금강산 (Kumgangsan) - Saturday Oct. 27, 2007

We woke up at 6:30AM, to meet Nika and Jen for breakfast at 7:00AM. Breakfast was a buffet of spicy potatoes, ddeok, soups, rice, kimchi, tofu, etc. We met the bus at 7:40AM to head to the village for a bit for a restroom break and to buy snacks if we wanted. We finally headed out to the mountain around 8:40AM. The four of us pushed our way in front of a few hundred Koreans so we wouldn't have to hike behind them. Nika and Jen keep an incredibly fast pace, but that could be because they hike almost every weekend. Colleen and I kept our own paces, which I think was for the best. I wanted more time to look around and take pictures rather than keeping a pace I wasn't comfortable with.

At the beginning of the hike...still had my sweatshirt on! It was cold in the morning, but quickly warmed up!

The trees were absolutely beautiful!! There were many bridges as well. The bridges were awesome, but I'm not an incredible fan of going over bridges, ESPECIALLY when they swing back and forth. There was a point where tour guides were stopped to make sure only 10 people were on a bridge at a time. I had this vivid mental image of the Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom; facing a massive group while marching across a bridge, the bridge breaks and swings to one side, and we are forever lost to the alligators lurking below. Luckily there were no alligators in site!^^

I met Jen, Nika, and Colleen at a traditional looking building; I thought it was a rest stop, but I was told that it was actually the end of the hike. We were asked to take a picture with some random Koreans, which surprisingly isn't an uncommon request. We took the picture and then were on our way.

"Rest stop"/"End of hike"?

A picture of the four of us at the rest stop.

The picture with our random Korean friends!

This is a picture of the bathrooms on the hike. We thought you just had to pay to go the bathroom. After showing the pictures to my host mom, I discovered that it is actually $1 to "Go #1" and $2 to "Go #2." Hilarious!

We realized that it wasn't actually the end of the hike; Nika had come in the winter last year, and the second part of the hike was blocked off due to safety precautions last year. The second half of the hike was difficult; it was both rocky and metal stairs until the top. I hiked with a few Koreans who were more my pace as I continued to constantly stop to take pictures. I like hiking with Koreans; they are incredibly friendly and encouraging. Toward the top, many Koreans coming down from the top would explain that it was only a few more minutes and say "Fighting," which is the Korean way of saying, "Keep going."

A pic on the way up!

At the top!

The four of us at the top!

It was beautiful at the top! I also had a conversation with a Korean man completely in Korean. It was a simple conversation, but a conversation nonetheless. We were quickly waved away from the peak, seeing as how there were hundreds of Koreans following us. We headed back down and realized just how lucky we were that we were in front of the mob; we would have been incredibly frustrated taking one stair ever few seconds.

We took many pictures on the way down. One of the places we made sure to take pictures is at a rock with writing about Kim Il Sung visiting the rock.

A pic on the way back down! The foliage was beautiful!

Colleen's camera randomly decided to stop working...it somehow inverted colors and everything was a strange black and white. I bought a painting on the way to the bus. We took a shuttle bus back to the hotel and then walked to the 짐질방 (jimjilbang - spa). It was only $12 to enter. It was beautiful inside and even more beautiful outside. We could see the mountains over the wall, and the weather was amazing! How random is it to be sitting naked, in a warm bath, looking at the mountains, in NORTH KOREA!?! We were there for about 3 hours. Nika had headed back to the hotel to rest, so when Jen, Colleen, and I were done, we walked back to the hotel. The four of us headed into town after that.

We ended up eating the same thing we did last night. Partially because we didn't really want anything else that was offered and partially because the food was so incredible!! After dinner, we ended up at a bar; I think it was German. There was a house beer and some other liquors to buy. We bought a bottle of Blueberry Wine. Hmm...sounds harmless enough, right?! WRONG!! This Blueberry Wine was called 백두산 (Paektusan - named after a North Korean mountain) AND it was 40% alcohol!! Before we drank this wine, Colleen informed us that she read about blueberry wine and remembered reading that it could, "Knock you off an elephant." This saying quickly turned into, "Knock up an elephant."

The bottle of toxic wine and Colleen!

We couldn't help but make the most horrible faces after drinking even a sip. It was horrible and incredibly strong, but oh yes, we the four of us finished off the bottle. I wanted to try the house beer afterward, but unfortunately just ended up getting the normal, crappy Korean beer. I think it was Hite.ㅠㅠ

After one sip of the Blueberry "Wine."

Here's another quite interesting part of the night, which is still a little bit of a blur to me. We were walking back to the hotel, which is not incredibly close, and we saw a bus coming. We kind of walked out in front of the bus to the other side assuming that it would stop to pick us up. No, no, the bus did not stop. It kept on driving, and we kept on walking. About 3 minutes later, the bus pulled out of the spa road where it had been dropping people off and honked for us to get on. RANDOM!! It dropped us off at our hotel; however, instead of roaming the hotel which was my initial instinct, I promptly passed out.