Nature rambling

I've spent the last two days at Seoraksan National Park, doing lots of traipsing and tripping along hiking paths marked mostly in Korean (and helpfully stocked with food and drinks stalls). The paths were mostly rock and gravel, but there were also steel staircases to help amateurs like me over the difficult bits. Don't knock those steel staircases --- without them, I would never ever have made it up as majestic a face as that of Ulsan Bawi. It took me one hour to make it up 1 km of fairly vertical distance, hitting the summit at about 3 p.m. Yeah, maybe that wasn't the best time to go climbing up an exposed rock face.

Remind me also to show you the photograph I'm calling "Fallen gimbap".

Tonight I'm staying in the coolest backpacker joint in Sokcho, The House Hostel, where I've met another Singaporean (the first one I've randomly met this trip) and two Thai women. Tomorrow I'm off to another coastal town, Gangneung, which is also known for having a "Tofu Village". That'll be a nice change of diet from the meat and fish I've been eating.

I feel like I ought to say something wittier here, since I don't know when I'll have internet access again. But I think my brain is feeling sympathy fatigue with my sore feet and calves, so I'm going to toddle upstairs with my beer and go chillax now.