Hiking Mount Dobong

The kids only get Korean Holidays at school, while Tyler gets Korean and U.S. holidays, which means that U.S. Holidays are day-dates for us! So on Labor Day Kristina and Curt watched Kalia (at the beach :) and Tyler and I hiked Mount Dobong, in the Bukhansan National Park. It was amazing!

 You can see little fish swimming in the river.

 At the beginning of the hike...

 We could see our destination way off in the distance.

 Buddhist temple along the hiking path, complete with paper lanterns hanging from the trees.

So many Buddhas! 

 Gorgeous views of the city

 The temple along the way...

 They had a mic on the monk who was chanting, with speakers projecting the music through the forest. It was a surreal experience, hiking through a beautiful forest, listening to the monk singing.

 Half-way up the mountain.

 These signs were hanging from trees along the hiking path. 119 is the Korean equivalent to 911 in the U.S. Comforting to know that help was available should it be needed :)

 The view from the top!!!

 We could see forever in every direction.

 Definitely worth the hike--it took about 2 hours to make it to the top.

 This photo doesn't do it justice, but the last part of the climb was so steep that they installed a metal handrail. The only way to get to the top was to drag ourselves up as we hung on to the handrail for dear life. Koreans are some intense hikers! They've never heard of switchbacks, that's for sure.

This was the drinking fountain. Cold mountain water--refreshing! They had ladles hanging on the sides, and everyone just used them and put them back. I didn't drink anything on the way up, but I was so thirsty on the way back that I didn't mind sharing a ladle with everyone.

This was an octopus swimming in a tank outside a restaurant. Someone's lunch, but not ours. We got some kimbap--Korean sushi rolls. So good!