Last weekend, we visited my husband’s parents in his hometown, Jecheon. After lunch on Sunday, his parents thought that it would be nice to travel to Seorak-san on the way to Seoul. Uh-oh! Mt. Seorak or Seoraksan is a famous national mountain park, and considered the most beautiful in South Korea, the whole year round and especially in the autumn season when the trees turn into reds, oranges and yellows. I was expecting heavy traffic and boy was I right! We left Jecheon at 12:30 PM (noon) and we arrived in Seoul at 11:30 PM. We just drove by the middle of Mt. Seorak and we only stopped for about 5 minutes at Hangyeryung, one of Mt. Seorak’s peaks.
I wasn’t able to take any picture at all at Mt. Seorak since we got there at 6PM. It usually just takes about 3 hours from Jecheon to Mt. Seorak but my father-in-law decided that we should take the old road. It wasn’t bumpy but there were just too many turns and the speed limit was 40kph top!
Enough of what happened yesterday, I’ll just share something that I took on our Seorak-san trip last summer. It was just a day tour and we only visited the Buddhist temple (Baekdamsa) that Mt. Seorak and the infamous former Korean president, Chun Doo Hwan, made famous. The temple itself wasn’t as grand or nice as other temples I’ve been to but it has one of the best tea shops/souvenir shops outside Seoul.
On the way back to Jecheon that summer day, we passed by Ulsan Baui on the way to Seokcho and Gangneung, where we had dinner at a famous seaside raw fish restaurant. Ulsan Baui is so-called because the word “ulsan” means “wall mountain” which is exactly how it looks like. There is a legend though that says that the rock came from the city of Ulsan in the south. Long story…
Anyway, here’s a panoramic view of the rock… a great break from all those steel buildings in the city.
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Vacations are always a great time to spend with the family, you have to see the positive side, but maybe the old road was too long and that’s why you complain. 😀
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Hi, Buhay sa Korea, thank for your kind sharing. I am trying to have a budget tour of jeju, seoul in 2012 February. Hope your sharing will come handy. Thank you so much. I am from Malaysia.