epic first weekend!

June 12-13
Camping San Sung/ Ga San
Roughly $30, about 8 miles
Friday afternoon, our plans for the weekend included hiking a moderate 3 or so kilometers and camping out in a mountain fortress… sounds amazing (and fairly straight forward) right? Wrong!
First of all, we end up leaving 3 or so hours later than we anticipated due to some late meetings and last minute poster making. Then fully loaded, carrying food, water, clothes, sleeping bag (50 degree + tested- REMEMBER THIS for later in the story), we walk our way to the taxi stop on base. We get to the depot around 6:30 with just about an hour and a half left of daylight, and of course luck out with a driver who doesn’t speak any English. Even better, the driver of the taxi behind us, who did seem to know where we were trying to go, pulls over to help our driver out, but doesn’t come to the same realization that it might just be better for us to go with him instead… I was actually really excited with this decision- ADVENTURE ON!!!
So, we leave base, now 10 minutes after getting into the cab, and drive all of two blocks to the taxi satellite headquarters, where our driver gets out to further discuss what in the world the Americans in his car are trying to do. If nothing else, Koreans are extremely responsible, and yes, are willing to get directions. At this point, an elderly, clearly unpredictable, slightly stooped Korean Woman walks up behind our cab and proceeds to open our doors and be off and on her way. This of course freaks our Mollie, Andrea, Trevor and I who are already on edge from our picture perfect start. And the trip only gets better from here.
I think I’ll have to divide this story up into four parts; part one, the timeless taxi; part two, getting to our campsite; part three, night chills; part four, the epic hike. The story thus far is only about half of part one!
So anyway, our taxi next takes us to Camp Henry which is all of 10 minutes away, to which we comment, “maybe this was the ‘camp’ he thought we were looking for”. He ends up getting directions, based on a map that we printed out, that’s in Korean, and starts driving off- finally on our way… we think. It turns out that yes, we are going the right way, off into the country and supposedly to our campsite. We get the chance to “tourist” it up on our way out of town, looking at all the sites and schools and restaurants (FOOD is constantly on my mind)!
Once we get into the country, we spend another stress filled couple of minutes navigating precisely where we need to go. Then, down the main road, a quick U-turn, and a sprint uphill past a scythe-carrying old man, and we get to a crazy hill/ that in reality is more of an epic MOUNTAIN. We all get a good laugh out of this as our ride takes us further and further up this steep windy road we would otherwise need to walk. At this point we think we’re in good shape, having driven instead of walked this behemoth of a mountain (which would have been perfect to freebord) (actually, there are so many great hills to skate in Korea, it’s astounding). In high spirits, we arrive at a fork in the road, one pointing toward a temple/fortress, the other depicting a tent (our campsite). We of course are indecisive at the wrong time and end up going to see the temple with even more limited day light than ever. Thinking we’ll have plenty of time, our taxi takes us higher and higher up the wrong way to the temple, where we are dropped off by a thoroughly distraught driver, at a closed scenic hotspot, with only a food-carting lady up the hill for company. Well, as we wander around the Chinese-influenced temple we have been dropped off at, we get the impression we are not in a historic temple, but instead someone’s private residence… nice huh.
And this is essentially where we start part 2… our trek to the camp site. To make things a little easier on everyone reading, part 2 is full of walking back and forth, up and down… lots and lots of walking with really no idea where we’re heading. With just the sign at the bottom of the fork to guide us, we head back down the winding up road from the temple, to the bottom of the fork and up the other direction. Mollie points out that the road we are now hiking is one of the premier tracks (Tokyo drift style) in Daegu, which we are made well aware of by the sweet road, lack of sidewalks and perpetual flows of cars, including some tricked out racers! Don’t worry mom, we were very vigilant! Walking uphill, we pass restaurant after restaurant, including one made out of an entire Korea Air airplane propped up on the side of the hill, and a little shop where two nice elderly men invited us for food and drinks. Anyway, the main take away from this is, there was food literally all around us, and no one but me was hungry!!! I was so bummed of course, but hiked on because we were fast running out of sun, and still didn’t know how far we were from the campgrounds. Along the way we pass a drive through theater overlooking the amazingly lush countryside- a perfect little date spot if I do say so myself. The next big thing that happens is our first of two very successful hitchhiking, that’s right everyone, hitchhiking in K-town!!! As we thumbed our way up hill, a big van slows down and pulls over a little ahead of us. Smiling, and giddy in disbelief, I approach the van, and a mime out an understanding with the very nice elderly Korean couple offering us a ride up hill… which turned out to be outstanding because we found out just how much more we needed to go in the quickly blackening country of Korea. The couple, very nice, also smiling, was so awesome. The wife sitting in front was all smiles as she bobbed and clapped along with the music from the radio, and we were so bolstered by their goodwill that we accidentally missed out campsite… well the couple, drove us to the top of the hill and even gladly posed in a picture with us! we managed to get them to accept a z-bar energy bar(thanks mer!) and an American dollar for their troubles. At the top of the hill was a great big convenience store full of Korean goodies and some deep fried bugs of which we only partook in the prior.


As we sat on the steps outside the market at the top of the hill contemplating our next move (because we didn’t know for sure that we had missed our campsite), we kept noticing these rather fit middle-aged Koreans coming out from behind the restroom attached to the side of the market. Andrea dubbed them, “the black gang” because of their attire. I secretly thought they were dog fighting or something back out of the line of site- because clearly, what else would these “black gang” members be doing at the top of a hill at night? Pushing them to the back of our minds we decide the best plan of action is to back track our steps down the winding, narrow, pitch black, racer filled road back toward the assumed direction of our campsite with only two flashlights and a can-do attitude ☺. To save us all a little bit of time… we did just this, signaling in front and behind to alert the cars of our walking, and finally got to our campsite (FINALLY) and walked ourselves in to find the night guards who ushered us in and gave us coffee and eventually took us to our site. Then after setting up our tent in the dark and getting comfortable, (me, eating 2 sandwiches for dinner), we played some cards and settled in for the night.
Part three, the night chills was precisely as it sounds. Remember those sleeping bags I told you to take note of… well Korea is hot during the day, and Daegu, which is where we live, is notoriously the hottest place in the country. So, as we cuddled into our 50+ degree temp thin fleece sleeping bags, we fall asleep, for the moment… only to realize we are in, what has got to be the coldest night in Korea of all time, in a tent shorts, and thin sleeping bags. The result of such foresight is a total of about 3 hours each, waking up multiple times during the night for crying babies, and to get more layers on (I only brought a shell thinking anything else would be totally crazy and unneeded), and simply because it was just too cold to sleep. Needless to say, it was a looooong night…
Hopefully the thoughts I collected the next morning can paint a better picture: crazy loud birds, freezing temperatures, crying babies, rock hard ground, crazy dreams including juice and cooking candy, and the urgent need to open up a rubber stamp shop, and finally a limited overall percent of sleep! We figured we all fell asleep around 11 and woke up early (probably 530-6ish), decided we needed a nap, and kick started our second day of hiking at an early 7:30- believing we’d be better off getting an early start.
Whew, still with me? Part four… the epic hike! We take off uphill, backtracking our backtracked down hike from the previous night (if anyone is counting, this is the third time we will be traveling this strip of road) reaching the top of the hill market unsure where our hike is. Mollie’s quote pretty adequately sums up part four… “great, we’re lost in the middle of Korea!!!” Which turned out to be more true than any of us would realize. We positively set off down the other side of the mountain after consulting two maps (that don’t line up, and are both exclusively in Korean), and find out after seeing no trails, or an apparent end of our hike, that we have in fact, walked half an hour in the wrong direction… again! Luckily, we were all still in relatively high spirits, or else Trevor’s twisted ankle, full tumble down the road would’ve been more depressing than hysterical! We end up making the smart decision to once again back track back to the market at the top of the hill to reestablish our path, which is a decision I am just soooo thrilled about… anyway, approaching the top of the hill once again, who do we run into but the aptly dubbed “black gang” and find out after stopping to ask them directions, that they are actually a college class who just spent the day hiking out along the trail we are looking for the day before, guess from where… that’s right, from behind the sketchy bathroom. “sigh”, simply amazing huh. Korean people are so helpful and kind; they walked us directly to the beginning of our hike and saw us off as we finally started on the hike that, in retrospect, was greatly underestimated.
This hike is better seen than described! Just check out the pics!
Moderate??? Not a chance! We were climbing rocks, and going up and down paths, using ropes, full on survivor-man style!!! Huffing and puffing, we stop for lunch and are immediately humbled by the elderly Koreans once again, as they jauntily climb back in the opposite direction we just came from smiling and apparently about to casually take on what we had just fought through- Koreans are rugged! We were seriously in the forest for 3 or so hours, hiking a grand total of 6 or so kilometers, which doesn’t sound like a lot, but believe me… it was! thank goodness we had been preparing ourselves so extensively for this mountain trek… NOT. Just look at the pics to sum up this portion. Emerging from the forest and walking the path down to our final destination, we finally arrive, guess where, at the exact same place we had started the day before. Shocked? So was I hahahaha. The actual fortress from the advertised pictures was just a hop skip and a jump down the road from where we started. Whew…
After getting our victorious fill of the fortress, we once again found ourselves without a plan and no directions. We managed to locate some taxis- which or course had no drivers, and then did our best to look pitiful as we tried to ask some help from the many locals who had come in their normal day clothing, as we stood there looking grungy and forlorn. Emboldened from our prior success with hitchhiking, I enthusiastically suggest giving it another go. Trevor was understandably on a different thinking process, thinking it may end up being an unsafe decision. But, it being the middle of the day, with no other viable options, he quickly gave in to some elderly ladies who called us over. From what we could make out, they were offering to take us to the taxi stop. SCORE! We follow them down a ways, and are greeted by their tour bus, at which point I realize I absolutely LOVE elderly Korean ladies!!! We pile on and are just the centers of attention. They give us goodies, and we do our best on both sides to mimic out our introductions and situations! It was easily one of the greatest parts of the weekend for me! We are dropped off well into town at a bus stop with fond farewells and more smiling!
Not exactly what we were expecting, but much better off than we could’ve hoped for, we end up sitting at the bus stop waiting for a taxi to pass by. Then once again, Korean kindness shows up in the form of an elderly man waiting on a bus. He pulls out some apricots from his bag and gives us, complete strangers, his own fruits. I traded him a kashi bar (thanks again mer), and he went to town on that thing despite his bojangily teeth ☺. We end up walking a little further into town after having no success with the whole waiting thing, and discover our first Korean market that would’ve been Popo’s dream market I’m sure! There was also an abundance of ramen, mounds and mounds of it! I settled for a small can drink (which I discovered to be kind of a sprite), which I have been sampling everywhere I go, and I happily sipped on it all the way to the taxi, which successfully managed to take us right back to base. Not bad for our first weekend in Korea huh? Long enough read for you all? The weekend was totally unexpected and so amazing!
More to come, today I started my first day of actual camp- kids and all! I’ll keep you all posted, I’m actually writing this the night before and should probably get some sleep.