Seoraksan Mountain

The bus ride. The bus ride had one mentionable event - the breaks failed. One moment we were chatting or sleeping, comfortable in our purple fringed bus...

when suddenly we found ourselves jerked to reality when the bus had to swing onto the side of the road - jumping a curb and side swiping two vehicles. 

 Apparently, the breaks had failed and the bus had no choice but to use the curb to help him stop - quick thinking! Everyone was alright and no one was hurt, after quickly exchanging insurance information (a few side mirrors were lost but quickly taped back on!), we were once again on our way!

Seoraksan Mountain.
It is said that the “autumn colors in the area are considered among the most beautiful in Korea”
I found that out to be the complete truth. Now, don’t get me wrong, Georgia has some beautiful autumn colors but the reds and oranges of the trees surrounding Seoraksan Mountain are rich and vibrant.

  

We ate a quick lunch of bibimbap (rice, lettuce, mushroom, spicy sauce mixture) and took a group photo at the GIANT Buddha.

We had three options for hiking the mountain. Each a different level of difficulty. Which did Jacob and I choose to hike? Why the hardest of course! Out of our group of about 10 people, three of us chose to attempt the roughest trail - Ulsan Bawi. Brittney, Jacob, and I set off after lunch with about 14 other people and one leader.

We began walking and found ourselves at a Buddhist temple...
Side note and really neat fact. People are able to buy a tile, write whatever they want on it, and that tile is then placed on the roof of the buildings when the buildings are in need of repair. So you could have a tile at the Seoraksan mountain park for only 10,000 won. 

After stopping for a few minutes to take photos around the temple, we continued our upwards hike. We started going up some stairs, then some rock, then some more stairs, and more stairs, and more stairs, followed by some rocks, and then the stair climbing repeated. It was so packed that we were squeezing by people as we walked. We soon found ourselves by Heundeulbawi. This is a rock that is seemingly precauriously perched on top of another rock. Many people  have attemped to push this rock off but no one has ever been successful. 

The rock that rocks but doesn't roll!

There was another temple there as well. This one was a temple inside the mountain - a cave temple. There were candles and people praying - all very spiritual and peaceful.
We continued our hike. After Heundeulbawi, it got pretty difficult. We were climbing more than we were hiking. There were places where you had to get on hands and knees and climb up the jagged rocks, crevices that you had to squeeze to get through, and stairs that were so steep some would consider them a ladder. We finally, after about 3 hours, made it to the top of the mountain. 

Cave temple

 













We hiked all the way to the top - over 800 meters of climbing/hiking. It was freezing and the wind literally knocked me around several times - I was grateful that the stairs had guard rails. But the views on the way up and from the top made the effort worth it...

From the top

The crew we went with

Another view from the top

Jacob yelled at me for climbing the rocks, the he took a picture ^_^