Sunday we decided to take a stroll up Soyosan to the buddhist temple. The last time we had hiked up there, the temple grounds had seen better days. Yes, the flooding from the heavy rains last year really did a number.
The air was quite brisk, but the sun was actually shining through the bare tree branches keeping us warm on our hike.
Once on the hiking path, we were glad to see that the grounds were in full swing of repair. The park crew already had water runoffs dug alongside of the roadway leading up to the base of the mountain.
Now…all we need is the beautiful spring weather! We just might get our request later this week!
Woot-Woot!! Check out that weather forecast!! Okay, don’t look at the snow folks..it’s the 50’s we are digging!
These are pictures from Mrs. B’s trip to the Inje Ice Festival this weekend. Hope you enjoy! The temps were quite chilly! Oh and no, she wasn’t brave enough to eat the live smelt fish….she just draws the line at bugs :).
Hope you are all warm and toasty wherever you are located.
Diving with Aquatic Frontier, the weekend of 26-27 November 2011. The owner, Allen Rivera, was able to conduct 4 diver specialties including: wreck diver, deep diver, night diver and peak performance buoyancy as well as conduct a Rescue Diver certification. Aside from an extremely busy weekend we were able to get some great diving and video in now that we are ending the year. Come dive with Aquatic Frontier in South Korea.
Once again I was out on the East Coast at Sacheon Beach and Kyung Po to do some great diving with Aquatic Frontier. This time I was finishing up my wreck diver specialty. I was able to complete my first wreck penetration, although small it was an exciting dive. The trip was almost a bust thanks to me forgetting to tie down my GoPro camera I just got the week before but Allen from Aquatic Frontier was able to find it at 82 feet just about 24 hours after I lost it. Check out the video below.
Got to go diving again with the people from Aquatic Frontier. We went to the South Korean East Coast, Sacheon Beach in Gangneung to be exact. We got in beach, boat and wreck dives. Although the weather wasn’t the best visibility was good and everyone there had a blast! I am always looking forward to diving with everyone from here.
10/01/2011 (Yes, we are a bit behind on uploading/ blogging) SORRYYYYY!!!
Tonight we made plans to grab a bite to eat at a restaurant very close to our apartment. The restaurant we decided to try out is called Shin-Hung. We finally had some free time to meet up with our good friend Mary G! We have to mention on our blog that Mary’s husband is incredibly sweet! Robert stayed at home (on his birthday, mind you) with their twins so that she could have some “adult-time”. Thanks again Robert!!
Okay, back to dinner…Shin-Hung is a restaurant located at the base of the Soyo Mountain in Dongducheon. Shin-hung is pretty popular and known for various dishes among the Koreans, so we are told. The restaurant is fairly large in size, the staff are nice, but do not speak any english. If that is a cause for concern to anyone, don’t let it be… you can simply point at the menu and they will know what you are after.
After looking at the menu we went with Samgyeopsal (Pork-belly). After dinner we all decided that we would come back sometime and try the mushroom stew. We got to see the mushroom stew at the table across from ours and it looked delish!
After a nice dinner with great company we continued our night by walking up the road just a bit to get to the Rock Festival. We were pretty impressed! The festival was FREE! There was a HUGE professional stage with lights and camera coverage! Plus, the music wasn’t half bad and we could people watch! Score!
Have we told you lately just how much we love Korea?!
For Columbus day I (Mr. B.) was able to get away from everyone and join some great friends for some diving on the East Coast of Korea. Sacheon Beach, Gangneung, Gangwon-do to be exact, see link for more information on the area: Sacheon Beach Information
Aquatic Frontier (aquaticfrontier.com) held a dive trip weekend that got together divers of all experiences, from new divers going for their Basic Open Water Certification, Advanced Open Water Students (which was me) and some other divers who just went along to get some dives in on a great weekend. The weather couldn’t have been more perfect. During the day the air temperature was around 65-72 and the water temperature was 68 on the surface and a few meters down.
During the weekend we were able to do several dives; beach dives, boat dives, wreck dives and a deep dive. Our deep dive took us down to 82 feet with a bottom temperature of 58 degrees Fahrenheit. The wreck dives were at 74-79 feet with a temperature of about 61 degrees F at the bottom. The ocean on the East Coast on Monday was lake conditions, very calm and flat; excellent for the ride to and from on the boat.
I would like to thank everyone at Aquatic Frontier for an EXCELLENT weekend getaway, and I am eagerly looking forward to my wreck dive specialty dives coming up! Great job guys!
The weather in South Korea has been changing ever so quickly. Each morning and evening seems just a littler cooler then the day prior. We Bee’s are originally from Central Pennsylvania so we are used to experiencing four seasons. To us there is nothing like being able to go to sleep in the evening with crisp cool fall air creeping in through your bedroom windows. In all the places we have lived or traveled to, we both agree that Pennsylvania has some of the most breathtaking fall scenery. However, we are giving Korea a fair chance and will await to see when the leaves start to turn on the mountains what it has to offer up.
With that being said, today we woke up to another cool September morning here in Dongducheon. We decided that we were going to take advantage of the weather and try to hike our way up and over Soyo mountain located only a few minutes away from our apartment. The weatherman was calling for showers but the sun was still peeking through the clouds and really didn’t look like it was going rain. We decided to take our chances and just go for it.
What we both like about Soyosan is that you park and have to walk up a beautifully tree lined paved road until you reach the base on the mountain. A few posts back you can see where we messed around with the camera and snapped some pictures of us together on this road at night. Along the tree lined road runs a crystal clear stream. During the spring and summer months it is a very popular location for Korean’s to be picnicking and dipping their feet in the water to cool off. Today, as we mentioned is a bit cooler so there were not as many people spotted along the stream.
Before you can continue walking to the very base of the mountain where you begin your hike you have to pay a 3,000 won admission fee. Unless that is, you have have a Dongducheon Korean license, then the admission is FREE!
As you know from prior blog posts we have visited Soyosan numerous times. However, we have never actually hiked the whole trail.Typically we only go up to the Buddhist Jajaeam Temple snap some pictures and turn around. This time…we were ready!
Looking back on the hike we determined that depending on your physical physique you can basically reach the top of the first peak within 30-45 minutes. Now we took our good old sweet time, snapped a ton of pictures, rested for about 45 minutes, and ate some snacks along the trail, so it took us roughly an hour and a half to reach the first peak.
As we mentioned, we snapped tons of pictures and they are included within the post at the top. We also snapped pictures for various Korean couples along the way too! We met a sweet couple that insisted we try their Korean cake. Mr’s B enjoyed it but Mr. B was not a fan. We encountered many couples and each tried to share whatever they had with us including Makkoli the Korean-rice wine. Uhhhh yeahhhh we didn’t tell you that we were very bad and didn’t start the morning off right with a nice hearty breakfast… wine would have made that hike really interesting.
After reaching the first peak we were pumped and moved fairly quickly to the next two peaks. Along the way in between each peak there are areas where you have to crawl over some rocks, use a rope to guide you along narrow stretches of trail, and go up or down a lot of stairs.
Because of the time and our plans to host dinner for some friends we had to get a move on it and truck it back down the mountain, and unfortunately that meant missing the last peak. Again, looking back we should have just hiked the last peak because the path we took to get back down the mountain was insane! The path was totally washed out from all the rain and flooding South Korea experienced in July and the trail was full of rocks that just tumbled down the side of the mountain. We were part of the way down and there wasn’t a person in sight. Ms. B started to say what in the world were we thinking?! How did we get ourselves into the mess… It was a bit to late to turn back so we just had to commit to the rest of the hike down. It ended up taking us a little over a hour just to get down because of the unstableness of the rocks and lack of actual tail. At last we spotted some Korean hikers climbing their way up the path and we heard a family not to far behind us. Okay, we were not the only crazy people on this trail…Mrs. B’s feeling better. Well, that was until Mr. B said make sure you are watching for snakes! Snakes?! Ah! that’s not even a thought that crossed my mind as I was crawling down the rocks (Mr’s B.) Luckily, no snakes were spotted, the rocks didn’t crumble down and crush us, and we eventually made it. Mr. B would like to think this is all due to his advise of “three points of contact”. Mrs. B would like to think it is due to her uncanny direction capabilities ha ha! Nevertheless, WE MADE IT! In one piece… well, not quite, Mrs. B ended up falling due to sliding on the steep slick dirt and catching herself by putting all her weight on her arm and shoulder (she’s a bit sore). Mr. B’s knee gave out a few times on the rocks (needless to say he will definitely be feeling that in the morning). But again, WE MADE IT and that is all that matters!
We understand if you are dreading the initial thought of a hike or might be unsure about trying it after reading over our post. In all seriousness we had a blast and we promises that the picturesque views overlooking the US Army base Camp Casey are worth the hike alone! Not to mention spotting multiple Korean war era bunkers (how cool is that!)!
Cheers to all the baked ziti with sausage and caprese that we will consume tonight without feeling guilty!
Video 1 from behind our apartment…
Video 2 from behind our apartment…
Video of the waters reaching the bottom of the bridge QUICKLY!
