Sunday, May 29, 2011

Lindie's Birthday trip to the Wonder-fall.

Last weekend was Lindie's birthday, and therefore, Lindie's weekend birthday bash.  She had a fabulous idea to go up to a famous waterfall in Ulsan (or, as I understand, the ONLY waterfall in Ulsan) rent a cabin, camp out, BBQ, and just have an all around fantastic time.

The lodging was a little harder to secure than she thought, apparently for anything inside the actual park where the waterfall was had to be booked on the first of the month.  Isn't that strange?  Anyway, resourceful as she is, she and Terry managed to secure a place to sleep and early Saturday morning Terry and two of his friends drove Lindie and five of hers up the mountain to the most beautiful piece of Earth I've seen in a long time.

Let me just take a break from the story for a moment to try to explain what an amazing treat it is to ride in a car.  In a car, on a beautiful day, with the music blasting, with amazing friends, I'll tell you, there is not a dog in the world happier hanging out the backseat window than I was for that half hour.

Thanks for listening.

Anyway, the trip there was gorgeous.  It was suddenly 90 degrees after being about 75 or so for the past month, but it was perfect (and of course on top of the world where we were it was much cooler)  The sun was shining and every leaf and blade of grass looked like it had woken up just for us.  The mountains here are a little different than they are back home.  The first thing I always notice is that, unlike home, these mountains aren't absolutely covered in evergreens.  There's a lot more variety in the colors carpeting these beasts.  It makes them look positively fake, as Lindie pointed out about half way through the trip up.  The mountains are much brighter, with a much newer green.  And they are a lot pointier than they are back home, where one mountains almost seems to blend into the next.  There's pretty awesome, is the short story.

So, here's what happened.



Us at the cabin.  Lindie, Rob, Terry, Jim, Albert, and Anriette.  Awesome people.

The cabin/house.
Terry and his friends drove us all the way into the park.  It was probably about 20 vertical miles up to the actual entrance to the national park, so we were INCREDIBLY thankful for the ride!
Us at the entrance to the park.  Beautiful day, awesome friends, can't do any better than that!  :-)  And for those of you keeping score, from right to left is Korean, South African, American, South African, South African, South African, Canadian.  So outnumbered.  
After Terry dropped us off we only had about a 20 minute hike to the falls.  No problem.  And it was a gorgeous little trip down there.  It did have, at the end, the scariest bridge over a yawning gulf and the steepest staircase on the entire planet, but we made it.  We all made it alive.

Our little waterfall :-)

A new green forest!

We made a little camp site on the side of the waterfall, away from the other tourists and out of their pictures.  Here's the birthday girl and Anriette :-)


The waterfall from our little spot. 


Albert and Rob testing the freeeeeeeezing water!

Rob dying in the water. . .

See? :-)

Look at that water!!  Albert was the bravest and was determined to show us how it was done.

Albert owning the frozen water. . .and intro to the lovely food for the evening. fresh from South Africa:




The waterfall!!

The waterfall from our piece of the world.

By the way, these photos are Albert's :-)

We felt like we were in a movie the whole day.  That's how perfect it was!

The first of many Summer parties :-)

The other side of the waterfall


Testing the water. . .

Dragging in Anriette

Really, honestly, dragging in Lindie

The water was crazy cold.  Crazy.

Cheese :-)

The boys. . .coming to rescue us?  

The staircase to the other side of the waterfall. ..and to the top!

Swim, swim, swim.  And freeze.


A smaller one on the other side.

Look how pretty!!

A cave we almost camped out in. . .but our spot was way better.  And this spot was a little too wet.

Gorgeous!


Perfect place, totally perfect.


Isn't it like a movie?  Or a post card?  


We finally went numb.  The other visitors there thought we were beyond crazy.

But we didn't care.  At all.  Sometimes it's awesome to be a foreigner :-)

Albert at the top of the waterfall!

Victory!



After we'd completely dried off and then told that we weren't allowed to swim here. . .whoops.  What's a beautiful forest waterfall pool for if NOT for swimming?  They actually just didn't want us to grill.  Which was lame, since the coals were almost completely perfect for grilling and we were going to have some magical food.  
So, we were there for several hours, and after the grilling thing got nixed we left.  I had to leave to go to a wedding the next morning, and my friends are awesome and all left with me so I didn't have to face the six thousand mile walk back to the bus stop alone.  Awesome.  Friends.
Another little waterfall off the trail.  Albert and Jim hiked down to get some pictures :-)


Rocks and trees.  Doesn't get better than that.  Unless you're wearing flip flops. . .


The trail we actually had to hike.  Not too bad :-)

A little rocky, but it was a nice hike :-)
So, at some point along the hike we all started to REALLY dread the enormous hike down the actual mountain.  It would have seriously taken us two hours or more.  And it was really starting to look like rain of epic proportions.  We thought that we would try our luck at the park entrance booth to see if we could get a taxi or two out of there.  We didn't really think it was possible, but we thought we at least needed to give it a shot.  So, with all of our stuff we collapsed on the benches near the booth and drew straws to see who was going to ask.
Remember, this place is at the very top of a mountain in the very middle of no where, there was one bus that we knew of that came occassionally about a two hour walk away from where we were at that point, but taxis, we were pretty sure, did not exist.  We called Terry to see if he could ask them, since he speaks Korean, but he told us there was no chance at all that we would get a taxi up there, much less two.  So, we voted Albert, the most congenial of our group, to give it a shot in exhausted, broken Korean,  He got the job done in about five seconds.  Albert is awesome.  Two taxis were on their way up to get us for a quite reasonable fee.`

They must have felt really bad for us sitting there half dead, because they fed us.


I'm pretty sure it's kidneys of some sort.  But whatever they were, they were delicious because we were pretty much starving.  :-)

Waiting for the taxis.

Here's the epic tale:

So, I had to leave then to get back home to go to a wedding, so I took the same taxi back down the mountain to a bus stop I knew was frequented by more buses.  I hated to leave the party because it was the best time ever.  But eventually I made it back home and relished the memory of the amazing waterfall party that was.  :-)


The next day we couldn't make the wedding, but that's another story for another day.

But my friends came through for me again, because, like I mentioned once before, they are awesome.

So, they showed up at my house in the afternoon and we set out for a new adventure.



Rocking hats Albert and Anriette bought :-)

Albert and Anriette

These are serious hats, dude.
They only took about five seconds to get themselves together and we were off for the beach.  The day was gorgeous, and was begging to be explored.



The adventure begins.

Lovely day with lovely friends.

Don't mess with this girl.  Really.
We made it to the beach just in time to realize we were all starving to death.  So, we tried to find this awesome place called Frypan (since Anriette had never had it) and it took us forever to find it because we're dumb.  :-)
First course: salad.

Annihilated.  
We ordered the largest amount of chicken they had: drum sticks AND tenders.  They only brought us the drumsticks for some reason, and that was finished in about five seconds, so here was the third course, whole new plate of chicken tenders AND home made potato chips.  Awesome.
Ready, set, go!

Aaaaand, finished.
So, filled to the brim with chicken, chips, and salad, we waddled off to find the beach.  It was suddenly freezing, so we thought we'd just make a quick trip and then go back home and watch a movie.
searching for treasure.

Treasure :-)  Bits of broken mugs and sea-worn broken soju bottles.  

Yet another perfect weekend in Korea.  :-)
So, that was last weekend :-)  Fantastic times once again!  As excited as I am to see my friends and family again, I can't believe how fast my remaining time here is going!  Time to start the serious summer exploration :-)

Thanks for reading!!