Vacation Day 4

On Tuesday we planned to visit two separate parts of the park. First (after a waffle breakfast), we went up the cable car. That is definitely the cheater way up :). From the top of the cable car route, you can climb another 10 minutes to a peak. Some of that climb was a little precarious, but they've actually created some stone steps with cement to help you get up. From the peak you could see so much! It was really windy up there, too. You can see that in my pictures. It's hard to believe you're as high up as you are when you're there. It just sort of feels like you're in front of a backdrop or something. Once we descended we stopped by a huge Buddha statue, and started on our next hike. All we knew about it was that the famous "tottering rock" was somewhere on the trail, and it went to another "rock" called Ulsan-Bawi, and there were several Buddhist temples along the way. Tracy and I took the trail slowly because we were already tired from our adventures of the last two days. We stopped at one of the convenient rest stops for a lunch of Bibimbop. Korea is really all about convenience. These rest stops are scattered along all the trails and offer anything you could possibly want to drink, traditional Korean food, ice cream, numerous touristy souvenirs, and clean bathrooms (that even have toilet paper). The beaches and the campgrounds have similar conveniences. Anyway, before we knew it, we had made it to the cave temple where the "tottering rock" was. Almost every Korean that goes to Soraksan gets their picture taken in front of this rock. It's a huge bolder that can be moved (very slightly, mind you) by just one person. So, we each took our turn pushing the rock. We were quite tired by this point, but it seemed a shame to get halfway down the trail and turn back. Thus, we continued on. As the trail continued, it got steeper and steeper. Eventually it became apparent that the end was at the top of a huge rock formation we could see through the trees. It was very tempting to turn back, but we were already almost there (or so we thought). The climb turned out to involve over 800 metal steps, plus many more stone steps. It was SOOOOOOOOOOO difficult. We likened our climb to Frodo and Sam carrying the One Ring to the top of Mt. Doom. When we FINALLY reached the top, I was SO dead. I had to just sit for awhile before even getting out my camera to take pictures of the view. I really didn't know how I'd be able to make it back down. While we were at the top, we had to make a memory. So, we sang "The Sound Of Music" at the top of our lungs! It was great. Something about being exhausted at the top of a mountain in a foreign country really lowers your inhibitions :). Or maybe it's all the practice singing in front of people at the norebang... Somehow, slowly but surely, we made it back to the bottom. My legs were shaking much of the way back. We promised ourselves ice cream when we reached the rest stop, and then planned to have dinner at a pizza house we saw in the park. Unfortunately, when we reached the pizza place, they were all out of pizza! Imagine that! So, we caught a bus back to the hotel, and ventured out to find something else to eat. We ended up at a barbecue place that didn't have any pictures on the menu. We ordered something the waitress called chicken, and sat at an outdoor table waiting for our food. The restaurant was located in a sort of square with different kinds of shops all around. One of the buildings was an arcade. Unfortunately, there was a game near the outside of the arcade that played the same electronic song over and over and over for the entire hour we sat there. Our dinner turned out to be a pile of barbecued chicken. I don't think I've ever eaten that much chicken at one sitting before. I slept very well that night, as you might imagine. And although I tried to stretch out some, I still woke up sore in about every part of my body.