The Other Great Wall

Stumbled upon 808 Dawn at the Korean grocery store today. It's won awards in the 'hangover solution' drink category somewhere around the world. Who knew? Hmmm...after our outing today, wonder if we'll need some? ;)

28 May 2006

Namhansanseong, South Korea

Namhansan Fortress

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After church we set out to find yet another cachebox. This one is located in Namhansanseong Provincial Park--way beyond the outskirts of Seoul but still within the metro line station footprint if you can just find the correct provincial bus to catch once you're there. Well the 1+ hour subway ride on three different lines goes without a hitch. Then we quickly hop on the correct bus and ride, ride, ride.

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We eventually get to a point where 'all the hikers' disembark and in our haste we follow them. We climb up a steep trail, going against the traffic it seems as hundreds (yes, hundreds!) of hikers are pouring off the mountain trail and heading home. It was a carnival like experience--just full of energy--perhaps even a bit like a German Volksmarch? We continue the climb and notice these really cool rock (memorials?) in enclosed areas just off to the sides of the trail. These cairns seem to cover several hundred meters of land and they're very interesting. They remind me of the Zen-like Japanese gardens we visit in the Seattle area--but here these cairns are repeated hundreds of times!

We continue our hike up to a ridge line where we realize our mistake. Our goal is to climb around Seoul's "Great Wall" and only after a couple miles and much elevation change do we reach the initial segment of the Wall--where we were supposed to begin our excursion.

We purchase tickets for the park and receive a map--which comes in quite handy. We realize that we are still a good couple kilometers off our mark. It looks like the only way to reach our destination is by walking all the way around the Wall--hugging its inside wall.

However, this route affords us many great views of the surroundings. This view shows Seoul off in the distance.

Here, trkr grins as he reminds me that it looks a lot like the Great Wall in China. He even pokes his head in many of the 'weapon' holes just to make sure it's similar and to see if there are any enemy down below. This Wall actually surrounds the Namhansan Fortress. It was first built in 672AD with several additions along the way. They are currently restoring many segments of the Wall--so as we hiked around we often met 'construction zone detours' that forced us to walk down some steep bits to circumnavigate all the construction confusion.

Here's a segment of the original wall that's become quite overgrown with brush and trees in some cases.

Another awesome view of the 'layers upon layers' of mountain ranges that radiate from Seoul. This country is very mountainous--quite rugged but oh, so beautiful! Although we're perhaps only 30km outside of Seoul's center we're still very near massive highrise apartment buildings. This trek feels like we're worlds away from the chaos of the big city. The views are spectacular!!!

Here's another older segment of the wall. There's a small gate through it here but the other side of the Wall has a 20m drop down a sheer cliff--so I'm not so sure where this gate leads.

This is the East Gate. When we first reached the Wall we walked up and entered at the South Gate--then hugging the 'zigzaggy' wall to the northeast for a couple of kilometers we reach the East Gate. Our desired destination is still about 1.5km beyond this--along very rugged terrain. Of course, I went into this outing thinking it was a 20 minute 'jaunt' up a few short inclines--so I'm still wearing church clothes but I swapped out leather sandals for my trusty Tevas. Totally wishing now that I'd opted for my hiking boots, instead. Too bad they're still full of water from our hike two days earlier!

Here's a view looking down the steep incline of the wall to the south.

Same stretch of wall but after it makes a 90* turn--this angle is looking northwest a tad. We continue another 500m or so and eventually find 'muggled remnants' of our beloved cachebox. Fortunately, we've brought our letterboxing repair kit so we revive the cache as best we can, offset it by 35m in a much less 'human litterbox prone' area and continue along our way. We feel much better having performed our 'good deed of the day'.

Once we reach the destination, we realize it's quite late--nearing 6:30pm with sunset scheduled rather soon. We opt to take a trail that heads to the center of the fortress & closer to the main road in the event we run out of daylight and must fumble around in the dark instead on our way to finding the elusive bus stop--the one we couldn't even find in broad daylight! ;) We stumble upon this really beautiful secluded temple complex along the way.

Some pepper crops we passed on our way to the bus-stop. We saw rows of lettuce, pumpkin and squash, too.

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Then we reach a 'big' road that cuts through the entire provincial park--the one on which our bus takes most hikers to smack dab in the middle of the park. The bus stop that's about 6km closer to our 'destination' than where we actually disembarked the bus. Oh, did we mention it's about 400m higher elevation-wise, too? That 808 Dawn is looking better and better now, isn't it?

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No--just joking. Our unintended detour actually showed us some really cools things. We wouldn't have seen those stone pillars/cairns had we gone the 'intended' route. We wouldn't have walked past who we think was Mr Universe hiking down the trail as we were heading up. This guy's quadriceps were about the size of both of Trekkies' or my quadriceps bundled together!!! Massive! We also would have missed the 'lecture' we received for taking our children up such a steep hike. Huh? These kids hike quite a bit and the trail wasn't that bad--now where were they during the thunderstorm on Gwanaksan the other day--we would have deserved the comments then! I also got chastised for hiking in my Tevas as some angry man vigorously pointed to his hiking boots (that look a whole lot like my boots that are back home drying out from the Great Flood on Saturday) and loudly tells me that I have the wrong shoes on. "But I hike in Tevas all the time back home--even up around Mt Rainier." Doesn't help--I'm wrong and that's that.

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The nice thing, however, is that along the way we pass an older gentleman hiking by himself. I guess he's in his mid to late 70s. I greet him with the standard "Anyonghaseyo" greeting which basically means hello. He greets me with "Anyonghashimmnikka". I am completely taken aback and this little interchange totally makes my day! This slight difference in greetings is lost in English but still exists in other languages. In Korean, the endings of the verbs show different levels of respect. Generally, however, the -haseyo ending is accepted to use for everybody unless you're speaking to the president or royalty or your familial elders such as a patriarch or a matriarch--at which point you'll use the -hashimnikka ending instead. It serves as a sort of reverence. In this case he used it on dippy ol' me--something I rarely experience in this country. So, that experience alone elevated today's good day to an incredible day!

This is a rather boring shot from within the metro station. What the folks are pointing out here are the little 'blue feet' markers where folks stand to ensure they don't block the off-loading passengers when the subway stops at the station. We find these little feet guides quite hilarious. I guess in large population areas crowd control is a big deal--these little feet just ensure that we don't create gridlock at the station, I guess.

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Another thing we've noticed lately is that it's election season. We see candidates' pamphlets, poster, flyers--you name it all around the city. We even see these small trucks that have 3-sided platforms in the back that are designed to hold candidates in them so the trucks can drive around the neighborhood and the want-to-be politicians can meet their potential future constituents while bellowing out their message from PA systems in the back. There are loudspeakers blaring from these trucks and it always gets me laughing because it reminds me of the grocer trucks that drive around town blaring out the deal of the day at 6am--which often seems to be watermelons (as we saw today), soybeans, eggs or pickled turnips. I usually wonder what they're campaigning about but never have the guts to ask them. :)

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It is definitely nice to see democracy in action though. Korea's definitely had its share of political problems over the years--from scandals to civil strife to assassination attempts. So it's especially nice to actually see the election process working properly. When we lived here in the late 90s Korea had just suffered a major financial blow (as did many other Asian countries when the Asian economy took a nose-dive)--they were bailed out of debt by the IMF (World Bank). The Korean citizens were so embarrassed about needing to be 'bailed out' by other people that everybody jumped on the 'surrender your precious belongings to the government to help pay off this IMF bailout loan as quickly as possible' bandwagon. We remember folks turning in their gold family heirlooms, their wedding bands, watches--if it was gold or had some sort of value to it folks were turning it in to melt down into ingots to help pay off the loan. We'd ask our Korean friends how they could possibly turn in their wedding bands and they'd reply, "we can always get another ring, we can't often regain our international pride." Apparently the entire country of South Korea filled two Swiss Air 747s with their gold within a week and had the IMF bailout loan paid back in lightning speed. I have no idea if the citizens ever received IOUs from the government for turning in their gold or if they have since been repaid for their sacrifices. It was definitely something I'd never seen in the US--certain it was a cultural thing, too. Here it seems folks elevate the society above the individual and that was definitely visible back in 1997-1998! Seeing the economic prowess of this country now--some 7-8 short years later after such a low point in their history is amazing! Seeing their political situation that much improved is even more miraculous!

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Anyway, today turned out to be a wonderful outing. We explored yet another part of Korea that we didn't even know existed a few weeks ago. We got to walk along an incredible wall that reminded us at times of the Great Wall of China. We saw wild irises, magpies, newly hatched birds' egg-shells lying around the ground and lots of other wondrous things. It turned out to be a great day--and, no--808 Dawn wasn't necessary! ;)