Seoraksan National Park

A couple weekends ago we got out of town and went 6 hours East toward Sokcho. We traveled about two hours to get to Seoul and from there took a four hour bus ride to Eastern Korea. We arrived at about 8pm in Sokcho. As we were trying to get our bearings at the bus terminal and figure out where we were in relation to the hotels we wanted to check out we were approached by a lady wanting us to check out her hotel. We somewhat reluctantly followed. She wanted way too much money for the place and although she was persistent, we declined her offer. We went outside only to be approached by another lady wanting to rent out her place. We could tell they were scheming but followed the other lady to her place. It was livable and cheap, so we took it. It was getting late and we'd been traveling all day.

Notice the primitive facet going on here. It's cheap and it works!

THIS was the bathroom--the entire bathroom. We were scared, very scared. There were shoes for us to wear while inside but this also freaked me out. I felt like we were in a public bathroom and put toilet paper down on the seat before using it. We never did use that shower--too scary! Oh, and you can't see the big hole in the ceiling but it was there. Too bad we didn't get a picture of the room itself. Koreans don't believe in sheets so we slept on a blanket. Koreans usually sleep on the floor apparently. Luckily they had a bed in there or we would have looked elsewhere (and probably found something better than this!)
One of the reasons we stayed at that scary not even a hotel place is because it was close to la playa. We had fun watching all the fun little kids playing in the water and seeing a motorboat take passengers from shore out on the choppy water.

The next day we went to Seoraksan National Park. It was really easy to get to thanks to Rick's mad guide book skills and sense of direction. One Thousand Won (one dollar) each way provided us with transportation right to the Park's entrance. It was on the second day we went to the park that I asked if they give military discounts, that saved us some $$$. Seriously, it doesn't hurt to ask--wish we would have asked the first day!

Rick working up his mad map skills. If there was a map anywhere we'd be stopping at it. Notice the walking stick. Oh ya, we're hardcore--we got walking sticks!
Can you tell how huge that Buddha is? It was enormous!
So big!
Humongous!
We hiked and hiked. Fortunately, we were well hidden from the sun under trees and didn't get sunburned the first day. We thought this was the top, but oh no, there was more to go...
...This
We made it and were pretty happy with that. It was funny because for the first bit of the hike the road was paved and we thought it was going to be a walk in the park. All the Koreans really like to dress up for activities. Like, when they golf, they look like professional golfers with all their gear and clothing. Well, when Koreans hike, they really dress the part walking stick and all. So we thought it was a little excessive that they would be so dressed up in their Northface clothing and high tech boots for a paved road hike through the woods. Um, boy were we wrong. It got pretty intense and we stopped laughing at their decked out clothes (this comes in especially poignant the next day *Stay tuned).
Pictures from the top, what's at the top (a Buddhist shrine), me imitating Buddha, going down, and a last look up. The second to last picture is going down--yes, those are stairs!!! It was crazy and I was glad I had my trusty walking stick!

Well, dang, I am going to leave you with this for now. Part 2 next time.

Where is the most beautiful place you've been?