Seoraksan National Park, Korea

After Dave's conference was over, we went to Seoraksan National Park so that we could get out of the city and see some nature.

 

We took the trusty city bus, which dropped us off right at the park's enterance.  How convenient.

 

 The trail we took led to Biryong Falls, which means “Flying Dragon” Falls. Legend has it there was a drought that stopped the water flowing in the town. After the village made a sacrifice of a young maiden, the dragons were appeased and allowed the water to flow again. It is said the fall looks like a dragon flying upwards toward the sky.

The Great Unification Buddha in Seoraksan National Park, South Korea. The Buddha is the largest seated bronze Buddha statue in the world, at 14.6m high, excluding the halo, lightning rod and pedestal.

The statue's name, Tongil Daebul, means 'Unification Buddha', and it was built to symbolise the Korean people's hope for the reunification of North and South Korea. The statue cost ₩3.8 billion won (US $4.1 million) to erect, which was raised over a decade, with the construction being completed in 1997.

 

You can really get a sense of how large the buddha is when I am standing right next to it in this picture.

This a the hike to Geumganggul Cave.  The last few kilometers to the cave were incredible vertical.  This is a shot we took looking down from the final ascent up to the cave.

When you get to this small cave you find a fountain carved into the rock.  There is a mountain spring there and it’s said that if you drink from it you’ll have a long life.  Dave and I both took a drink, so we are looking forward to a long and wonderful life together.

 Geumganggul Cave was inhabited by a Buddhist monk who wanted seclusion. His shrine is still there.

 

 

This is the amazing view that we saw from the cave when the mist parted for us ever so briefly so that we could really appreciate where we were.

Here I am pointing to the enterance of the cave.

 

 



After our hike, we were so hungry.  We decided to try some of the traditionl Korean food offered in the park.  I had rice with vegetables called bibimbop and Dave had noodles.  I learned that hard way that is was not a good idea to mix the rice and vegetables together like I saw everyone else doing.  The red sauce that I mixed in was so spicy, that I was unable to finish my rice dish.  If I ever have a chance to eat that again, I will carefully scoop out as much of the hot pepper sauce that I can.

  

 

Later we took the cable car up to Gwongeumseong.  

 On our way up the cable car we could look back and see the Unification Buddha that we had seen earlier.

  

The fog was pretty socked in up there.  We knew that we should be seeing some pretty amazing mountain ranges from up here, but all we could see was fog.  After climbing to the top of the summit, they offer this flag for a photo opportunity.  We saw many people wearing their photos which were printed right there using a generator.  We opted to take pictures for ourselves.

I am not proud of this shot from the rear, but this is final stretch to the top of the summit.

 

 

Everywhere at Gwongeumseong were piles of rocks that people had stacked.  I bet this is a sign for good luck.

 

For a brief moment, the mist parted once again and we could appreciate the beauty of Seoraksan Park.

The bridge on the way to the temple of Baekdamsa. 

The original temple was built in 652 AD.  Due to many fire in the area the current buildings are reconstructions but still impressive.

 

 

We were impressed by this restroom facility on the temple grounds.  This is the fanciest building I have ever seen for a restroom.  Traditional Korean female toilets require one to "squat" in order to take care of business.  This restroom had western style toilets but with a guideline posted behind the door in case you weren't accustomed to using them...

 

 

 

 

 

The following day in the park we ventured to another hiking trail.  This one led us to Heundeulbawi (Tottering Rock). About five meters high, the rock looks like it will roll down the cliff with just a small push, but even though thousands of people have tried to budge it, it does not move, just wiggles a little, no matter how hard people push it.

 

The trail continues on toward the Ulsanbawi rock formation.  It can be reached by hiking past two temples and climbing 800 steps up the face of the rocks. Ulsanbawi has six granite, quartz and mica peaks that rise as high as 873 meters, covering an area 4 km in circumference. According to the legend Ulsanbawi comes from the city of Ulsan in the south east of Korea. As Kumgangsan was built, Ulsanbawi walked to the north as the representative of the city. Unfortunately Ulsanbawi arrived too late and there was no more room. Ulsanbawi was ashamed and slowly trudged back to the south. One evening the rock went to sleep in the Seorak area. Ulsanbawi felt it was so beautiful around there that it decided to stay for good. -wikipedia

 

I consider myself relatively healthy and enjoy hiking very much.  I was not prepared however for the grueling experience of hiking to Ulsanbawi.  The steel stair trail was much easier that hiking the rock face itself I am sure.  Nevertheless, this felt like doing a stair master from you know where.

 

Luckily, I did make it and am so glad that I did.  It was purely spectacular at the top.  The rock face made us feel like we were riding to spine of a stegasaurus.  For a while we were the only people at the top and we were able to enjoy the view, watch the mist roll in and out and also watch a falcon soaring around the formation.  It was really something amazing.

At the end of the trail on the way back, I added a rock for both Dave and I to the stacks for good luck.  Seoraksan was such a great choice for us to spend our last couple of days in South Korea.  It is such a beautiful, green country.  We felt to lucky to be able to come here.