Seorak-san National Park

If you think about it, National Parks in South Korea are about the equivalent of State Parks in North Carolina.  South Korea is similar in area to NC, and thus the many national parks cannot all be like the ones in the entire USA.  This was definitely true with Gyereongsan  National Park near our city in South Korea.  However, in our last week in South Korea, we visited a national park that would be worthy of that title in any size country, Seoraksan National Park.  We barely scraped the surface of the miles and miles (or kilometers and kilometers) of hiking that could be done in this park.  It is a huge mountain range in the NE corner.  From this mountain range there is a continuous slope to the Pacific Ocean.  Its amazing to climb up the mountains and then view the ocean.

We stayed at the town of Sokcho (famous for squid), and bused to the national park.  Sokcho is amazing in itself having once been a park of North Korea before the war moved the border North.  Many North Korean refugees settled in the area, so the food is supposed to be a mix of North and South.

Some of Sokcho's famous squid

Back to the mountain climbing, we decided to climb the rocks on the edge of the park to get a good view of the rest of the park that we didn't have enough time to explore.  On the way we climbed past two places where you could stop and eat.  It was very strange, suddenly there were a lot of outdoor tables, a bathroom, and a restaurant with ladies trying to sell you water and rice wine.

Right before the extremely steep part was a small Buddhist cave and a famous rock that you were supposed to try to wobble.  Apparently large groups are able to shake it, but it never will fall.  We were not strong enough to move it, but we tried.

Trying to wobble the rock!

 Oh, and I forgot to mention that around the temple, carved into the surrounding rocks were poems!  Lots and lots of poems, in old Korean i.e. Chinese.  We couldn't read any of them, but they were still pretty.

Next came the steep steps that went up and up and up.  We finally made it to the top, and the view was amazing!  Every direction there were forests and mountains, until the land evened off towards the ocean.  Even more amazing, there was a little shop at the very top that sold coffee and ramen.  The person who runs that little shop must be in really good shape.  The rest of the park was really pretty, someday we have to go back and explore the rest.

The view from the top

Later we hiked up a river to a waterfall.  It was also beautiful.  Also not to be missed is the local history museum!  They have architecture from different areas of North Korea, and we got to see an amazing performance of the spinney hat drum guys!  It was the best one I have seen in Korea, and the only other people watching were kindergartners, so we had a great view!  This is probably one of the most remote and most beautiful areas in all of South Korea!