Adventure Korea Trip to Gangcheon: The Hike!

Friday night I met up with Holly after school and we went to the new Garten Bier that opened in the building across the street from my apartment. We ate dinner there and hung for a few hours. I didn't want to drink too much because I had to be up at 5:30 a.m. to head out on an overnight Adventure Korea trip. It's never easy for me to get up in the morning, so you can imagine how easy it was for me to get up at 5:30 a.m...it wasn't. If I didn't live so far from Seoul I wouldn't need to get up so early, but our bus was set to leave at 7:00 a.m. and if we don't catch the trains during transfers it can take a while to get into Seoul. We managed to make it to Seoul about 10-15 minutes early. We set out for our 5 hour bus ride to Gangcheon, which is South of Seoul. We made a couple stops along the way to allow for bathroom breaks and snack breaks. When we arrived in Gangcheon our first stop was the 4-5 hour hike.

Smell that fresh air, look at that greenery...not something we can enjoy in Incheon. Nicole and I are excited and ready for the hike to start...I was hoping for some more warmth as well.

The weather wasn't that great, but it wasn't raining, so that was a relief. The start of the hike seemed easy enough and had enough scenery to keep us amused. The path was smooth, the air was fresh the scenery was spectacular and there was a lot of photo opportunities.

Here you can see how smooth the path is and it's an easy man-made trail...it didn't last the entire hike. It was simply there to lead us up to the gruelling hike about to take place.

It was also at this exact point in the hike when my camera batteries decided to die. My camera and I have been through a lot together and if it's not one thing with it, it's another.The good news we had Nicole's camera as back-up...thank goodness! The next set of hike pictures are courtesy of Nicole's camera. Enjoy!

Nicole and I on the suspension bridge that had me a bit scared, because of my height issue, but I conquered it. We were quite high, so falling would hurt...a lot. Pretty view. Nicole and I made it to the other side of the bridge. I'm liking the view in this picture. We hadn't even started the worst part of the hike yet, so while we waited for the slower people we had a photo shoot. We made our friend and AK tour guide Kyung Su pose with us because we are one BIG happy family. I love seeing such beautiful scenery in Korea because it's not something that I see everyday. The hike had started at this point and it was exhausting, so we stopped for a picture. Now, you can see just how high up we were. The view was breathtaking...literally. I think this was on the way down the mountain after climbing for seriosuly 2 hours or more to the peak. The one lonely little cherry blossom tree amongst the bigger green ones.

We hiked past a fortress on the mountain. It was chilly, but felt nice on my aching/sore body.

Funny story, so I will tell it: Nicole and I were booking it down the mountain because we were one of the faster ones. Anyways, I slipt at this one spot, but didn't fall, so I just laughed and kept going. Literally, 30 seconds later I slipped again, but didn't fall. Nicole and I were laughing hard by now, and I was like, "Phew! I totally almost fell twi...." BOOM! I didn't even finish my sentence and I bailed so hard onto the ground and we were literally 500M away from being done the hike. My ass landed on a rock, I scraped my hand and I dirtied my pants, sweater and shirt. At this point, Nicole and I were laughing our asses off because of the way the whole situation played out. I guess, third time really is a charm.

This is a picture of us at the bottom of the mountain...finally...with Nicole laughing at the mud stain on my butt because I bailed and so close to the end.

The best part about the hike was the spa we got to enjoy after we finished it. Now, this spa is not like a spa you would go to in Canada. It is divided by the sexes, so their is a female spa and a male spa. Basically, you strip down naked and enjoy hot tubs, massages, showers, etc. SO, you are naked in a public bath house (females only), so everything is exposed. This was my first time experiencing a spa in Korea and I have been here over a year, so you can imagine my hesitations. I hate being naked first of all and second of all I'm a foreigner, so staring is inevitable. Anyways, moral of the story, I loved it and can't wait to do it again. It was so relaxing, but we didn't have nearly enough time there.

This is a picture of the outside of the spa and it is rated a 5 star spa., so lucky us.

After the spa we headed to dinner at the best pork ribs restaurant in Korea. The ribs were good, but they were really greasy and came to us kind of cold, because they were serving such large quantities they had to make them in mass amounts. We enjoyed getting to know some of the people who were on the trip with us over food and drinks. After dinner we headed to our pension and some of us ended up drinking, which led to a party room that involved drinking games. When Kyung Su kicked us out and told us all to go to bed, Nicole and I headed to our room and some people joined us. When everyone turned in for the night except Nicole, James (a guy we met) and I we decided to go and crash a room full of Koreans. Little did we know that they were body builders and they loved our company. This led to a rather late night, which sucked because we had an early morning ahead.