Spicy Fishy » Hiking http://www.spicyfishy.com on the other side of the world.... Mon, 25 Jul 2016 19:51:01 +0000 en-US hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.8.2 Fall Pictures http://www.spicyfishy.com/fall-pictures/ http://www.spicyfishy.com/fall-pictures/#comments Fri, 06 Nov 2009 09:22:33 +0000 http://www.spicyfishy.com/?p=982 I’ve been hoarding a bunch of new pictures for the past few weeks – waiting for a good time to edit them down and post them. So here we are. Be sure to check the captions on the pictures for more information about them. We’ve had some great adventures lately and these hopefully capture a bit of them. I’ve been trigger happy lately ending up with 5 and 6 hundred photos from some trips, so this is definitely a sampling – but it’s really all the pictures anyone would ever actually want to see. :) I’ll be posting some more photosynths of places around Korea soon too. (That’s really where the photo counts go up like crazy! )

Enjoy and please leave a comment!

-Chad

[album id=6 template=extend]

]]>
http://www.spicyfishy.com/fall-pictures/feed/ 4
Soraksan with Dave and Eve http://www.spicyfishy.com/soraksan-with-dave-and-eve/ http://www.spicyfishy.com/soraksan-with-dave-and-eve/#comments Fri, 10 Apr 2009 06:23:57 +0000 http://www.spicyfishy.com/?p=701 Last weekend we went to Soraksan National park with Dave and Eve!  We went up on Saturday and stayed the night in Sokcho then headed out to the park for some hiking on Sunday.  It was a bittersweet trip as it is our last adventure with Dave and Eve here in Korea :(  They are leaving this weekend for new and exciting travels.  Here’s a quick overview of our trip… we’ll be posting some more pictures from this weekend soon including some from a great bike ride we took while in Sokcho.  Our hostel had bikes that they let us borrow!  But for now, here are the hiking pictures.  For more pictures go to the Soraksan Photos page here.  For some videos go here.

090405 Soraksan01

The hostel owner recommended this restaurant and I have to say it was the best Bibimbap meal I’ve had in Korea.  Will definitely go there again the next time we’re in Sokcho.

090405 Soraksan03

Dave decided to eat a pepper…!

090405 Soraksan02

Then he made me eat one :(   I was sad :(

090405 Soraksan07

Soraksan National Park (a bit hazy but still quite pretty.)

090405 Soraksan06

This buddha is near the entrance of the park and probably stands a good 40-50 feet tall.   Its amazing.  Here’s a quick video I took while we were there.

We took off from here and hiked up Ulsan Bawi.  This giant rock mountain is quite impressive and proved to be quite difficult – despite the many stairs and ropes that define Korean hiking.

090405 Soraksan11

Kate about halfway up Ulsan Bawi.

090405 Soraksan13

Dave and Eve help each other up the mountain :)

090405 Soraksan18

We’re almost there!

090405 Soraksan19

Eve is pumped and ready to climb the last leg of the mountain…

090405 Soraksan20

..Straight up these stairs!! eeek.  they keep going and going….

090405 Soraksan24

These older women had no problem with it.. :) These ajumas weren’t even phased by the climing.

090405 Soraksan26

Ulsan Bawi!

090405 Soraksan28

Kate and I trying to get a good photo …

090405 Soraksan30

The nice man with the megaphone and coffee at the top took our picture for us.   (See this video)

090405 Soraksan36

The Party on top of the  mountain… only in Korea… :)

090405 Soraksan41

Ulsan Bawi again.. :) (BTW.. That’s north korea to the right Eep.  And we were there the day of the “Satellite” launch.  See this video from later in the hike.  A helicopter was circliing around over the park announcing something.  Was it about the North Korea Rocket launch?? I don’t know.  No one seemed too alarmed though.. so I think we were fine. )

090405 Soraksan44

After a rest at the top we headed down…

090405 Soraksan46

…and found some lovely treats at the bottom of the mountain.. hah yes that’s a corndog with sprinkles on it,  and another with frenchfries in the batter.  Again, only in korea…

That’s Soraksan.  We had a great time as usual with Dave and Eve… we’re sad to see them go, but they will have a great time wherever they end up, and we’ll see them soon when they come to our wedding :)  Right dave and eve?!  :)

More to come soon…

-Chad

]]>
http://www.spicyfishy.com/soraksan-with-dave-and-eve/feed/ 3
Promised Pictures – Silhouette Shenanigans http://www.spicyfishy.com/promised-pictures-silhouette-shenanigans/ http://www.spicyfishy.com/promised-pictures-silhouette-shenanigans/#comments Sun, 16 Nov 2008 07:00:00 +0000 http://74.220.207.197/~spicyfis/?p=268
Chad – “Hey, Kate, pose in front of that light.”
Kate – “Okay!”

Again,
Again,

Together! You get the picture.

Chad’s turn!




Crazy Mountain Man!


Rocky on rockies.


Chad’s internal dialog – “Should I do it?”

Chad’s external answer. . . .


CAVE MONSTER!!

Lean on me!
1. . .
2. . .
3. . . .
4. . . .
Failed pose but fun trying!


Chad left but I stayed behind to pretend to be a ballerina-cave dancer.


Monster emerging from the midst.


BlAHHH!!!! Getting closer!! This is like getting Big Foot on camera! Luckily we got away in the nick of time! Phew.

We had fun. :)

]]>
http://www.spicyfishy.com/promised-pictures-silhouette-shenanigans/feed/ 0
Alive?! YES WE CAN! Uhh, I mean, yes we are! Hwansangul Mountain http://www.spicyfishy.com/alive-yes-we-can-uhh-i-mean-yes-we-are-hwansangul-mountain/ http://www.spicyfishy.com/alive-yes-we-can-uhh-i-mean-yes-we-are-hwansangul-mountain/#comments Fri, 14 Nov 2008 18:24:00 +0000 http://74.220.207.197/~spicyfis/?p=267 A couple of weekends ago Chad and I decided to hike this trail that we saw when we visited Hwasnagul Cave in September. This post is jammed with pictures! Woot!

Our climb ended up being a little more difficult that we anticipated. Basically this mountain proved to us that our previous thought that Korean hiking is wimpy was wrong – the ropes and stairs are needed. Instead of nice little switch backs everywhere the climb went all the way up and then all the way down.


At the beginning of our hike. Happy little climbers in Korea! Oh, and due to the Kimchi, Chad has grown to be 6″ taller than me.

Cheese!! I mean, Kimchi!!! (Try it, cheese and kimchi do the same thing to your mouth. . .haha but not your taste buds or your tummy!)



This little cave caused us to take about 20 minutes out of our climb to take pictures. Above is a sample of those pictures. They will be in another post. Yes, I plan to post again.


Steep stairs to help us down. I have to confess, I thought we were close to the summit. Nope.

Tampoon – pretty fall leaves in Korean


Crazy Mountain Man! That is what our coworkers like to call Chad. He shared some of his summer hiking pictures with them a few weeks ago. With good reason they were in shock of how intense some of his climbs were. Yikes, me too!


Okay, this picture is an image of the “uh-oh” on our hike. We realized the sun was going down and we had NO clue when we were going to hit the middle point. Sadly we turned around so that we would make the last bus and not die of hypothermia.


Graceful climbing.


Break in the leaves. I think that we would have been OK if we had chosen to stay the night on top of the mountain. The leaves were very cozy!



I know this doesn’t look that tough. I was tired, recovering from a cold and the rocks were very slippery! Thank goodness for those ropes!



I love these persimmon (kam) trees. The are like big hovering skeletons trimmed with bright orange balls that look like they are just floating in the atmosphere surrounding the trees.

Overall Update:

We are doing really well. The cooler weather is definitely rolling in. School is still going really well. We are in the midst of planning a trip to Thailand and Malaysia for our break in January. Exciting! We miss everyone a lot and I wish there was more time in the day and less of a time difference so that staying in touch weren’t so tricky. Though, I am not complaining, we would be lost without all of this technology.

We miss and love you all and I hope that everyone is doing well! Thank you for keeping track of us!

K

]]>
http://www.spicyfishy.com/alive-yes-we-can-uhh-i-mean-yes-we-are-hwansangul-mountain/feed/ 1
“Odaesucks” a tale of misadventure… http://www.spicyfishy.com/odaesucks-a-tale-of-misadventure/ http://www.spicyfishy.com/odaesucks-a-tale-of-misadventure/#comments Fri, 31 Oct 2008 23:05:00 +0000 http://74.220.207.197/~spicyfis/?p=266 Last weekend, Kate and I decided to go hiking. We talked about it earlier in the week and decided to go back to Hwanson-gul (the massive cave about an hour from our city) to hike the mountain trail that we saw leading from the paved path up to the caves. The leaves are changing now and it’s a great time to do the hike before it gets too cold. Friday night we were out with a friend, Mark, who suggested that we join Ben and him to go to Odaesan instead. We thought, why not – it’s a bigger park with more hiking and more adventures to be had with more people. Little did we know… :)

We all decided to get an earlier than normal start because had an hour and half bus ride and wanted to get some good hiking in so we all met at the bus terminal at 9am. None of us had a clue how to get to odaesan (bad idea #1) so we called 1330, the local tourism phone line which usually has an English speaker, to find out which buses to take. We got the advice, and tried to get tickets but the ticket lady had different ideas on how to get there and after some time got the tickets we needed (we hoped) and hopped on the bus which arrive a half hour later. Usually buses cost about 2-4,000 won- – not much and is dependant on the destination/frequency/and distance. It should have tipped us off that the tickets were 9,000 won each. We sat on the bus to Jin-bu, half unaware and half asleep, wondering where we were being taken. Eventually we saw Gangneun – the other big coastal city about an hour north of Samcheok. We then learned that we had merely bypassed getting off the bus and transferring by getting the more expensive, less frequent trip. So, 10 minutes later with a new set of passengers we took off again, expecting to arrive in Jinbu in about 30-40 minutes. An hour later we finally arrive at a dark and cold bus station. Most are this way, but it ads to the dramatic effect of the story. There, we learn that we need to take another bus to Odaesan and we had just missed the once hourly trip by about 5 minutes. Perturbed the longer than anticipated trip, cost of the tickets, lack of adequate breakfast, and an increasingly frustrating trip we decided to just take a taxi and deal with the extra cost. 10,000 won later we arrived in the park.
Here’s where the story gets even more exciting.
We arrived to a busy temple at the base of the mountains with beautiful statues and perfectly restored buildings.
After trying to avoid getting in the way of peoples pictures, and taking a few of our own, we left and went down the path that we thought would lead us to the trails and other areas of the park. This ended up not being the right path so we headed back up to the temple and out the other side to see if we could find our way to something that resembled a hike.

Passing the Temple, we found only a road, with backed up traffic on it’s way up the mountain. After talking (with motions) to a passerby we were told to start walking up the road to find the hiking.
We walked… and walked.. and walked.. and finally found a sign that said 6.2 km to the next temple (where the trails are). We decided we didn’t have time or patience to hike up the road to get there so we headed back via a small trail we saw on the other side of the stream parallel the road.
Finally something more like hiking. (then it started to sprinkle, of course…)
I snapped a few shots of the beautiful mountains and changing colors.
Mark wanted a new zen photo for his facebook :)
We walked back down the trail and then the road again when the trail ended to the temple where we started. We walked back to the parking lot area and asked the information lady, who spoke English pretty well, where to get the bus. She directed us to the bus stop. Once there, we realized.. to our dismay, that she was directing us to the bus UP the mountain.. to the top temple where all the trails start. What would have saved us an hour and a half of walking, and enabled us to do some hiking. Slightly bitter, but mostly amused at our ineptitude we had her call a taxi for us to get back to Jinbu… we didn’t have any more patience to wait the hour before the next bus back. We finally got home and had a nice night of movies and food at Eve and David’s apartment. A nice end to a frustrating day.

We ended up spending over 55,000 won for 5 hours on a bus and few hours of walking on a road. Oh well.. You win some, you lose some, and considering this was the first legitimately unsuccessful trip we’ve had while being here – we can’t complain too much. :) And we laughed a lot at ourselves – so all is well….

Well, Kate has fallen asleep reading her book, and I’m up way past my bedtime, so I must go… Enjoy this last weekend of unrelenting political ads –it’ll be a year and half before you see them again — I’m sure you’ll miss them.

-Chad


]]>
http://www.spicyfishy.com/odaesucks-a-tale-of-misadventure/feed/ 3
Chuseok in Taebaek http://www.spicyfishy.com/chuseok-in-taebaek/ http://www.spicyfishy.com/chuseok-in-taebaek/#comments Mon, 22 Sep 2008 15:35:00 +0000 http://74.220.207.197/~spicyfis/?p=251 Two weekends ago Kate and I had a long weekend (5 days) for the Korean holiday of Chuseok. We decided to do some traveling over the break so we went to Taebaek City to go hiking with two of our friends Melanie and Michael. Taebaek is about an Hour from Samcheok by bus and it’s up in the mountains so there is a lot of great hiking.
Michael and Melanie – from Colorado – so they also like hiking… Michael has done about half of the 14ers! – (I’ve done… 5…. :) We got to Taebaek on Saturday night and found a place to eat that could accomidate the herbivores :) then went bowling! (Wandering around a new unknown city that is all in Korean is kind of hard, but we entertained ourselves pretty well). We stayed in a “Love Motel” which is.. well exactly what it sounds like, but they are the “normal” hotels in Korea – with the cost being about half that of a “Marriot” or some other chain hotel, everyone uses them when they travel. It was pretty nice actually – only odd thing was the foggy glassed bathroom and red light over the bed… but eh.. for only $45 a night we couldn’t complain.
We went hiking the next day in the Taebaeksan (Taebaek Mountains)

The terrain was surprisingly difficult! Which was good, and because of the humidity and heat we were all sweaty and tired by the top. (A good hike :) On our way up we stopped at a Temple a few hundred meters from the trail –

It was very cool – but it had be renovated for the mountain winters with nice windows and other amenities. The monks were chanting in the distance celebrating their ancestors – after all this was Chuseok – the Korean Thanksgiving day. We kept hiking and got to the top in about 3 hours.
This is a monument/temple at the top where people go to pray. It was quite busy because of Chuseok – and because this is one of the holiest mountains in Korea.
On our way down we found this amazing tree.. so we went in :)
Hey look – a Cliff! I will go peer over it :) Sorry mom… IT wasn’t that bad.. I promise.
We found the Sword in the stone!!
It was a great hike and a great trip. We even bought CHEESE at the E-Mart in Taebaek. (Very exciting!) We came back on Monday and still had Tuesday and Wednesday off to clean and relax before school started again. Hooray vacations in your 3rd week of work :)
]]>
http://www.spicyfishy.com/chuseok-in-taebaek/feed/ 2
Mountains, Gramaphones, and Carnivals, OH MY! http://www.spicyfishy.com/mountains-gramaphones-and-carnivals-oh-my/ http://www.spicyfishy.com/mountains-gramaphones-and-carnivals-oh-my/#comments Sun, 07 Sep 2008 20:48:00 +0000 http://74.220.207.197/~spicyfis/?p=243
Our last full day of orientation in Yang Yang was a full one filled with Korean culture. . . mostly. The day began with a bus trip to Mount Sorak, one of the most beautiful mountains in the northern part of South Korea.


We were hoping for a little more of a hike than we got. Koreans love to hike but all of their trails are paved and there are restaurants every few steps. Not true for all mountains but I know its not that far off. Despite the paved path, it was absolutely beautiful and we hope to get back to get onto the not paved trails soon.


This is a huge Buddha statue before the trail heads. Chad caught a few extra couples in this snap shot. We didn’t get their names to email it to them. ;)

A nice view from our little hike. There are supposedly some not so plush cabins we could rent if we wanted to get really crazy and do a two day hike. We’ll see if we can squeeze that in before it gets to chilly.

Okay, Mt, Sorak was stop one of this adventure filled day. We travelled back to our Resortel (which like to pronounce “resortle“), had lunch, and boarded the buses for our next stop, our Korean cultural experience. . . . the GRAMOPHONE MUSEUM! How Korean can you get?!


The museum was interesting. First we went into a screening room chalk full of speakers which Chad go talk about for days. We watched some music videos on a large screen tv and listened to the speakers.

The museum was started from a Korean man’s collection of gramophones. He received his first when he was 6 and I think he got up to multiple thousands in his collection.

Chad is pictured above with the first iPod!


Blending in with the scene.


Checking the acoustics.

After the museum we headed back to the Resortel for dinner. After dinner we saw a traditional Korean mask performance which was interesting. We wern’t ready to go to bed so Chad and I headed to downtown Yang Yang (tiny). We bumped into a couple of friends and stumbled upon and almost deserted carnival.


This lovely young woman pictured with me bargained with her friend so that I could play the dart game for a discounted price. I hit some balloons which means I got a pink rubber ducky like toy!


Our friend Alex (far left) played another game and won. His prize was a furry pink pillow with “I love you” written on it. Also with us in the picture between Alex and Chad is our friend Hai. :)

Thanks for checking in!

K

]]>
http://www.spicyfishy.com/mountains-gramaphones-and-carnivals-oh-my/feed/ 0