Tintin Talks: September 2011

On Chuseok occasion we got long holidays from September 10^th to 14^th totally 5 days. A month before we got this information. Dheeraj suggested me to go out of Korea during these holidays. My plan was to go to China and see Beijing and Great wall. I enquired few travel agents, but all of them gave the quotation of their tour programme in China excluding air ticket from Seoul to Beijing. They told me to arrange for tickets by self. Checking at the tickets, most of them were sold out and few remaining ones were high priced (more than double). So dropped the plan of going to China during this holiday. Dheeraj insisted to go to Vietnam. Again same thing happened. No tickets in short time. We should have planned well in advance for overseas travel! So finally we decided to visit Sokcho and Seroksan mountains on the eastern coast of South Korea. I had never been to Sokcho but visited Seroksan Mountains two years back through adventure korea tour group. It is such a lovely mountain range which is designated as National park. Once decided to go, without any delay I browsed through some websites and selected a hotel for our stay. Abijit who holds a credit card booked the room in the hotel. I checked with Karthik whether he is interested to join our group, but since he had other plans with his friends he said no. Three people confirmed for the trip. Abijit booked the bus tickets from Seoul to Sokcho on 10^th morning. We were all set ready to travel :-)

On the 10^th morning got up early, took shower had a cup of coffee and left home around 6 am and head towards subway station near my place. As planned Dheeraj and Abijit also joined me a few minutes later. We took a subway and head towards Express bus terminal. Around 7.20am we reached Express bus terminal got our reserved tickets and ate some snacks. Sharp at 8.00 am bus arrived at the station and we were bound to Sokcho. The bus was almost full and there were many expat travellers like us going to Sokcho and Serok. The bus gave a stop in the middle for refreshments where we had a cup of coffee and few snaps. Already thick clouds were covering the sky. As we proceed towards Sokcho it started raining L it was really a disappointing thing for us as it would derail our plan. We hoped that the rain will stop after a while and we can see around as per our plan. But it was not so L Around 11.00 am we reached Sokcho express bus terminal, we got down from the bus took a taxi and reached our hotel. We booked in Ritzcal hotel on the outskirts of sokcho. The location of the hotel was nearer to Serok Mountains and from the hotel balcony the view of Serok Mountains was beautiful. We checked in hotel dumped our luggage, got refreshed, took some rest. The next destination was Waterpia a water game resort on the foothills of Serok Mountains. It was around 15 minutes’ drive from the hotel where we stayed. We took a taxi and reached that place. Checked with the entrance fee, per head it was 46,000 KWR too expensive. But having come so far, we decided to pay a huge entry fee and enjoy the water games. We assumed that there will be plenty of exotic water games, but our assumption was totally wrong. There were hardly any good water games. Worst thing was having paid a huge entrance fee; again we paid extra for cap and life jackets (too pathetic). Amongst the selected water sports, the open pavilion tides, the big funnel and sauna were quite ok kind. Almost all others were for family and children! After spending 3~4 hours at waterpia we decided to go back to hotel and then to Sokcho Beach. We took showers (like in many Korean common bathrooms, we happened to see many naked men walking aroundJ), changed the cloths and reached our hotel at around 4.00pm by taxi. It started raining badly, so our next programme of visiting Sokcho beach was delayed. We took a small nap in the hotel and waited rain to stop. Around 6.00pm rain stopped so without a delay we decided to go out to beach. Took a taxi and headed towards Sokcho beach. Sokcho beach is one of the fine white sand beaches on the East coast of Korea facing Japan. The waves and wind were pretty good. It was already dawn by the time we entered the beach. There were few people playing in the beach (mostly Indian crowd who were there like us). I captured many photos. I liked the small island a little away from the sokcho, the light houses on the shore and long paved path all along the beach length. As it entered night, some people started burning fire crackers. That gave a nice feeling. After the beach, we walked down to another light house along the road parallel to beach. That is a small road with one side full of traditional fishermen houses and other side beach. The road was deserted with only 3 of us walking. Walking on that street gave some good feeling (I just enjoyed the Korean houses with a small farm land almost in every houses). After visiting the light house we went to one super market, brought wine, beer, snacks took a taxi and reached hotel. We drank wine and beer with lots of talking till 10.00pm, after then went out of hotel for dinner. Unfortunately since it was late all the restaurants were closed. The only shop opened was GS25, where we brought apples and had it like our dinner. Reached back hotel and planned for the next day’s activity (hiking Seroksan Mountains at 8.00am) and slept. The next morning I got up at 6.30am, to my disappointment it was already raining. I hoped that rain will stop by the time we all get ready and start for Seroksan. But again my assumption was wrong. Mother Nature was against our will that day. We all got ready around 8.00 and waited rain to stop. It was not until 11.00 rains were continuously pouring without even a break for 5 minutes. When it gave a break we immediately checked out our room, took a taxi and head towards Mountains. Seroksan Mountains was at a 15minuts distance by taxi from our hotel. By time we reach Seroksan National park, it started raining again. But having come so far, we decided to hike in the rains. We purchased use and throw rain coats to hike in the rains, purchased the entrance tickets, kept our bags in the cloak room and started hiking. The first stop was at a very big seated Buddha statue on the foot hills. We clicked some photos, prayed Buddha for safe hiking (since we were hiking in the rains) and started our forward journey. We decided to climb Ulsanbawi rock instead of taking cable car and go to other side of the mountains. The next stop over is at one Buddhist temple on the way to Ulsanbawi rock. The temple is a usual Korean style Buddha built some centuries before. We continued our climbing. The climbing was moderately difficult. All along the length a stream was flowing with lots of small tiny waterfalls. We met many people on the way who were all climbing in the rains. We passed through a number of Korean styles small restaurants on the way. We stopped at one such restaurant and had cup of coffee. The shopkeeper requested us to visit her restaurant on the way back and have the lunch J after a height of 500m the elevation becomes very steep with lots of rocky structures. Many places, there were not having any steps; we had to climb on the rocks. It was slipper because rain. We decided to carefully proceed. We reached base point of Ulsanbawi rock after 1.30 hrs of start. The mist covered the rock and hardly anything was visible. The Ulsanbawi rock can be climbed with the help of metal stairs, which are put almost at an angle of 750. While climbing if we see the bottom, we would feel like we are standing on the platform with no base or nothing at the bottom other than a steep valley. If we actually miss a conscious and put a wrong step, we would definitely go to never return place L we carefully climbed the stairs holding rails on both the hands. It took more than 45 minutes to reach the summit. Since it was still raining and covered with complete mist, nothing was visible from the summit. On a clear day, view from the top is wonderful (I had seen it in my earlier visit). We can see Sokcho city, Beach, valleys, other mountain ranges etc…. we were unfortunate this time as we could not see anything. After taking a rest for 10 minutes, we again carefully climbed down. Visited the same restaurant, showed my vegetarian diet slip to the shopkeeper. She assured me that she will serve the food without any meat, fish or egg and she kept her words. The food was simply superb (that again proved if asked properly we get delicious Korean veg food). Thanked that lady and climbed down. Collected our bags from the cloak room, board the bus and reached Sokcho Express bus terminal. As per our earlier plan, we had continued our journey to next city (Samcheok) and stay overnight at that place. But since it was continuously raining, we dropped that plan, purchased the tickets to Seoul and reached back our place. Overall a nice experience (special highlight was climbing in the rains)....