Yesterday the group went on a hike up Ulsambowi Mountain. Looking back at my 31 years, I have to say, I may not have ever been hiking in my life. Not real hiking anyway. I’m sure I’ve probably climbed up a hill or two on a semi beaten path, but that’s as far as my experience has gone. I am in decent shape, although my muscles have about atrophied in the last month since I’ve only really worked out twice on my trip. But still, I thought, how hard could it be? Four kilometers up a mountain? Why, that’s not even four miles! Can’t be that bad. And it wasn’t. Not THAT bad. I enjoyed it because I like being active, I like a challenge, and I love feeling like I’ve accomplished something, like when I made it to the top. But it was hard! It rained overnight so the ground was pretty damp and slippery. The trail was mostly large stones interspersed with some very steep stairs the further up we got. I’m slightly afraid of heights, so as we got closer to the top, I mainly looked right in front of me only. The hardest and scariest part was actually coming back down because you are exhausted and it’s way harder on the joints bracing yourself (gravity is a bitch). Overall a good experience, but one I probably won’t be doing again anytime soon. I asked my friend here that lives in Oregon if it was a tough hike, and she said it wasn’t easy, so I felt pretty good about that.
I haven’t been posting much lately because we don’t have much time to ourselves. We finished the tour in Seoul on Sunday and we started the “rural” part of the tour this week. The first night of the rural tour we stayed in an amazing golf resort with some of the best views I’ve ever seen in my life from a hotel balcony. I also slept in the first soft bed I’ve experienced since being in Asia. It was a short lived heaven since we only stayed one night. We are now back to sleeping on the floor, which I still haven’t really gotten used to, and after my epic hike, I was torn between really not caring at all that I was on the floor and really wanting a bed.
Today we did more walking and sightseeing as we toured some temples and went to a museum in Gyeong’ju. Gyeong’ju was actually the capital of Korea a very long time ago and is an ancient city with tons of Korean history. I find that it has been tough for Korea to keep their prized ancient artifacts intact because they have been invaded several times in the past. I saw many Buddhas again today but they are pretty strict about the picture taking here. The first temple we went to, Seokguram Grotto had a large Buddha with quite a long uphill walk to the entrance. The walk was quite beautiful and the stairs at the end quite painful for my butt (in a good way). As we left we saw a huge Korean bell that we all hit on the way out. For lunch we had Korean style Chinese food, which I had already tried with my homestay family, and is still the best Chinese food I’ve ever had. It’s very light yet flavorful. I Need to open one in Miami (if only I could cook). We finished with the Silla Arts and Science Museum but everyone was so exhausted from yesterday that we sped through and left after about 45 minutes.
Living in Miami, I am starting to feel very deprived on many different levels…no Korean food, no mountains, barely anyone that looks like me. But it’s so hard to think about leaving a place that I really do love. I can’t imagine leaving the ocean and the warm weather, but it’s great to be able to see different things and appreciate them while I can. Some of the people I’m traveling with just went to their respective saunas (male and female separated) to steam but as you know from a previous post, I am not a huge fan of public nudity so I passed.
The view from the balcony at the golf resort
Ulsambowi Mountain (made it to the top!)
Exhausted (yet exhilarated) at the top
The group (minus only a couple)
The view halfway down the mountain
Me ringing the rather large bell
Some pretty lanterns outside one of the Buddhist temples
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