Trip to Yongpyong

Wow, it's been 2 weeks since my trip to YongPyong and I just now got around to writing this post. We drove there on Friday night. It's supposed to be only a 2.5 hour drive, but it wound up being a 4 hour drive because of some crazy traffic. Being a "holiday weekend" (independence day) I guess everyone wanted to get out of the city. I use quotation marks because even though it was a holiday weekend, I got no days off from school because it fell on a Saturday. We didn't arrive in Yongpyong until 1am. We stayed with my boyfriend's friends with their toddler son at their condo not far from Yongpyong.

On Saturday morning, we went to a cow farm to do some hiking. Not only was it a cow farm, but it was also a wind farm, which was super cool for me, since I'm a geek about that kind of stuff. The map said it was 4 km to the top, so it didn't sound bad. We thought it was a little strange that everyone was taking the bus up the mountain, but we wanted some exercise, since I don't get much nowadays. We started climbing and we realized why everyone was taking the bus. Although it was the hottest day of the year that weekend in Seoul, Yongpyong, being in the mountains is remarkably cool. We were quite chilly at night, and when standing in the shade we were very comfortable. On the other hand, this was a farm with few trees. We were in the direct line of sun. Not to mention we assumed there would be little stores along the way, like in most Korean tourist sites, we didn't bring any water. We quickly realized that this was going to be a tough hike for us.

As we climbed along, we passed lots of animals. I bet if I were a little kid, I would love this place. It was still great to be out in fresh air getting exercise though.

Goats

Ostriches... and I found out the Korean word for ostrich is 타주... I'm sure that will come in handy some day.....


Cows (소)


Sheep... we particularly liked the do on this one. (양)


These aren't animals... we happened across the filming of some tv program. Two well known TV personalities were being filmed here for some reason. I managed to get a close up with my 48X zoom (I like to brag about that zoom). I felt special to see celebrities... but I have no idea who they are so they might as well be nobody...

Well, we finally reached the top, an there was an observation point there. We were supposed to be able to see as far as the ocean... it was only about a 1/2 hour drive from Yongpyong. But, though you can't tell from these photos, it was so hazy we couldn't see anything. So, it was not quite photo worthy.

After finally reaching the top after an exhausting (and rather lonely because we were the only ones hiking UP) hike to the observation point, we looked on the map and saw that we could take a different route down. It didn't look like anyone was going that way, but then again, no one seemed to be up for a hike here, so we went down the lonely path to find another way down. After about 1/2 hour on a path with no one in sight, we found a sign that said no trespassing, 500,000 won fine. That made us a little nervous, so we called the information booth at the bottom of the mountain from my cell phone. It turns out that it was about a 4 hour hike that way down the mountain. With no water and baking in the sun, we decided to turn back. I was burning to a crisp because I forgot to put sunblock on my legs and the back of my neck. We finally, somehow, made it back to the bus, and rode it all the way down to the bottom. We went back to the condo and took a long nap...

Me on a lonely path leading to nowhere... with no water and burning from the sun....