Suraksan

We work with a girl named Sunny Cho, who is in a hiking group. On the weekends, this group goes all over the country to hike different mountains. They're basically nuts. After work on Friday night (around midnight), they'll get on a bus to drive 5 hours to a mountain. When they get there, they'll hike it, descend,  find a place to eat (& drink lots and lots of rice wine), and then hop back on the bus to drive back home.

Sunny had tried to get us to go hiking with her for several weeks, so when she said that they were going to Surak, we figured that was the time to go. Suraksan is northeast of Seoul. It's actually really close to North Korea. They said that on a clear day, you can see North Korea from the top. But it wasn't clear enough when we went.

      

This was easily the most dangerous hike either of us have ever done. They said to bring gloves for the ropes. We kind of laughed and bought $7 gloves to make them happy. Turns out, we needed them. Turns out, the ropes were metal. And if you don't use the ropes, we think you just fall off the mountain.

You almost get a really good shot of what our butts look like when we hike, but they're being blocked by another guys butt. So that's what his butt looks like when he hikes. Sorry! And the picture below is of the peak that we were headed toward.

You can't see, but just past this picture, the mountain completely drops off.

Why do we look so happy?

Sean's bloody gloves.

He was very proud of these gloves. Everyone in the hiking group had expensive professional hiking gloves, but he bought his at a convenience store for less than a dollar. They are gardening gloves (also used in batting cages here), but Sean decided they would do. Only problem is that the palms are covered in red rubber, for traction. We asked him who's blood was on them, but he wouldn't tell us. He said he doesn't like telling people who he kills, or where he buries them. He said that if we asked too many questions, we'd have to be next. He's seriously the nicest guy we've met over here. He's extremely kind and generous, making the whole "bloody gloves" thing hilarious. We still give him a hard time about it at work, and he still hasn't killed us. Good, clean fun.

Oh, what!?! Did you say we're dangerously close to communist North Korea?... and they have guns?

Well so do we!

When we got to the bottom, they found a nice little restaurant to eat at. It was a typical after-hiking restaurant/watering hole. So we sat on the floor around the table with our new friends and they ordered us a traditional meal. The main dish was a hot stew. They were nice and ordered us a pot with less firey hotness. It was slightly less red than the other pots around the table, so we tried it, and it felt like actual flames of a fire burning our throats as it went down. At least we didn't get the really hot stuff.

These are the crazy hikers we spent the day with. That's Sunny, next to Ricky.

They were insane, over-prepared, and fun

...but they made us drink rice wine!

Bukhansan

In late Spring, we went with some friends to the biggest mountain in the Seoul area. It was only a 30 minute subway ride and a 20 minute taxi drive away.

I guess we could have mentioned before that a name ending in "san" means mountain. So Songnisan, Bukhansan, Suraksan, Jilisan, Hallasan, and Seoraksan are all mountains that you will see about eventually.

On top: Ricky, Tiff, Sean from Korea, and Shawn from Newfoundland

Bottom: Sunny Cho and Russell Young

We stopped at a little pagoda to sit down for a bit and eat oranges and flavorless, crunchy rice chips. It was in the mountain, so we had a nice view.

Right next to the pagoda was a giant sitting Buddha. They do appreciate the Buddha in Korea. This one wasn't asking for money, though. He was praying

(to himself, maybe?!?). 

  

It was a good day, outside of the city.

Shanghai

China was madness! This was on one of our many cab rides in which Tiff thought we were going to die and Ricky and the cab driver laughed at her.

The insanity actually began with fireworks. We flew into Shanghai on the night of the Chinese New Year. As we were nearing ground in the plane, we started to notice that the fireworks had already begun and that they were flying dangerously close to the plane.

Once we reached the ground, we saw the real chaos! People were lighting off fireworks on their balconies, in alleys, and on bridges. The pictures above show a bridge that we were standing next to until, without any warning, someone lit the big boxes of fireworks on the bridge. We turned around and saw the crowd that we had been standing in had all run away. The exploding boxes of death on the bridge were getting closer and closer and shrapnel was raining from the sky and landing on us! We ran.

Clockwise: Some mischievious little Chinese children lighting fireworks in an alley; fireworks landing on everything from hotels to electric lines; us in the midst of it all.

Night views of the towers of Shanghai: The elegant Jin Mao with its slightly shorter neighbor. The slightly shorter neighbor has now taken over the ranking of tallest building in the world; the bulky design and enormity of the Pearl tower demonstrates just what a communist tower should look like. It is also 1,500 something feet high so that helps with the intimidating factor.

Great street views from the top of the Pearl. Ricky showing a little Korean spirit after finally getting to the top. This sense of pride could only have been brought on by severe fatigue, hunger, and communism.

On top is the Bund, a very popular shopping street. Also, the best place in Shanghai to be offered hashish every three minutes. Below that, the Yuyuan Bazaar. We spent quite a bit of time here, buying little souvenirs and pushing our way throught the crowd.

The Bazaar at night all lit up for the Chinese New Year.

Clockwise: One of the buildings containing dim sum restaurants and Mao paraphenalia. Beautiful animal lanterns representing the Chinese calendar. Check out the Chinese policemen. Ricky tried to beat them up, but he got pushed one time and fell down and scraped his knee.

  

A scary church that we found on our two hour search for food. In China, you should apparently eat before nine p.m. or you go hungry.

  

A bike stand on a busy street outside of the bazaar. Even the Chinese don't like bad coffee. Hey Nate, could you pain on this?!

  

All the fixings for a healthy dim sum meal. Ricky learned to love raw ginger here. We also got to know a Taiwonese man and his girlfriend or daughter who lived in China. We were seated at an awkward joint table as they were about to start eating.

Night pictures from the top of the Jin Mao tower. The purplish blue orb in the background is the Pearl Tower. We got free pearls straight out of the shell, just for going to the top. They made them into earrings for Tiff and they are beautiful. A much better deal than spending three hours in line at the Pearl tower and recieving nothing!

  

The enterance of the monsterous Yuyuan gardens.

One of many ornate guards in the garden. Everything in this place is built with rocks or built right into them.

  

Unique doorways-a-plenty.

It's a Chinese garden, you need at least one picture of bamboo, yeah?!

Ricky thought it was a petting zoo. It wasn't. Tiff finally got the guts to pose how Korean girls do while their boyfriends take pictures of them at the mall.

 At this point, we had no idea where we were but it was still very picturesque.

China was weird.

Really weird!