A few weekends ago Justin and I signed up to take a hiking trip with Lovable Busan. Lovable Busan is organized by a Korean man who loves to hike and drink soju. We signed up on Facebook and there were a few others signed up as well. It turns out the others cancelled so it was just Justin, Charles and I.
We left in the evening on Friday night. We took a bus for about 2 hours to Goryoung. From there we took a taxi for about 30 mins to the base of the mountain. We ended up sleeping in the restaurant we ate dinner at. You just never know in Korea. During dinner Charles mentioned that we would be rising at 4:30am to start hiking so we could be at the first peak to watch the sunrise. We were like "WHAT", that was not on the schedule. We actually did not end up sleeping at all because Charles drank TOO much soju and was snoring so LOUD. Justin and I just laid there all night laughing!
Charles up at 4:30am preparing eggs, hot dogs and spam for breakfast! We could not believe he was not hung over!
Hiking in the dark! We only had one head lamp between the three of us. This hike was no joke, we started going straight up and did not stop until the top. I am used to winding trails. Koreans don't mess around, they just head straight up!
Charles started drinking wine about 7:00am, who am I kidding so did we! We were so tired at that point we thought "what the heck" plus it is rude to deny a drink from someone older than you! :) He broke out the soju when we reached the top and consumed an entire bottle himself! He must of mentioned over a dozen times that he likes to drink soju, I was thinking yeah that is pretty obvious!
The trail we hiked just opened a few months prior. It had been closed for 38 years for renovations. Apparently, the trail was too dangerous before so they built a ton of stair cases as well as bridges to make it much safer. What a good work out!! The other thing we were not aware of is that we had to bring everything hiking that we brought because we were hiking to the other side of the mountain. Had he told us that prior I would have just worn my hiking clothes and brought nothing else. So we got a double work out in carry our overstuffed bags! Like I said, the details don't seem too important to Koreans!
At the highest peak!
I bet you have never had McDonald's at the top of a mountain! Well either had we but when we reached the top Charles surprised us with McDonald's Spicy Chicken wraps. Well I guess we were not technically surprised as right before we got on the bus Friday night he ran into McDonald's but we did not know what for. Ummm, Justin and I hid ours in our bags because at this point these wraps were pushing 18 hours sitting in his bag. No thanks, but it was a generous offer!
I gotta say though, Charles was an excellent guide! He had everything you could possibly think of in his bag. He brought a thermos of hot water to the top so we could have ramen. He had tons of snacks and even sleeping bags and blankets so we could take a rest!
Taking a well needed nap!
Charles must have snapped at least 50 pictures of Justin and I. We would be hiking along and then realize Charles was missing. He would climb us some crazy rocks just to get a picture of us. He was a really great guy to hike with! We got a kick out of him. We were calling him "Wild card" because you just never knew what was coming next!
We ended our hike enjoying the fall foliage and a beautiful temple!
We ended up hiking from 5:00am to 5:00pm covering about 15 km, approximately 10 miles! It will be a trip we will always remember and we had a great time with Charles even though he is a little wild!
Very good.
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