Went on an adventure to the city of Sokcho this weekend to do a 14 hour hike on Seoraksan. The plan was catch the bus at 7:10am, take a 3 hour bus ride and meet from friends in Sokcho (they were coming from a different location), then hike. Well, let's just tell you what really happened, I love Korea more and more!
Wake up at 5:30 to meet Stephy (the friend I'm going with) to take a city bus to the subway and then the subway to the bus terminal to take the coach bus that will take us to Sokcho. Everything is going smoothly. We are both on time, we get the bus, catch the subway, we are good on time, right. Well. Then, we go out the wrong exit out of the subway. Apparently we looked really confused because a Korean tried to help us with no English. Finally found the bus terminal. Sweet! Our platforn is 17, we are at 3, um, ok. Let's find 17! Hmmm...it only goes to 9. Uh... Ask some one for help. They point us in a direction that goes out of the bus terminal to who knows where...ok, let's try some one else...Time is narrowing down at this point. Go a different terminal only to find this only goes to 13. Starting to be really stressed only have a few more minutes. Ask another information booth, have two minutes, he's telling us to hurry but the guy he tells to take us is leisurely walking, UM, let's go buddy!! We are speed walking, kinda figure out where we are suppose to be and break out into a run. Finally get to our platform only to see the bus leaving. Awesome. Next bus, 10:30 (3 1/2 hrs later).
Turns out we have LOTS of time to kill so we park it at Dunken Donuts to get some breakfast in the bus terminal. Instead of a donut I decide to get a breakfast sandwich. I tell the girl I want the number 3 (it's a lot easier to order a combo then to order a specific item) and I put up three fingers. Easy, right? My order comes up and I have 3 number 3s. Seriously?!? I guess we are here for a while...
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| My food... |
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| 3 1/2 hours later....on the bus!!! |
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| Our seats in the very back....good thing we packed a couple bottles of soju! :) |
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| Traffic....lovely. Our 3 hour drive turned into 5. |
We finally arrive to our destination 9 hours after we left. Steph calls her friends to find out where we can meet them since we didn't get there when we were suppose to. Luckily, Steph found out that they were heading to Water Pia (a spa) so we were just going to take a cab there and meet them. In the process of telling the cabbie where we needed to go and getting in, Steph left her phone and her wallet on the bench. After we get in the cab and start heading to the spa she realizes she doesn't have them. So, we tell the cab driver to pull over. Did I mention we don't speak Korean...so we are motioning for him to pull over though he doesn't quite get it, a minute or so later he finally figures it out as Steph's door is open! She gets out to try and get it. Gone! Awesome. No phone, means no numbers. I don't have any of her friends. So, we go on a blind mission to hopefully find her friends, other wise, we are own. We go to this spa, which is huge! Foreigners are fairly limited if you venture out from the areas where they flock. We are the only ones, so it should be easy to find her friends if they are here! A hour or so later after we ventured around the place....got yelled at for not wear swim caps on, soaked in the spa (which is awesome by the way, message tubs, hot tubs, cold tubs, sauna, grooming stations, messages if you want one... don't find them. Decide to leave so we can figure out a place to sleep. As we are leaving we see them! They have been there for 2 hours, but in the outside hot tubs which is basically a maze of hot tubs out side. Huh?!! ...if you knew we were coming to meet you, why would you go in the MAZE in the very BACK of the spa?!!! Anyhow...we found them!
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| Our sweet, and not to mention our super sexy swim caps! |
After we hungout in the tubs for a little longer we left to go back into town to go get some food.
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| Local market of every dried seafood available. |
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| The street we went to get food at. There was a gap between the mass amount of people so I took a picture. |
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| Dinner! :( |
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| Sokcho is the city closest to the South eastern border of North Korea. It's on the coast so seafood is big here. Restaurants offering the same seafood are lined up, one after the other. We pick one that a couple of the people we met up with had gone to. It was full so the Lady who owned it took us down the road to where her son also worked. Check out the pictures below. |
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| Our table was cardboard wrapped in tin foil and placed on a stool. |
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| Stuffed Squid....delicious! Apparently this is the only place you'll find it. |
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| Our dining space...there was 6 of us, maybe 7. |
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| The kitchen where he cooked our food. |
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| A huge King crab selling for w250,000 = roughly $250 |
Finally, made it to the Mountain we thought we were going to climb. We needed to take a picture just to prove we made it! Conclusion of the trip, our 14 hour, 2 day hike turned into a 1, maybe, 2 hour hike to a waterfall. It was beuatiful though!
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| Everyone else who wanted to climb. Imagine Multnomah falls on a busy day, times 3. |
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| Made it to the waterfall...not that exciting but watching the Koreans priceless. |
