Mountainering, Korean style

The plan had been to wake up super early from the nice resort and head back to the mountains to do a little hiking. Instead of getting out of the door at 7am in the morning, it was more like 11am before the dishes were done, we were packed and ready to rock. It is difficult if you are waking up with a great sun rise and the soft sound of water landing on the beach.

We stopped for a little snack shopping again before heading up the mountain again. Yesterday the mountain had been pack beyond belief, now there were almost nobody there. Great.

Even though most people in Korea are Christians, there are still Buddhism temples to be found in the not so well off parts of the country, mountains for example.
Here they can afford to have temples as they are not the big franchise religions like the Catholics and Protestants, which work more like business than actual worship buildings.
 The first part of the trail we decided to do was almost flat, following along a riverbank. The weather here is quite predictable in terms of season changes. They know the trees are going to change color with in 10 days, that's why all people come up here to see the season change happen.

I might be exaggerating a little bit when I say that the tree leaves change color right in front of your eyes, but almost.
As this is Korea and they have to eat all the time, there are restaurants located along the trail into the mountains. I guess we wasted time doing shopping for the trip this morning, haha
Finally it started getting a little steeper, I thought this was the when it started to go up. Around a corner 10 minutes later we encounter a Buddhist temple in the mountains.
I am not sure, but most people seemed to enter the temple, bowing their head in respect to Buddha. If the people there would be an average extract of the population, it would mean that Christian people also respect the old Buddhist traditions, which I think is great.
Klaus had been to this place many years ago, the difference was that the entire place was covered clouds, so when he came to the place where the metal staircase started, it literally looked like the stairway to heaven.
When they had been up and above the cloud cover you could just see the staircase disappear down into the clouds. The stairs were pretty steep at some points, the entire thing adjusting to the weight of Great Danes, making funny sounds here and there.
That would have been a nice view, but (un)fortunately today there were almost no clouds, so we got a good view instead.
The somewhat disappointing thing was that when we reached to very top of the Ulsanbawi rocks, there was a guy selling refreshments, taking pictures and selling souvenirs, what the hell is all that about? But at least he was able to take a few pictures of all of us, so he did do something useful there.
On the way back down, we agreed that we deserved to make a pit stop in one of the mountain restaurants to get some Jo Ju, some kind of alcohol thing.
By now I stopped asking what it is we are drinking, I have a slight idea already about the taste and I am pretty sure it contains alcohol. We had a seafood pankcake and some other vegetable thing so that Klaus wouldn't starve. By now it seemed like the hangover had gone away and Klaus was more or less liking the bowl of Jo Ju dry.
On the way down after a good afternoon snack, we saw women making kimchi. The lettuce had been fermented for a while in salt water and was now being cut to pieces, while some of the other women were preparing the kimchi sauce with spices and other goodies. We got a free taster, they were all laughing.
It was time to return to Seoul, and we typed in the home address... Well, it took the only Korean in the car 15 minutes or so to get it to work, but eventually we were on our way.
After driving for 3 hours, I felt like taking a little break and we found a rest stop. Notice the icon on the GPS, the food stop, in the western world I think it is a knife and a fork, but here it is a spoon and a fork... I know, I notice too many stupid things.
The rest stop is not just a gas station with a toilet, but a full featured mall selling, of course, discounted golf equipment. Maybe it was time to go and check for a new club for Doctor Kim, after all, not many days left here. Hyunju contacted Yumi who told that Doctor Kim had just gotten word from the golf shop that his club was covered within the 2-year warranty. I felt a big relief.

I was looking for some food in the mall, and stumbled upon a Steff Houlberg shop, selling authentic hotdogs. Eh, I know I was in Korea and should not be eating that kind of foods, but somehow I ended up with a hotdog in my hand moments later. I shouldn't have done that, my memories about hotdog on the streets of Copenhagen late at night with a warm Cocio to wash it down, had been shattered.
We left the freeway shopping mall, and continued to Seoul where we were going to drop off Klaus in a love hotel. Funny enough Hyunju and I had never been in a love hotel, but Klaus was a regular in those...? I am not asking why and so on, haha.
He went to get some money in the local drug store, where I took a closer look at the cooler. Danish Drinking Yoghurt? That's far away from Denmark it seems. Turns out it is just produced the same way as in Denmark, which is a very well respected way of doing diary products. I didn't know that!