There and Back Again

A few weekends ago I packed my bags and headed South to Changyeong. An enjoyable day and a half, Preston and Caley, plus two of their co-workers and I set out for a Sunday afternoon hike. Taking in fall in all its beautiful/messy essence, we hiked at a pretty quick pace up the mountain. As usual, a simple hike in Korea led to not only physical and aesthetic enjoyment, but a view into Korean culture.

Put simply, hiking is really popular with Koreans. They dress to the nines in specialized NASA-like hiking gear, complete with poles and backpacks. Because of this enjoyable fact (I'm always for people getting outside and exercising), it made our hike a little less enjoyable. For some reason (the Barrall genes are showing), I don't like crowds...when I'm hiking that is. But, like Randy said, we were experiencing hiking the Korean way.

Which of course led to the top of the mountain. As my co-blogger Caley mentioned in her post on the day, "when we got to the top, we were greeted by the site of this... About 4 or 5 groups of people selling food- tofu on a stick, ramen, kimchi pancakes, and water, gatorade, soju, and hite. When you bought food, you could sit down on a mat and enjoy your meal. It was pretty cool."

Note: My apologies for the picture order. They're backwards.


These women were selling snacks and soju on the top of the mountain. Apparently there's nothing like hydrating with a very drink that with dehydrates!
An impromptu picnic (with ramyon [ramen] and topu [tofu])!
This is how Koreans (and Gregs in Korea) clean their shoes after hiking.
Our group named this nice rock "Pride Rock."