Gyeryongsan National Park

Earlier, I met up with Juli and Pino to go hiking in Gyeryongsan National Park, just outside Daejeon. To get there, take the 108 bus from Yuseong or National Cemetery subway stations. As if to prove that Wales is indeed the centre of the known universe, there was a couple on the bus (he was German, she was Korean) who currently live in Bangor!

Little Buddha nestling in the snow

Juli and I

Pino and Juli

The trail starts off gently and leads to a Buddhist temple in possibly the most beautiful setting particularly with snow and sunshine against a mountainous backdrop.

Buddhist Temple

Then we took a path that would take us to the top of the mountain. Unfortunately, we hadn't realised quite how snowy the paths here still were and the path going uphill was quite treacherous in places. All of the Korean hikers wore proper hiking boots with crampons (spikes) attached; we were not so well equipped, so we gave up about half way up and slithered back to the bottom and onto a restaurant where we ate spicy daktori (pieces of chicken in a spicy, red soup), perfect post-walking food.

It was a pity that we didn't make it to the top this time, but I will return once the weather gets a bit warmer!