Mountain 2 - Korean Edition

As everybody knows, once the world was not as it is today. Animals could speak, and mountains could walk. The world was still being moulded out of fire and water.

In the east, a beautiful mountain range was being built. It was called Geumgangsan, the Diamond Mountains, and it was to be the loveliest and most revered of all Korean mountains. Representatives came from all the cities in Korea to be a part of it. Ulsan, a city on the south-east coast, decided to send a rocky mountain north to Geumgangsan, but this mountain, having so far to travel, arrived too late: he discovered the range was already filled with twelve thousand peaks. Weeping with grief and shame, he turned round to make the journey home again. One night, as he was looking for a place to sleep, he found an enchanting valley. Bewitched by its beauty, he lay down to rest, and, looking about him in wonder, he fell asleep, never to awake again. His name is Ulsanbawi - Rock of Ulsan - and today he sleeps in the Seorak valley, an 873-metre granite outcrop, skirted by deciduous forest and quiet streams.

On Friday, Harry and I packed up the car and drove to Seoraksan for a weekend, picking up Brynley on the way from his home in Seoul. This time I intended to actually climb a mountain, as I missed the chance on my volunteering weekend!

Autumn leaves are a BIG deal in Korea. The place to see them is Seoraksan, and funnily enough, this weekend was the weekend, according to news reports, so we were ready for a communal climbing experience with half of Korea. We arrived around midnight and went searching for a hotel to rest our weary heads at. We found a surprising number open and their managers awake, and chose one called "The Honeymoon House". Contrary to our expectations, it was a pleasant, clean little hotel, with a fireplace in the lounge, and a fake windmill on the side - reminded me a little of a Vumba-style hotel.

In the morning, we woke to pouring rain and a rather dismal sky. Luckily, we took a while to get ready and have breakfast, and by the time we drove to the park's entrance, the clouds had cleared and it was a lovely, sunny day, if a bit cooler than an African sunny day. Perfect for climbing. We'd agreed to hike a shorter route than Harry might have wanted. It was listed as a 1.5 hour walk from the entrance and we felt this was entirely achievable by Brynley and me. The first part of the walk, as expected, was shared with the multitudes, and we squeezed our way up a wide path cleared of debris and with stone steps and wooden bridges set in place over difficult parts. Very Korean. It was a path with diversions too, as we passed a temple - Sinheungsa - possibly the oldest Zen temple in the world - and then two well-established restaurants, full of climbers taking a break to drink and eat. Hawkers squatted on the side of the path selling sticky peanut brittle and toffee suckers. About an hour up we came to a little hermitage where a monk once lived in a sandy-floored cave. It must have been something magical in the days when a thousand tourists weren't poking about and taking photographs. The mouth of the cave overlooked a wide vista of trees and mountains and very little else, and it would have been very remote in the days when the closest settlement, apart from the temple, was at the coast. We pushed on further, up a decked path lined with rubber which took us over the older, simpler path (closed to repair erosion) and toward the top. We shared this part with the multitudes too - in fact, there was no part where a large group of elderly Koreans was not having a nice picnic on the edge of a rock... We told Harry to stride on ahead and he didn't argue much as he disappeared round a corner. Finally Brynley and I made it to the top.

Well, what we thought was the top.

See, the forest part finished and then the rocky crags started, and I, in my naivete, reckoned the forest edge would mark the end of our hike.

Unfortunately, Koreans are not people for giving up that easy, and a set of stairs had been erected straight up the mountain face.

It was so windy at this point that I needed a helping hand up the rocks to the base of, terror of terrors, 400m of steep stairs...


We did make it to the top, with just a couple of breaks, and with the egging on of a couple of hundred friendly Koreans ("keep fighting! Go on!").

The summit was a tiny crag edged by railings - an absolutely essential aspect, as the wind was so violent, I was terrified of getting blown off.


Amazingly, there was a guy with an urn and some paper cups selling coffee to climbers! Right on the top of a mountain! I don't even know how he gets those supplies up there - and oh my, that means he climbs up and down every single day! At least his office has a good view ;)

We made our way back down again, battling the wind - I mostly gripped banisters with both hands and did a kind of sideways shuffle down the most exposed bits to avoid being blown off the mountain entirely. By the time we reached the temple the sun was dipping below the mountains and we decided to make our way home.


On the way we went past the enormous Buddha again and I couldn't resist a sneaky photo of him meditating in the sunset glow.


The minute we got back to the hotel, Harry and Brynley collapsed across the bed and fell into a deep sleep, while I had an hour-long bath - a luxury unheard of since I left South Africa - and then read my book downstairs in the Vumba-style lounge. Later we went for dinner at a little restaurant nearby. This was the beginning of the night:


I unfortunately can't show you the end of the night. I was fast asleep when the pair of them drunkenly bumbled into the room, waking me up - I was too busy laughing at the sight of them to be cross :)

The next morning, I packed them into the car, drinking coffee and complaining of how early it was (it was nearly 11am...), and we drove down the coast to the highway back to Seoul. On the way, however, we spotted a Salmon Festival on the banks of a river, so we detoured for some delicious, if sacrilegious, deep-fried salmon and ginger.


Sated, we walked down to the riverbank where hundreds of tourists and Koreans were gathered, their trousers rolled up to knee height, and their shoes abandoned.


I wondered what it was all about but before the fleeting thought had time to fleet, a whistle was blown, and the hordes went screaming and splashing into the waters to commit the most wholesale massacre of innocent animals I have ever seen. Children that came up to my knees grabbed enormous salmon by the tails, flinging them onto the rocks with gleeful abandon and demanding applause from the gathered adults, while the "grown-ups" in the group stuffed two or even three writhing fish into plastic bags or specially prepared cooler boxes. I'm sure it was a lot of fun, but I prefer my fish filleted and clingwrapped, thanks very much. It very nearly made me turn completely vegetarian watching such rampant killing...

Our journey back to the west was pretty event-less, and we delivered Brynley home safe and sound, arriving back at our own home by 7pm, refreshed by the weekend and ready for another week of work.

(Not quite so refreshed the next day, as muscles in my legs I didn't know I had woke up to call a cheery "hello"; I spent my first week on the Adult Program hobbling around English Village, unable to take a step without fiery pain...)