Children's Day

Actually, this was two weeks ago. Children's Day is a holiday here, and since schools are closed, we get the day off. Our school was having midterms the week of Children's Day, so it was an easy week (for teachers) all around. Mrs. Yu's highschool was having some kind of reunion hike on a famous mountain, and she asked me to come along. Since Children's Day fell on a Thursday, I went to Mrs. Yu's house on Wednesday night and stayed with her. On Thursday, we did the hike. Friday morning we came to school together, then I went with Dong-yun to see a National Geographic photo exhibition. Then both Dong-yun and I returned to Mrs. Yu's house to sleep over, and we all came to school again on Saturday morning. Even though it wasn't one of my working Saturdays, I ended up staying at school all day.

The mountain is famous for being covered with rhododendren bushes, which look like a pink sea when in bloom. Sadly, they were not in bloom. We were just a week or two early. Major bummer. The hike was still very nice, however.

Photos after the cut.

At the foot of the hiking trail. Which is not to say the foot of the mountain. We had to drive quite a long ways up to get to the beginning of the hike. The mountain was so crowded that the single road was completely backed up at the end of our hike and we had to walk part of the way down. It was incredible how long it was.

The beginning of the hike. We had to go up a bit of a hill to get to the fields of rhododendren bushes.

Here we are. Sadly, since the flowers are not in bloom, it looks rather dead and bleak.

Another shot of the side of the mountain. You can see that we are already quite high up.

A solitary flower.

The next part of the hike was fairly flat and ran through rows and rows of bushes. Again, you can imagine how beautiful this would be in season.

Just another view.

A few early flowers that already looked kind of worn out.

After the sea of bushes, you could see the mountain peak rising in the distance. You can see that it was actually a decently long hike. About 2 and half hours all told.

We stopped here for lunch. Ahh, it's good to see kids out enjoying nature... ;)

Another shot of the bushes. There's a touch of color there.

Wherever there happened to be a bush in flower, everyone would stop to take photos by it, so they could pretend to have come here when it actually looked good. :D Mrs. Yu and I followed suit, but we didn't go for the peak location, which was right in front of the bush, so it could block out the view of all the non-flowering bushes.

A guard house signal tower. In the old days, the mountains were spotted with these, so soldiers could send smoke signals in case of emergency, to spread news across the land. I was told this particuar building was erected for a movie and then left so tourists could get a look.

A pretty bridge. Don't know if this was from the movie too or just there.

A shot of the peak ahead. We did hike all the way up there, and then along to the next peak. If it looks kind of steep, that's because it is. The path you can see going up the side is a steep stairway.

However, 2/3 of the way up, the stairway turned into steep rocks in a stair-like formation, followed by this: Basically just rock-climbing. There were a few fairly vertical parts where you had to climb up by finding hand- and foot-holds in the rock. I was a little scared since there were no railings or saftey features of any kind, but when Mrs. Yu scrambled right up the rock face next to me, I realized that, to save myself from being totally put to shame by a little, middle-aged lady, I had to continue. And I did.

Another look at people climbing. It was steeper than it looks in the pictures. But other than being a little scary, it was very fun.

Some hikers relaxing at the top of one of the peaks. Even the peak was a little scary because there were constantly people coming and going, and the wind whistling around you, and no real trail, so it was hard to move around.

Mrs. Yu sitting we me at the top. Now we just have to hike all the way back down!

Part 2: National Geographic exhibition. The exhibition was really good. There were some amazing photos in there. Photos that really make you stop and think about how beautiful our world is. As cute and cool as animals are, my favorites were the pure landscapes. Of course, you couldn't take photos inside, but Dong-yun and I took a few outside. Although most of them were on her camera, as it turns out.

Goofing around outside the museum.

Part 3: School Teacher's Midterm Hike. Teachers in Korea like to celebrate the midterms and finals by eating dinner and hanging out. This time, it was eating lunch and going hiking. A few photos from that.

Some pretty flowers bordering a waterway.

I really like the look of Korean forests.

A shot of the valley below.

My friends, Lee Dong-yun and Jung Mi-gyung.

This was a really easy hike, with a concrete road part of the way. Still very pretty, though.

More flowers.