Palbongsan

A few weekends ago, I went hiking at Palbongsan (팔봉산). Palbongsan means "Eight Peak Mountain" in Korean, and that's exactly what it is. Eight small mountains all running together in a ridge. You have to climb up one peak, then back down it, then up the next one. It's pretty crazy. This mountain is in Gangwon-do, which is a province in Korea. 

Where it has the number 1 is Seoul. That's where I live. Gangwon-do is in the upper right part of the picture. For those of you keeping track, it touches North Korea. But I wasn't in Northern Gangwon-do. I was about where the "w" is on this map. South Korea is about the same size as Indiana, so it only took about 90 minutes to get from Seoul to the mountain. 

The scenery around the mountain was beautiful. This is across the river from where the actual hiking was. I've been pretty overwhelmed with work lately, and not getting enough sleep/getting a little bit sick, so I climbed 3/4 of the way up the first peak, then decided that I wasn't going to be able to both climb this mountain and survive the rest of the week at work, since Saturday is my only day to not be busy. So I left my friend (also named Sarah) to climb up the mountain with the rest of the group, and I went down to hang out along the beautiful river walk, take some pictures, and just enjoy the chance to be alone, outside of my apartment, without hoards of people around. That doesn't really happen in Seoul ;)

There were some lovely rocks in the river. The colors were beautiful. If you can't see them in the smaller version of the picture, you should click on it so it gets bigger!

There were literally mountains on all sides of the river. 

For part of the river walk, there was a lovely stone path. 

In other parts of the walk, you had to hunker down and go under these really large, craggy rocks. 

There weren't very many people out and about, comparatively speaking. But there were a couple of groups of school children hanging around. I assume that these two are siblings, but I didn't get a chance to try to talk to them. 

Perhaps this is the rural Korean version of an Abbey Road shot? :p

There were a lot of restaurants near the parking lot that had tanks of fresh fish that you could select to be cooked. There was a group of fishermen catching that night's dinner. 

All in all, it was a lovely way to spend a Saturday! I got to know the other Sarah a little bit better (she has only been here about a month and a half) and spend some time away from the city. I hadn't realized just how much it wears me out to live in the city. Even when I'm in my apartment, there is always noise and activity going on with my neighbors, or in the hallway, or out on the street. There are always people around, and lots of them! It can be somewhat difficult to find peace and quiet within all of that busy-ness. I have since resolved to be more intentional about getting out of Seoul more often. If you don't count the trip to the airport, this was only the second time I've been outside of Seoul since I came to Korea eight months ago. That's just ridiculous!