Hiking up Buk-han San - North Korea Mountain

Seoul - The moment I have been waiting for...climbing one of Seoul's popular mountain peak, Buk-han san - strangely means 'North Korea Mountain'. I did not have time to buy a mountain boots so had to do a quick shopping. I bought my mountain boots at Bang Bang departmental store - reasonable at W29,000 discounted from W69,000. Korea is going through tough economic times and there are heavily discounted sales everywhere.

Young Jin drove his car to pick up Kevin at a subway station and off we went to his apartment to drop off my luggages. I check out of Grand Hilton Hotel and will check-into Ramada Seoul Hotel in the evening.

Reach the base of the Buk-han San in no time, parked the car and off we make our trek up the mountain. Unlike my previous trek up Malaysian mountain (Mt. Ophir), this Korea mountain is very rocky with steep climb up the slope - at times 45 degrees elevation. I had to stop many times going up the mountain to rest - it was very hard work and tiring. The mountain boots help but not my jeans - should have worn a loose pants so that I can stretch my leg further going up. At times, my leg just wanted to buckle and give way - it was really tiring going up. But we made it, the view from the mountain was spectacular - it is no wonder Koreans love their mountains and climb hours to reach the peak (in Korean called Baek-woon dae) at the height of 836.5m. It is Autumn, the colours of the leaves were in radiant colours of red, amber, yellow, green and brown. It was a beautiful sight to behold!

Young Jin, Kevin and Ron

We are at the Peak of the mountain, and it took us 3.5 hrs to reach this peak and another 1.5hrs to get down. Climbing down the mountain is easier but more dangerous because of the sharp edges of the rocks - just need to be alert always.

We had lunch up on mountain peak on a gentle slope - JY prepared his hand-made sushi-roll along with small tomatoes, grapes and pickle. It was really delicious and the setting was perfect - the mountain view, the wind, the sight of clounds and the temperature of about 15 degrees with a sushi-roll in your mouth! The Peak is crowded with people but I understand that over the weekend- it is too crowded.

This is the Peak, with the Korean flag....

That's me back to the base of the Mountain (that is in the background). What i notice is that there were many elderly climbers, it was really tough for me but to see so many elderly climbers is enlightening. This have made me conscious of being healthy, moderate eating and always exercising.