Our Kiwi Heros just spent a coupla days being awed by the Mureung-gyegok (perhaps the very prettiest of Korea’s major gorges) and Duta-san, enjoying this gorgeous weather (while i was guiding the RAS tour to Jiri-san, amidst the red maples under the stunning blue). Now they’re off to the culturally-profound Odae-san area… Will do another Buddhist Temple-Stay at Woljeong-sa tonight!
Last weekend, we had an excellent Temple-Stay and etc experience at Sobaek-san Buseok-sa and the Neo-Confucian Sosu-seowon and Seonbi-chon Village in Punggi Town, together with international friends, Korean well-wishers and local VIPs. MBC-TV filmed some of it and the report made their 9pm News. Some good photos of it all are up on their Blog. The best of the resulting articles in the papers were the one in the KT by Cathy Garcia and the Yonhap one by Tony MacGregor.
So then, by next weekend they’ll be entering the appropriatly-final last sector of the Expedition, the Seorak Mountains. The official Finishing-Ceremony Event is now scheduled to be held around 3:00 pm on the afternoon of Wednesday, November 7th. It will be in the rest-area parking lot at the Jinbu-ryeong Pass on National Highway 46, just north of Seorak-san National Park in Gangwon Province. They might actually get to then hike two more Bddg mountains north towards the DMZ on Thursday and/or Friday, through the military-controlled areas with the Korean Army permission and maybe even escorts that i’m trying to arrange.
Then they come back to Seoul, after 10 weeks on the trail! There will probably be a hiking-event with them, project-partners and various foreign and Korean supporters in the Bukhan-san National Park on Saturday November 10th. It will probably be followed by a drinking-party of some sort, in an expat-friendly Bar in central Seoul on that evening. Anyone is welcome to join us! Details later…
On the evening of Tuesday November 13th, we three will give the Royal Asiatic Society Lecture with slideshow about the Expedition, 7:30 at the Somerset as usual. Finally, Tourism Ambassador Dho will host us on her Arirang TV show, sometime the next week. Then it’s all OVER… except for the writing of the papers and books (my job).
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6 Comments
I second the opinion on the Mureung-gyegok. It is the prettiest place I have seen in Korea.
As the photos show, it is a great place to visit in the fall. It is also great in early September when the worst of the summer heat is over but the streams are still full from the rainy season.
Ya got that right, Yangban. Actually i’ve only ever been there in Sept-Oct! Should try witer or spring sometime; i’ll bet its ALWAYS glorious…
Mureung-gyegok looks wonderful judging from the pictures. It will have to go on my list of places to get to eventually.
There are many books about the walk, I found this one to be the best.
http://www.outdoorbooks.co.kr/.....hp?pi=1321
I’m not aware of similar books in foreigner languages. 10 weeks is a long time, most people do it much quicker because of work and family responsibilities. They must be having fun.
They are, doin’ it the slow foreign way…
Sure, there are many books and articles about this Baekdu-daegan trail in Korean — useless to the rest of the world. There isn’t anything in English yet, and that’s what this project is all about — get the information out in English, publicize it to the world, in the global language. If the Koreans had already done all this work, i wouldn’t have to…
Its a good project and long overdue.
I can’t stop waiting for the Geumgangsan section to open.