Vacation Day 3

Rain, rain, rain. It was raining when we woke up. Tracy and I went and sat under a shelter by the camp store to wait it out. Eventually we decided to have some "breakfast" (Ramen and Pringles). Soon we were bored, so we chose to pack up when the rain lightened up just a little. We gathered our stuff as best as we could and went back under the shelter for a minute. While there, we were discussing getting to the bus stop, and some men nearby must've heard us. Next thing we knew, one of their sons was driving us with our wet stuff to the bus stop. It was super nice! In general we've found that Koreans are very very nice to us. Other Koreans tell us that it's just to white foreigners they're so nice. Either way, it worked out well for our trip. Other times when we looked lost someone who spoke English would come up to us and help us out. We took the bus back to Sokcho, grabbed some lunch, and then took another bus to the area around Soraksan. Once we got off, we found a hotel quite effortlessly, and then walked up to the national park. Soraksan (literally, Sorak mountain) seems to be Korea's version of Yellowstone. No geysers or anything, but it is the most famous national park in the country. Being vacation season, there were many, many people there. But, I'll bet there are always more people than we're used to at a similar attraction in the US. It was great to see the mountains. I just kept taking pictures, even as we just approached the park. It was beautiful to see "nature" again. It was already afternoon by the time we made it to the park, so we chose a shorter hike to take. It went to two separate waterfalls. This was an especially crowded trail because it is one of the easier ones. Because of the high traffic, there were metal stairs and handrails for much of the trail. It was still a tiring climb. It was amazing to see some of the shoes people ventured up the trail in--some girls were wearing "jellies" (remember those? They're big here), and some even had high-heels on! Crazy. When we got back to the main park area, we bought waffles (yummy!), and headed back to the hotel. I should've gone to bed early, but ended up watching a movie that came on tv. Still, it was nice to have an actual bed and bathroom :).