Three Seasons in Mudeungsan

Every few weeks in the Fall and Spring, and only once in the Winter (so cold, so slippery) my friend and I have gone hiking in Mudeungsan.

Here are some images of the shining seasons in Mudeungsan National Park: Gwangju, South Korea.

Autumn

November 2015

The Last Weekend Before the First Snow

Winter

February 2016

Spring

April 2016

The Last Weekend of the Cherry Blossoms

&

The First Weekend of Buddha's Birthday Celebrations

A Snow Day!

For the first time in 8 years of teaching abroad, I'm enjoying a snow day. So, I took a morning walk around the neighborhood - the snow made it all glitter a bit and it was a good opportunity to take photographs.

The school, where I live, is on the very edge of the boundaries of Gwangju - but the city is about to expand on behind us and the construction has begun. 

The shortest walk to 'town' is through the campus of a college which is adjacent to my school's campus. 

Between the campus and the shops is a small park called Ssagam Park. Every area has a little park with a walking track, exercise machines, and play areas.

There are mountains all around Gwangju, but often they are hidden in haze. With the crisp air, mountains have been appearing in sharp relief against the sky.

The edge of the nearest shopping district in my neighborhood (Cheomdan / Buk-gu) is a small Super Lotte grocery store, a Paris Baguette - where I buy all of my bread - as well as services, restaurants, and several coffee shops.

The roads are wide and usually very busy, but with the snow were fairly empty today.

The walk from home to Starbucks is 1.3 miles - a walk that typically is fairly quick, though with all the snow and ice, even without taking photographs, has been taking at least 40 - 60 minutes each way. Still, it's very very pretty.

Hiking the road less traveled is not as poetic as Frost would have us believe

Mudeungsan National Park is a stunning, and popular, destination for hiking in Gwangju. Just an hour by bus from my home on the other side of town (40 minutes if I take the 9 and leave before 7 am), I visited the park three times at the end of September and beginning of October to take in the change from Summer to Autumn. Now it's raining and my hiking plans for this weekend, to catch the changing leaves before they all fall, have been washed away, so I thought I'd catch up with a blog post about my adventures there.

The first weekend I went to Mudeungsan, my friend and I were overwhelmed by the beauty and lush green of late summer. Dew painted spider webs wove complicated trails from bushes to flowers to trees. Mossy stone paths led the way along a babbling brook through green woods and into small fields of purple and white flowers. It was quiet, peaceful, and with the exception of an occasional hiker, largely empty in the morning.

Then we came to a sign post. With the aid of a mildly confusing map, we decided to take the 'short cut' to a ridge a few kilometers away; unbeknownst to us, the path led STRAIGHT UP for about a kilometer, only flattening out for a small pine glen and a tiny glade of giant-leaved flowers. Luckily, the view from the top was stunning.

Unfortunately, the climb down was very crowded. Hiking is a popular Korean past-time, and the families we passed of grandchildren with their grandparents, healthy young men with their toddlers hoisted up on their shoulders as they hiked along, and occasionally young couples dressed in their Sunday best, were all heading up the 'easy path' that we had passed earlier in our hike and not taken. (note: because it was steps, and not just steeply graded hills, I likely would never have made it up to the top on this route).

The total hike was only a few hours, and sitting on the balcony at the Mudeungsan Starbucks (because of course there is a Starbucks!) looking back at the green hills of the park, it was hard to believe how many people were hidden by the trees.

On two subsequent visits, I have hiked to Yongsan Monestary (a short, easy hike; but all asphalt and sometimes dangerous with people zooming by in their cars) and again took the hike along the formerly babbling brook which was now a rushing river. My friend and I were aiming to make it to the Barajame Pass, where the leaves were due to be changing. Roughly one kilometer short of the top, we had to turn around because it had become too steep (all steps) and my knees were burning. When we turned around, we had to fight our way back down the mountain through huge tour groups headed for the top: It took twice as long to get back to the bus as it had to get from the bus to near the top.

Korea or Narnia?

Narnia or the Phantom Tollbooth?

The only changing leaves I saw

Mudeungsan is a free, and wonderful, way to experience the natural beauty of Korea. Now, if only it would stop raining so I could break in my new hiking shoes on the trails!

Mini-Escape to Busan

I'm doing these posts out of order. I should be writing about Mudeungsan National Park, which is amazing and will get its own post soon, but this weekend, I traveled from my home near the West coast of Korea all the way to Busan on the East coast - and I want to write a quick little post with some photos before I forget all about it.

Let me begin with the bus. First of all, Gwangju bus terminal was crowded (I departed the day before Chuseok - think Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Harvest all rolled into one) but clean, efficient, and easy to navigate. The bus ride (45,000 wan r/t - about $38USD) on a luxury bus with plenty of leg room, reclining seats, and a television playing Korean dramas and Chuseok specials for everyone on board, would only take three hours, including a stop at one of the fancy travel plazas that are dotted along the major highways in Korea. It was a pleasant, cheap, and easy way to travel from one side of the country to the other.

Busan is a port city, so it has all the attractions one would expect: beaches, seafood, large boats, and sea air. Busan had a bit of the port city grit that Baltimore does, but with much more upscale shopping and about 1,000 times as many tourists. The city itself is built on steeply sloping hills, so the landscape is beautiful.

The food is also amazing. Busan has daily ferry service to Japan, so there is a strong Japanese influence on the cuisine. My dinner at a Japanese restaurant included a seafood hotpot that contained a sea snail (a little chewy and flavorless), a giant scallop (deliciously briny and so very different from the sea scallops I've had elsewhere), cockles, clams, shrimp, crab, and a very large, very chewy squid. The broth itself was full of rich umami flavor, with a bit of an acidy finish (from all the greens, perhaps?).

These are the shells left over from the seafood hotpot.

There is also an abundance of street food in Busan (and in Gwangju, too!). The one my friend found too irresistible to just walk by were the little fried dough pockets. The dough was partially cooked, filled with brown sugar, cooked again so the sugar melted, and then opened and filled with shelled sunflower seeds. It was like a stuffed funnel cake and it was delicious!

Fried, stuffed dough

This vendor sold fried sweet potato sticks
and fried silk worms. I am not ready
to eat silkworms...maybe someday
when someone gives me a food travel show -
but that day has not yet come.

Because of the holiday, my friend and I were unable to eat at the Jagalchi Fishmarket, but we did peruse the stalls outside (twice, I was enthralled by the variety of seafood on display). The market is adjacent to the dried fish market - dried fish snacks being very popular in Korea. Side Note: I really want to like dried fish snacks - I mean, I love salt, I love seafood, I love snacks - but dried seafood is a taste I can't wrap my tastebuds around.

I was only in Busan for about 48 hours, and yet, in those 48 hours, my friend and I walked about 15 miles exploring the city and taking it all in - and I didn't even get to the beaches or the mountains (well, I climbed ONE hill up to Busan Tower, but that can't really count, can it?)! I can't wait to go back.