Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Korea: Day Five: Journey to Chuncheon

Made our way (via the train) to a bus station in East Seoul, where we each bought a W7800 ticket on the express bus to Chuncheon, about __ miles northeast of Seoul. Milk Cider on the bus to Chuncheon
Made the trip out of the city in about 90 minutes, passing countryside for the first time.
Guri

From the bus station in Chuncheon we got a taxi to a place a few miles (W30,000) outside of town. It was a small "resort" up in the woods that had rental cabins with access to the extensive hiking trails in the area. Did I mention that hiking was a big deal in Korea? Adam had a Korean friend reserve the place for us, as evidently, that is something foreigners are unable to do.

For W40,000 we got a one-room cabin with a loft. We were issued one trash bag that we'd have to turn in with our trash when we left. The place had a table that sat about a foot off the floor, but was stowed beside the dorm fridge, which was unplugged (to save electricity, of course.) There was no other furniture, except the TV stand. We had a sink and pots and pans and plates/cups. the place was very nice and apparently pretty new. What about beds? No beds. Instead there were six semi-thick pads that you put on the floor to sleep on, and six thinner comforters, and six pillows. Since the cabin was heated by ondol, this arrangement was pretty comfortable.

We had brought some sausages and rolls with us, so we had that and some gatorade and beer for dinner. The others went outside to smoke cigars, while I ended up dozing off on the heated floor, watching TV. I think we probably turned in ~8:30 pm. It gets dark around 6 pm, so there wasn't much else to do. We did manage to get in a short hike before dinner.

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