Wandering and Hiking ( 방황과 등산 )

on a giant rock

This past Saturday I wandered around the city with Laura, another EAPSI member staying in Seoul. We went to the COEX mall and the Kimchi museum first, then wandered around that general area and after a little bit of confusion found a temple nearby that we were looking for. In the evening we went to a night market called Namdaemun which was a whole bunch of street vendors and stores selling food and random other things, like socks.

On Sunday I went hiking with my friend Paul who I knew from WSU. We hiked around some mountains in Northern Seoul. There were lots of other people hiking there, and almost all of them were over the age of 40. As we were hiking up a couple signaled us to come and eat some cucumbers with them, which I’ve definitely never had happen before. It was a good thing that Paul speaks some Korean so that some conversation could take place. Further along the ridge we saw an old Korean war bunker, and then we scrambled through some rocky areas with the help of some poles and rope. We saw other people out on top of large rocks doing some repelling. Apparently there was a famous climber who used to live in these mountains and practiced his climbing skills there so that he could later scale 16 peaks in the Himalayas.  My legs have been sore the last two days, but I can’t wait to do more hikes like that when I have time.