First Hike

Hey Everyone! I hope you all are having an exciting weekend. The Packers and Brewers play back to back today so it will be a Sunday full of Wisco sports for most of you. With fall coming, I am sure the trees are beginning to change and Wisconsin is beautiful right now.

This weekend flew by for me, I am beginning to think weekends should be five days, and week days should be just two days so I can accomplish all that I want to. My weekend was awesome. My friends Sam and Erik came to Gwangju to tear up the town. Sam is a UW grad from Mankato, Minnesota, but Grandma don't worry he's not a Vikings fan, I know better. Erik is from Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, and he is one of the first Canadians I've ever really met.

Saturday was low key for us. We spent the morning in a coffee shop near Chunum National University updating our pictures and organizing our blogs, something essental for any waygook in Korea.(waygook means foreigner in Korean) Chunum is just a 15 minute walk from my apartment and it has the typical University feel.

Something that Erik, Sam and I have learned in these past two months of living in Korea together is that we are all exceptional with directions. We can usually find our way anywhere with little or no problem. It must be a midwest/northwest thing because when we travel together we always know where we are going and rarely get lost.

We headed downtown for some shopping in the afternoon. Downtown is probably a five thousand won ($5, taxi rides are ridiculously cheap in Gwangju) taxi ride from Chunum but we decided to test
our luck and skill, so we decided to walk. We got a sweet tour of the Gwangju we haven't seen before which was nice, but we eventually made it downtown.

Once downtown the disappointment set in hardcore. Erik and Sam both wanted some new shoes. There is a really good street downtown with probably at least 10 shoe stores within a 5 minute walk. We went into the first shoe store and I found a sick pair of shoes. I went to the shoe salesperson and asked in my non-existant broken Korean and asked for an American size 12. She looked at me like was crazy for having feet that big but she went into the back looking for my shoes. She came back telling me in broken English that there were no size 12 shoes. Koreans have some style when it comes to Nikes and I wanted pretty much every shoe in that store. We ended up going to every shoe store on Shoe Street and in each store I was rejected. It sucks seeing all of these awesome shoes but not being able to get ANY of them. Come to find out the shoe stores in Gwagnju only carry up to size 11 and that is rare too. Erik fared much better than Sam and I, (Sam's a size 12 too) and he was able to find some shoes that fit. Guess I will save that money for my traveling in February.

Sunday was the best day of the weekend and maybe even the best time since I arrived in Korea. Sam, Erik and I woke up early and decided to hike the highest mountain in Jeollonamdo Provence (our state). Mudeung Mountain is 1187 meters high. For all of you Americans that only understand feet that would be 3894 feet. To put that into perspective, Denali is 20000 feet and Timms hill is 1200 feet. Coming from Wisco, I really never had the opportunity to hike before so this would be my frist time hiking. Coming from the Yukon, Erik practically lives on a mountain up there and is quite experienced in hiking. Sam has been hiking out west a quite a bit too so I was going with some experienced people.

Going into this I really had no idea what to expect so I imagined we would walk up a blacktop path to the top of the mountain, see some cool views and walk down. Boy was I in for a rude awakening. When we got there there was a blacktop path but we took a path less traveled and went for the deserted path.

We started our treck up the mountain on some steep stairs and I was beginning to wonder what I was getting myself into. About fifteen minutes later we came to another blacktop road. We went over to look at the map and come to find out that blacktop path actually weaved around the mountain, zigzaging back and forth up to where we ended up. That didn't deter us because we went looking for another deserted path up the mountain and it didn't take us long to find one. We hiked up the steep rock stairs and rough terrain for a good 35 more minutes before we came a ridge.

The view of the Gwangju from here was amazing. You could see for miles around. The city was to the West and more mountains were in every other direction. It was one of those moments that really made me realize how insignificant we really are in the world and how much there is to see.

The views from the top of the mountain were so awesome and pictures really don't do justice to the place. I've decided that hiking is something I want to explore a little more and maybe go again soon.

Anyway, I am glad to give you all an update on my weekend and my first hiking experience. I miss all off you and hope to talk to you all soon.

Aaron