An Unexpected Ascent

by Harlee Overton (China)

The last thing I expected Korea South

While in Seoul we planned to hike a nearby mountain which offered views of the whole city. Baegundae Peak sits at 837m high in Bukhansan National Park. Online it says to allow 3 hours to the top. So we planned to get up early, take a snack, some water and be back for lunch. Boy was I wrong. Partly due to the fact that we started a lot later than anticipated, we didn’t get back until 5pm! The walk was very difficult, but just for us it seemed with plenty of old Korean men and women overtaking us along the way. It was almost vertical for half of the walk. We had no idea what we signed up for. We had no water at the top, which did take 3 very difficult hours to get to. We had our snack at the peak at around 1, and we realised we had to get down quickly because we had no more food or water. On the way down we were rationing what little bit of water we had and a Korean couple asked us if we wanted some water. We happily obliged. Then a couple of local men offered us some beer! Any other time I would have said yes! We eventually caught up with the same couple who gave us water and they were so nice! The wife spoke English and told us how they were on holiday from Suwon, not far from Seoul. She runs an English Teaching School; she even had a girl from our hometown in New Zealand teach for her… small world! They asked us if we wanted to go back down with them which we reluctantly agreed to, we just wanted to get down and go home! We ended up taking a different, seemingly longer way down. Instant regret soon came over me. Should have just said no and got on with it! But it soon turns out worthwhile as they made the pain bearable in a way. They had more snacks which they offered us and we stopped to get more water from a spring, which we otherwise wouldn’t have drunk not knowing if it was drinkable or not. I was so thankful for having met them; Korean people are so nice and so chill. I always feel stink taking things from people, especially strangers, but these guys couldn’t have cared less. And then to top it off, they bought us some dinner at the restaurant at the bottom because they wanted us to try some authentic Korean cuisine. This means milk wine (look it up, very different!) and then just to put the icing on the cake they drove us to the nearest metro station so we could get home. A disaster of a day in terms of planning, an amazing yet challenging walk to the peak of a mountain and meeting some of the most down to earth people I’ve ever met. Only in Korea!