It was a weekend characterized by sheep, the sea, and a very exhausting but worthwhile hike.
After having an exhilarating first two months exploring Seoul with my friends, they finally took off at the end of August, leaving me, well, knowing very few people in Seoul once again. Branching out in such a busy, bustling city is certainly not easy, but I thought I'd try and kill two birds with one stone. I decided to join an organized trip offered by a travel group here in Seoul called Goh Travel, with the hopes of exploring my new host country as well as hopefully meeting some other eager young people in the same boat as me.
The trip I signed up for seemed quite appealing. The owner, Mr. Goh, had a stocked bus and was taking us to visit Korea's most famous sheep farm, called Daegwallyeong Sheep Ranch. He then invited us aboard a sea train that straddled the country's east coast. Finally, we set off toward Seoraksan National Park where we embarked on a hike leading to some spectacular views. All this for just under 100$ CAD.
Here's a map as to put things a bit more into perspective.
The green marker is Seoul, and the four red pins on the right of the map are the three destinations that I visited on this trip.
Overall, let's consider the weekend a success. After waking up at 5:00 AM on Saturday morning, I headed off toward the pickup location. After passing out on the bus for five hours, we finally arrived at our sheep farm. Even though the real treasure was climbing the mountain and observing the view, who could possibly pass up the opportunity to feed some cute sheep some hay, right?
I still fail to understand how a mere sheep farm could grow this popular, but hey, the view from the top was quite nice!
The East Coast Sea Train, I must admit, was a little disappointing. What was advertised as a train that has been specifically designed for breathtaking sea views was really just a train following a train track with occasional views of the seaside intermittently between forests and construction zones. Regardless, the few views we did get were rather nice, as was the beach we visited afterwards.
We were all kind of excited to find out where Mr. Goh would be bringing us for dinner, seeing as dinner was supposed to be included in our tickets, but, alas, this was the biggest disappointment of the weekend. Instead of bringing this bus full of foreigners to a nice Korean restaurant, we were taken to E-Mart. Yes, E-Mart, which is the equivalent of Walmart here in Korea, with a slight twist. E-Mart here is primarily a grocery store, but it sells a variety of other things, such as household items, kitchenware, stuff for your bed, you name it. Most emarts also contain a food court, and the food generally is not too bad at these food courts, however to be eating at the food court of a department store instead of a nice traditional restaurant is a bit of a let-down. I had a Korean cutlet with an udon soup; it was a decent meal but it certainly could have been better...
To make things even worse on the food front, the breakfast, which was also included in the price, was a muffin alongside some instant coffee in a small cup... and the instant coffee was quite gross.
We were housed that night in a "traditional Korean guest house." I say this under quotations because it looked like a crummy old hotel until we got into our rooms... it turns out these traditional guest houses don't feature any beds, instead you're supposed to lay out the thin mattress they provide for you on the floor, and just sleep like that. Fortunately, my roommate and I got one of the only few rooms in the hotel with a bed... but the rest of the group was certainly not as fortunate.
After a pretty cool first day, which unfortunately concluded with mediocre food and a strange "guest house," the hike on Sunday definitely made up for it. Just climbing to the top we were treated to some pretty spectacular views.
It was the perfect day for a hike. While the Saturday was a scorcher with a searing sun, the Sunday was cloudy and cooler, not too humid and with just the right amount of mist in the air to create a nice visual from atop the mountain.
And we even got to see Buddha and another temple once at the bottom!
After another traffic-delayed ride back to Seoul, I was back home at around 7:00 PM.
And socially, how did that go? Well, it wasn't bad. Naturally, being a bit held back at first, I'm not the type to just go up to my fellow travellers and introduce myself, especially given that almost everyone else came with a friend. That said, over the course of the weekend I got to know some of the others. Some were exchange students in Seoul (I even got to speak quite a bit of French over the weekend; it's good to use some of these languages that I can't use often here...), some were English teachers and others were just simply passing through. Unfortunately, none of the people I met actually live in Seoul... most of them actually live and study in the suburbs, about 90 minutes away from the city, so I don't think I'll be running into them too often, but we exchanged Facebooks just in case.
Overall, the trip wasn't bad. Mr. Goh is a very nice man, he even has some experience doing this as he worked as a tour guide in London for Korean tourists there. I was a bit disappointed with the food served and wondered if I got the best bang for my buck, but the hike, the views and the sheer exhilaration of travelling and further exploring made it all well worth it!
-Daniele.
