The Seven on Soyosan,April 22nd

From left: the Kangs, me, Georges, Paul, Shannon, Sohee
For more Soyo pix click on the link:
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/biancatur/album?.dir=9fb1scd&.src=ph&store=&prodid=&.done=http%3a//pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/biancatur/my_photos

Soyosan is one of my favourite mountains in Korea. I went there for the first time with Chang-dae and Clare on a bitterlly cold winter day. Although freezing we reallly liked being in the fresh air enjoing the crunching of snow and ice under our crampons. Then I went there alone a few times in the spring and fall. It's easy to reach from Uijeongbu train station, a half hour ride on a usually packed train.
Yesterday there were seven of us: Georges who's back from Lebanon, the Kang siblings, Sohee, a new guy Paul from N. Zealand and me. We left the train station at 9:20 and started our hike at about 10:30, covering the 9km hike in about 4,5 hours, including the half hour for lunch and numerous photo session breaks.
Soyo offers a good workout. First one has to go up to the ridge conquering a very steep incline. From then on it's walking along the ridge that dips and rises sharply up and down. The best kind of the interval workout you can imagine. Just when your heart rate goes down a bit you raise again by having to climb.

No matter, Soyo is enchanting, covered in azaleas and cherry blossoms, new greens, and wild flowers. We even spotted a chipmunk, which is no small feat in Korea where wild life practically does not exist.
After the hike, CD not being present, we didn't opt for the grubbiest restaurant, but the one with a nice view of cherry blossoms. The mushroom soup and seafood omelette were great, and dong dong ju was not bad either.
Being a bit tipsy it wasn't easy to ride back on a packed train, but thankfully it didn't last long.
I went straight home and watched a silliest Korean movie ever. I can't tell you what it was about, except that it had some good-looking people whose only goal was to trick one another in a seduction game.