Climbing up a bit of a mountain in Seoraksan National Park

In the morning I got up about 6.30am, despite only getting to sleep about 3am, as we wanted to try and get to Sokcho as early as possible since it is a 4 hour bus ride to get there. I packed some of mine and Moccle's clothes in my Lowepro Slingshot 300 bag, along with the arctic butterfly, the D200 battery charger, a gps, and two bottles of water.

We went out to the subway station (Euljiro sam ga), then got a train to the Express Bus Station. In the subway station a skill Korean business man came over and started playing with the Nodal Ninja on my tripod, I think he wanted to know what it was for, but he didn't speak any English.

When we got to the Express Bus station, we followed the signs for the ticket office for buses to Sokcho, then bought a ticket for the bus about 2 minutes before it was due to leave at 9am (the tickets have the bus time printed on them). We did manage to get to the bus in time though, but it was a luxury bus, instead of the express bus (and so was a lot more expensive). When I bought the tickets, I didn't realise what price the tickets for the express bus were meant to be, so I didn't realise that they'd booked us on the posh bus instead until Moccle pointed it out.

On the way to Sokcho, I tried to get to sleep since I was dead sleepy, but couldn't. So instead I just looked out the windows and saw all the mountains, fields and houses in the places we drove through (mainly countryside).

The bus stopped for 15 minutes at a service station after about 2 hours, before carrying on with the journey to Sokcho.

When we got to Sokcho at about 12.30pm, we were debating whether to get a hotel/motel or not, but as we needed one where they spoke English, and didn't know how much they would cost (can't tell how much they cost if they don't speak English). One which we thought probably would speak English was the Hotel Good Morning, but that was 60,000 Won. The Korea guide book did have some cheaper Motels listed in it, but we didn't know where they were.

We asked at the information place about the bus to Seoraksan, and the lady there spoke English, which was very helpful. She told us we needed bus 7 or 7-1, and the stop was just down the road and on the left.

We found the bus stop, and it had a listing of where the buses come from and go to, their numbers, and the times of the first and last buses. Unfortunately there didn't seem to be any info on how often the buses ran. We waited for about 15 minutes, and then a bus 7 came along.

We had a bit of trouble paying the bus fare, Moccle tried to pay the driver with a 10,000 Won note, but you needed to use coins that you put in a little box thing. The driver didn't speak any English, but managed to get us to understand how it worked, and how much the fare was, which was 1000 Won each. The bus was quite weird, as most of the bus was just a set of single seats on one side, and then standing room, there were a few double seats near the back though.

The bus went up to Seoraksan National Park, and past lots of hotels nearer the park than Sokcho before we got there. But the car park where the bus stopped at the end of it was quite a bit away from the hotels that are near Seoraksan park, apart from the Kensington Stars Hotel, which was 129,000 Won (and that would be a single room)!

So we just went in the park, which was about 2,500 Won each. But before that, I got a dragon fly to go on my finger. But after I'd walked a few steps it flew away.

We got into the park about 1.10pm, and went up Mount Seorak in the cable car, which was 8,500 Won each (and is the only transport in Korea that seems to offer return tickets). In the cable car a skill old woman asked us if we liked Korea, and how long we were staying here, where we were from etc.

When we got to the top cable car station, there was a bit of a walk up to the top, and on the way there, we could see they were doing some building work. I wonder how they get diggers and stuff up there?

When we got to the top, there were lots of people there taking photos of each other. We were glad that we had got the cable car up and not walked up, as it probably would have taken a whole day to walk up the mountain (assuming you can walk up it). There was the actual peak of the mountain a bit further up, so we climbed up there, which was literally a climb.

There was a bloke standing near the edge on the climb bit tethered with some rope and with a radio on, who I think must have been a park warden style bloke. There were also some cement bits sticking out in certain places to make it easier to climb. It wasn't actually a vertical climb, just quite steep and tricky.

When we got to the top bit, it was like a bowl with a stand inside it, and a bloke selling medals that he'd engrave your name on. Then you could climb up to the highest edge of the bowl, so we did that and I took a pano there, which was quite difficult to set up (especially since there were quite a few other people up there). What was amazing was that there was a little kid up there. No idea how they managed to get up.

Coming back down again was quite tricky as well, and I bashed up my lenses (which were in my pocket) and my tripod and camera (which were hanging round my neck) quite a bit.

When we had got back down to the main part of the top of the mountain, we went on a path off to the left (our left when we were coming down). It didn't seem to really go anywhere, but we did see a chipmunk there.

We went back down to the cable car station, then back down in the cable car. We had dinner in the bottom cable car station, then looked around the park a bit more.

We went to see the giant Buddha, which has a temple underneath it. Unfortunately, you couldn't take photos inside the temple, but it had a big gold Buddha style thing with loads of arms and loads of Buddha heads. Either side of the altar thing were large cases full of little golden Buddha statues.

After that we started going on a walk, but the Korea guide book said that the park closes 2 hours before sunset, and also everyone (which was quite a lot of people, mostly old people), was walking the opposite way to us. Eventually we decided to go back even though we hadn't finished the walk, as we didn't want to get locked in the park when it closed.

When we were walking back, we did see one person going the same way that we had been walking. When we got back to the park entrance we realised that actually there wasn't any way they could close the park (they don't have any big gates they can close), and so actually we could have completed our walk. Also, it was probably less than 2 hours before sunset already by the time we reached the entrance to leave. So the info in the book was wrong. Maybe they just close to new ticket sales 2 hours before sunset?

The colours of the trees in the park (and up the mountain) weren't that great yet, so we decided to go back to Seoul, since it would save us the cost of booking another hotel room for the night, and there was still lots we wanted to do/see in Seoul.

We got the bus back to Sokcho, then booked a ticket for the bus back to Seoul. I made sure I said the Express bus, but when Moccle looked at the tickets, he saw they'd booked us on the posh bus again. Then we looked at a board next to the ticket office window,and it had a list of the different buses running to Seoul from Sokcho, and the times.

There were three different buses - the express, the deluxe (or something similar), and the Midnight deluxe. The express bus only actually ran about 2 times a day, and I think the last one was at 5pm or something (it was now about 6pm). So the Korea guide book was a bit misleading when it said about booking the Express bus to Sokcho for only 15,000 Won, as it didn't mention the restrictions (at least I don't think it did, Moccle is the one who read that bit).

The next bus was at 6.20pm so we went for a quick walk to the beach and a couple of old women asked me if I was looking for a hotel, even though there's hotels/motels all around there.

I tried to get to sleep again on the bus, but still couldn't. The bus stopped at a service station again for about 15 minutes about halfway through the journey. When we got back to Seoul, we got a bit confused about where the subway station was, but we did find it eventually.

When we got to our station (Euljiro sam ga), amazingly we actually picked the right exit that is near our hotel. We got back to the hotel and went to bed about 10.30pm, though I still didn't get to sleep until about 12am.

Food
Breakfast: 2x slices of toast with strawberry jam; cup of fizzy grape drink.
Lunch: Bibimbap; Kimchi; Weird sticks (like chips, but not cooked) of some vegetable that had been soaked in some liquid, and tasted a bit sweet; Orange Fanta.