Korea Day 2 - Sokcho (Seoraksan)

Woke up early in the morning at 8am so that we could fully explore Sokcho. After washing up and packing, we went down to eat breakfast. Breakfast was free and it consisted of basics like bread, coffee and tea. 

Breakfast

The atmosphere and decoration in the hostel was really nice. Really recommended if you are to visit Sokcho. After breakfast, we checked out of the room and they were nice enough to allow us to put our big fat luggages along the corridor while we went to explore Sokcho. Was close to 11am when we set foot out. So much for being early -.-'''

According to the itinerary we planned the night before, we were supposed to visit Abai Village first. Abai Village is the filming location for Korean drama Autumn in my heart. The show that made me cry my eyes out. Remembered watching it during Secondary School days and going to school with puffed out eyes. >.< Liked the show so much, I even bought the DVD for it.

Anyway, based on the map and advice the owner gave us, we decided to walk to there. It was supposed to be a short distance, but we couldn't find the alley to get us to the Boat area. We would have to sit the boat to get to Abai Village. We actually found the boat area but we didn't realised it was supposed to be THE ONE. Anyway, we decided we shouldnt waste time finding and decided to go vist Seoraksan first as we can always come back to find Abai Village since it is so near our hostel.
 

 Journey up to Seoraksan

Took the bus number 7 or 7-1 (Forgot which one) up to Seoraksan for 1,100₩ each. Seoraksan is highest mountain in the Taebaek mountain range in the Gangwon Province in eastern South Korea (Wikipedia). Entrance into Seoraksan was 2,000₩.

 

Seoraksan Mascot... I think 

Amazing scenery

Took a cable car up to Seoraksan. I think there is an option to go hiking, but the main attraction for me was the cable car anyway. =D

In the cable car

We were all like squashed in the cable car, as in there is no place to walk around, but luckily we were near the window, so we just started snapping photos like crazy. =)

The cable car tickets costs 9,000₩ per pax for both trips up and down the mountain. Tickets are bought separately from the entrance tickets. The cable car tickets are on the first floor of the cable car entrance itself. When I was buying the tickets for the cable car, PH was beside me and when she turned around, she saw this huge poster of 2pm. -.-''

 PH 2pm

The moment we stepped out of the cable car when we reached the top, we were welcomed to another poster of 2pm. PH was like 'Taecyeon!!' and just ran to the poster. -.-''' They sure do some good advertising....

PH 2pm 2

Decided to walk up to the peak of Seoraksan. Its about an hour walk up to the peak. I'll let the pictures do the talking.... 

 

We started photo spamming once we reached the peak
 

I would say its not very steep but have to careful in case you slip as its not exactly a smooth surface. PH was having a bit of difficulty though. So I guess it depends. I wanted to try and test my limits since I was already there. So I left PH below as she wasn’t very willing to climb up and went off to see how I could climb to the top.

This is the furthest I got. =D

Photo courtesy of PH

Spot Little PH

Above me, this Ahjumma was superb funny. She just kept commenting ‘Aigoo mu soh wo’ repeatedly, with her hands and legs stuck to the ground and butt sticking out. and she was slowly inching upwards. Basically I was just amused with her butt sticking out. LOLs.

It got really really steep after a while and I sort of gave up and started taking pictures on my own.

 

After playing by myself on top, made my way down and seriously the way down is much much scarier. I was just sitting n moving downwards. Met up with PH to take more pictures before we headed down.

Bought ice cream while we waited for the cable car to bring us back down to earth. =D