Personally, I do not like hiking. However, after seeing some glamorous images of stunningly beautiful mountains in South Korea, I didn’t want to regret not going on hiking trips in Korea during my four month stay in Korea. Therefore, my friends and I decided to go to a hiking trip, which was organized by the Myanmar Student Association, to Seoraksan for a two-day trip.
Seoraksan
From Seoul, it takes about three hours to drive to Seoraksan which is in the northeastern part of South Korea. For your information, Seoul is in the northwestern part of Korea. We left from Seoul very early in the morning because we also planned to visit Inje tunnel and Sokcho on our way to Seoraksan. Inje tunnel is an ongoing project, expected to be the longest tunnel in Korea upon construction, connecting Inje-gun to Yangyang-gun. During our short visit, the construction manager explained about the project, and we learned a great deal about the project.
Inje Tunnel
Later at night, we arrived at Sokcho beach although night time is not the best time to visit the beach. Because of this, we had no chance to play in the water of the beach. However, as the weather was still cold on the day we were there, I don’t think we could played in the water even if we arrived earlier. Some people played with fireworks at the beach that night.
Sokcho Beach
In the morning, we began our hiking adventure, and were greeted by a giant bear statue at the bottom of the mountain resort. On our way to the top of the mountain, we got some free lotus-shaped mini-lanterns from some strangers. We left these lanterns while paying homage to Buddha statue as we proceeded our journey to the top of the mountain. We even donated some tiles as a remembrance of our trip where we signed our names on the tiles.
This was just the beginning of our trip, and later, we were mesmerized by mother nature’s beauty all around us. We saw green mountains, swift streams, and hard rocks everywhere. As it was a holiday season when we went there, we saw many visitors. As we climbed higher and higher, we witnessed endless stairs which gave us a sense of hopelessness in reaching the top. Although it was very tiring, we were entertained by many members of our big group of friends who would make jokes on each other on our way up. And, as we climbed higher, we experienced colder winds. Finally, we arrived to the top of the mountain, which was a freezing experiencing due to the cold weather. In all, it took us about two and a half hours to climb all the way up to the mountain. However, climbing down the mountains took just about one and a half hours as it is less exhausting to move downwards.
Although it was a very tiring trip for two days, from then on, I started to enjoy hiking much more as I also made some new friends from the trip while traveling to new places in Korea. The only thing that I solely regret while writing this article is that time flies too fast in Korea.
Korea is a fun place not just to study, but also with many places to go. So, I strongly recommend people to visit Korea. Welcome to Korea!!!
Peak of Seoraksan
By Zaw from Myanmar
myHUBS 
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