Seoraksan National Park

Last weekend, for our 1 year anniversary(!), Ben and I traveled to the East coast of South Korea to go hiking at Seoraksan National Park- 1 of Korea's 20 National Parks. We left from Seoul on Friday afternoon and took a bus to the coastal city of Sokcho (the closest city to the park). It was already dark when we got there so we decided to find a motel, grab some dinner, and go to bed relatively early so we could get up to go hiking the next morning. Finding a cheap motel was no problem. But, being that Sokcho is a relatively small city, it was impossible to find the nice Italian dinner that both Ben and I were craving. We settled for a traditional Korean restaurant and ate bi bim bap and kimchi jjigae (a spicy Kimchi soup) that is extremely delicious!



The next morning we got up (although not quite as early as we had hoped.....) and took a bus to the entrance of Seorksan. It seemed like there were more people on the mountain than in the whole town of Sokcho! The mountains are always crowded with people whenever we go hiking, but this was about the busiest I've seen any place!
After grabbing some snacks and a map, we started off on our hike toward Ulsanbawi, the famous jagged rock face that Seoraksan is famous for. The actually peak is about 1,700 meters... but being as though we got a late start and i was still getting over my cold, we decided to take this shorter route instead. The hike up was still a good one though. At the start, we got to see a big statue of Buddha; about 100 meters up from that there was a temple; there were a few other places to stop and eat/rest/look at the scenery along the way; about halfway up, we had to climb the "staircase from hell".... super old and dangerous looking and EXTREMELY long- probably at least a couple hundred steps; and, again, once we got close to the top, the route was extremly rocky and there were ropes to pull yourself up in many places. It was worth it though... the view at the top was spectacular!







For dinner that night, we walked around Sokcho quite a bit trying to find something interesting, and found out that the local specialty is "Squid Sundae" ...basically a squid stuff with bits of noodles, vegetalbes, meat, tofu.... not quite sure what else. We found a bunch being sold at a fish market a couple kilometers away from our motel. Obviously Ben and i had to try some:

It is set out whole, but when you buy it, the vendor slices the squid into pieces and fries it up for you.
It was delicious!!!

The next day, Ben and I enjoyed lying on Sokcho Beach, on the East Sea, (just 100 meters down from the bus terminal and our motel) for a few hours before heading back to Seoul. It was a beautiful beach with much bigger waves than we had seen the weekend before in the Yellow Sea.