Casey’s sister had put together for their grandma and I saw a picture where Casey’s grandpa was standing in front of a large monument with Korean writing. Casey and I were able to get the name of the monument from the photo and after lots of research, Casey found a blog posted back in 2007 that specified the small town the monument was in. The blog wasn’t super specific on where the monument was, but it gave a town name and Casey saved the location to the best of his ability on his Googlemap. As we pulled into the very small town of Jeokseong-Myeon, Casey realized we were pretty close to the memorial. As I mentioned in my previous post, Googlempas isn’t exactly accurate in Korea, so we weren’t sure exactly how close we were. As we were making our way to the trailhead, we literally drove past the memorial park! We both pretty much jumped out of our seats. The bus drove about 1-2 miles up to the trailhead parking lot. The leader of the group went over all the different routes to the top of the mountain and just told everybody to be back to the bus by 4pm. Casey and I planned our route and knew we would have time to do the hike and also have time to go see the memorial! The first part of the hike up Mt. Gamak is where we encountered the suspension bridge. It was so cool! Being on a suspension bridge is kind of nerve wracking. It swayed and was harder to walk across than I thought it would be. The views were absolutely stunning though. The bridge was completely surrounded by mountains and when we looked up into the mountain we could see the Beomryunsa Temple. Next we started our ascent up the mountain. All the way up the mountain we kept coming across old army bunkers. From April 22-25, 1951 (during the Korean War), the Chinese Army attacked the UN soldiers along the Imjin River. The Chinese soldiers were trying to recapture Seoul. The UN soldiers were made up of three British and one Belgian unit. There were about 10,000 Chinese soldiers attacking 3,000 UN Soldiers. The UN soldiers ended up falling but they were able to hold the Chinese off for about three days, and this gave time for reinforcements to come in and stop the attack on Seoul. This battle became known as the Battle of Imjin River or the Battle of Gloster Hill. The bunkers were left over from this battle and the Korean War. We reached the peak and enjoyed the peaceful view. There were also a few local people who had made the hike up to the summit and were selling ice cream and warm broth. We of course, bought the red bean ice cream and started our way down the mountain. We briefly stopped at the Beomryunsa Temple, where you have the choice of eating at a restaurant ran by monks. They serve vegetarian food with in season vegetables and herbs found on the mountain. We probably would have stopped here, but we wanted to make sure we had plenty of time to get to the Gloster Memorial. We made it down the rest of the mountain and immediately started toward Gloster Memorial Park. We estimated it to be about a mile up the road. It was only 1:45 so we had plenty of time. We walked about 15 minutes before we made it to the memorial. Casey and I did a lap around the park and found the exact monument his grandpa had his picture taken in front of. It was a really neat thing to see for me, so it must have been something really special for Casey. We took a lot of pictures of everything: plaques, signs, statues, etc. so we could send them to his family to see. We found a bench in the park where we sat to eat our lunch and enjoyed the crisp fall day. We still had an hour and a half to kill so we decided to walk in to the nearby town of Seolma-ri. It was a really small town with pretty much just one road. But it was really cool to see all the small shops and the way people lived. After stopping at a grocery store for some snacks, we made the walk back to the bus. The next stop with the Seoul Hiking Group was to a place called Herb Island. It is a farm that focuses on growing Mediterranean herbs and they have European fairytale scenes set up everywhere. At night, the fairytale scenes are illuminated so it looks like Christmas lights. There is also a little hiking path around their property, and it led to some great views of the mountains. We made it back to Seoul around 8:30, and after Casey and I grabbed some dinner, we made the 9:30 bullet train home. As if that wasn’t enough, we headed back into Seoul Sunday morning to buy some bikes from a French guy who was moving to the Maldives (poor guy). Anyway, we had to waste some time in Seoul so we hung around the Namdaemun Market. This is a market where you can pretty much get anything. We walked away with a pair of socks and a pair of sweats. I have no idea how that happened. After meeting with the French guy at 2 PM we decided we liked the bikes and bought them. The only way to get the bikes home was by local trains. Let’s just say riding local trains with bikes is quite the experience. About 2 hours later, we finally made it to Cheonan with our new mode of transportation! Oh! Also last week, it was November 11 (11-11). There is a treat in Korea called Pepero (Pocky for anybody who knows the Japanese brand). It’s pretty much little sticks of candy dipped in matcha, chocolate, yoghurt, almonds, etc. But on 11-11 it is Pepero day! So everybody buys Pepero for each other (or themselves!). It’s like Valentine’s Day with good candy! Also, I think with every post from now on, I’ll include some kind of Korean entertainment. So this week, here is a song I learned about from my former boss. Enjoy! Click here!
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