I conquered Inwang Mountain (by accident)

All I wanted to do was to see a Shamanist shrine. Somehow I climbed one of the highest mountains in Seoul by accident and found no shrine. Funny how my life has been lately.

This is what I was looking for: http://english.visitkorea.or.kr/enu/SI/SI_EN_3_6.jsp?cid=260583.
Guksadang which is a a shamanist shrine and some Zen rocks. They said that there was some climbing involved. So.. we started climbing.....

This was just the beginning.

We climbed and climbed ... and climbed... every step of the way hoping to find the shrine ... and cursing the darned shamans for building their temple so high up the stupid mountain... Sooo many stairs..........

But when we reached the top, we realized that not even the shamans were dumb enough to climb that high. There was no shrine. Just a nice view. Unfortunately, we were so exhausted by this point that it was a little difficult to enjoy it (note the half-dead expression on my face in the first picture). We had just managed to accidentaly climb Inwangsam, a mountain of 338 meters. This takes getting lost to a whole new level.

But, hey, at least my biologist tendencies sprang into action at the right time when I saw some interesting insects. Why is it that all the bugs here have spots? The are so strange looking?

Anyway, we climbed back down the mountain, utterly defeated by it. I hope someday I have the motivation to go back and find the shrine, but I don't think it will be this week....