Chiaksan Mountain

On Friday morning Jason and I got up early to meet our friends Scott and Amber at the bus stop. The 40 minute bus ride dropped us at the beginning of the trail to climb Mt. Chiaksan, one of the highest point peaks in the Wonju area. There we met one of Scott's coteachers who also joined on the hike. She was really nice and fun to talk with, she'd traveled to New Zealand and is only a second year teacher so she had lots of good stories. Also, exactly like in the US, she told us how the high school boys she teachs had tormented her last year, they made fun of her, they brought bugs and frogs into the classroom to freak her out. She said this year things are better because she is more strict but her first year was really difficult. See, things aren't so different! Kids are kids and new teachers are new teachers.

The climb was beautiful, we were surrounded by lush forest and followed a stream up the entire time. It kind of reminded me of area's we've camped in at home, but this forest also had some vines and bamboo which was the biggest difference. We unknowgly chose to hike the hardest of the three trails to the top, so the incline was huge and the stone steps were steep. We were huffing and puffing. At one point we lost the trail and all began to trudge up the side of the mountain where the ground was covered in shrubs and loose dirt until Scott, who was in front, finally concluded this could not be the way to go. Jason at the bottom went back down to scout, followed some other hikers and discovered the trail went behind a huge rock and basically became the stream. If there hadn't been some Korean hikers on the trail too, who knows where we would have ended up! A Korean woman started to follow us too until Scott's friend told her in Korean that we were lost!

A note on Korean hikers as well. They are super stylish. Everyone wears bright cloths, especially made for hiking. There are hiking stores all over Wonju. There are like three within a 5 minute walk of my apartment (but no coffee shops so close!) The gear is all really pricey too because it is specialty made. People had on hats (the woman's hats were sparkly, pink, decorated with flowers), bandanas around their necks, hiking poles, hiking boots, backpacks, gloves... You can definitely be underdressed when hiking! Who knew? Jason and I didn't really bring hiking attire so the day before we went to E-Mart and bought some outfits. Mine was pink and gray, matching. Jason wore a hat. We really looked the part.

The top of the mountain contained an amazing view and luckily the weather was just perfect that day, no rain, and not too cold or too hot. We had lunch at the top and peanut butter never tasted so good! There were three man made stone pillars at the top. They were created in the 60's by a man who believed he had been told in a dream to honor Buddha in this way. It took him years to carry up the small rocks and create three massive rock pillars. We could also see all of Wonju.

The way down was brutal on our knees, but we did take a slightly easier path, the last portion of which turned into a road that dropped us into a new and ritzy area of town, filled with fancy resturants, a sort of "rustic" mountain getaway. We were no where near the bus when we emerged from the trail and so instead called a taxi to take us to Wonju. Somehow we had come down the other side of the mountain and were only 10 minutes from Sangji! The taxi split 5 ways was super cheap! Scott's friend took off but he and Amber came to check out my apartment, where we had the taxi drop us. After that we went to dinner at a random resturant near my place where we got some kind of boiled pork dish. It was good but a little hard to eat straight off the bone! Jason and I followed Scott and Amber to their neck of the woods because we were craving yogurt smoothies from the Italian place "Ti Amo." We finished off the night with lattes.

Our lazy weekend continued, with the addition of super sore muscles. We looked like dorks hobbling up and down stairs. Luckily we felt okay by the start of school on Monday.