Dobongsan Mountain

Beth, Katelyn, and I left our apartments around 8:30am or so on Sunday April 18^th to catch the subway to Dobongsan and meet Christine and Bella (two of the ECC Howon Korean teachers) at the foot of the mountain. Christine had suggested that we meet quite early due to the crowd of people, and she wasn’t kidding. There were so many people with their hiking gear ready to trek up the mountain. Mainly older people, about 40-60 years old, seem to go hiking in Korea. The only reason that I might believe younger people don’t go hiking is that they must study and work so much. There were many street vendors selling hard boiled eggs, seafood, kimbahp, fried foods, various cooked animals, snacks, and hiking apparel. There were also many stores that sold camping/hiking gear, shoes, and clothes, along the way. It was the most commercialized hiking exertion I’ve been on. It’s as if the mountain was made for hiking too. There was a brick pathway leading up to the mountain, and rock steps guiding your way past the road on into the forest of trees. I enjoyed this climb much more. We were on rocks most of the way, which was definitely better for my traction-less shoes, but this mountain is much bigger and higher than Saluksan, so we were hiking for so much longer. The views once again were non other than amazing. We all stopped every now and then to drink some water and eat some fruit. But at the top, we had lunch with some Kimbahp and pigs feet. Needless to say, if I don’t eat pigs feet in Georgia, I won’t eat pigs feet in Korea. Afterwards, we hiked back down, ate some noodle soup at a nearby restaurant, and walked home. Well, Bella had already left to go to her Grandmother’s birthday party, Christine’s mom left earlier that morning, and Christine walked had to walk in the other direction to get to her house. Dobongsan is really only like a 45 minute walk from our apartments, which wasn’t really a big deal. Walking is in such a different category than hiking to me, it’s not really exercise.

That night we retreated to Kate’s room to watch Casa Blanca, which none of us had seen before. I’m definitely going to miss my weekends with these guys. I’m gonna definitely make it happen though, even if I’m two and a half hours away.