As I am a little worried you might be getting all hiked out, today I am just going to conduct a glancing sweep over the next two walks I found myself taking, one within a group and one solo.

Yes, you read that right, I met more people!

These people in fact…

Long before I arrived here in Seoul I started signing up to Facebook groups and communities to help me plan my trip; one of which happened to be the Seoul International Hikers Club, who go on weekend hikes around the Seoul area and a little beyond and is composed of both local Koreans and foreigners who find themselves here for various reasons and lengths of time. One of their recent weekend hikes just happened to coincide with a trip to Suwon I had been planning on taking anyway, so I sent the group leader an email and jumped on board!

Suwon Hwaseong (or Suwon Fortress) is another Joseon era fortification built in the late 1700’s surrounding the city of Suwon. The initial reason for its construction was that King Jeongjo had moved the tomb of his father (Crown Prince Sado) here and wanted strong defensive works placed around it as a symbol of filial piety (as well as constructing a new city within). It is yet another UNESCO site and one that is worth a visit if you have the time.

Admittedly, the day I visited I was actually slightly less about the history and more enthusiastic about the people I met. I spent most of the afternoon chatting with two sociable Germans; both working here in Korea, one for a car company and the other as a university researcher. It was interesting to get their perspectives on life in the country (one has a two year contract, the other has been here nine years with no plans to leave), and in particular to talk about learning the language and my recent book store crisis (which I am happy to report also happened to one of them and the secret is to not try reading children’s books, apparently you just have to leap in to adult ones and preferably a translated foreign book which are easier than native Korean written ones).

I also had a pleasant time speaking with the group leader on the hike who lived here in the city and we discussed about apartment living (of which he is not a fan) and his plans to become a farmer (which I can totally understand). Additionally, there was another veteran hiker in the group (also Korean) who I not only chatted to during the walk, but kindly came back to the area where I am staying and showed me some interesting eating areas I had yet to find, including a big outdoor eating area (the first time I had seen so many Koreans in one place!) and a coffee shop one of the Germans recommended looking at because of the style.

Anyway, here are some pictures of the fortress and hiking group with my recommendation that if you are in the area and want some hiking company that you contact them on FB.

After my triumphant feeling of completing the City Wall Trail the other day, I decided to set my sights on a slightly higher ambition – The Seoul Trail.

In case you haven’t heard of it, this is hiking path of approximately 100 miles (157 km) that circumnavigates the greater Seoul area. Much like the City Wall Trail it encompasses areas of urban conurbation, city and neighbourhood parks, waterways, historic temples, forests and mountains. Though it is split into 8 sections, a couple of them (in my opinion, cause I am a very slow walker with little legs) are a little too long to be completed in one day – for instance, the section through Bukhansan National Park is over 18 miles (30km) long and covers mountains too and there is no way I’d accomplish that in a day.

Again though, excitement abounds to at least try hiking it (or some of it) as it has yet more stamps to collect and a very official looking certificate at the end of it (I know this as English Andrew has just finished it and sent me a picture of his certificate and I’m rather jealous).

At Andrew’s suggestion (I honestly think he was just trying to kill me), I decided to attempt two slightly easier sections together to try and knock out the miles. And actually I did manage it – 19 miles in total, but only because one of the sections was dead flat as a pancake (and then had to take a rest day the following day as I killed my legs).

As an overview, I am just going to post some of my pictures from the day here and then afterwards make some general observations about hiking in Korea that I have found so far. Here we go…

Kerry’s observations about walking and hiking in Korea so far (in no particular order, and on the understanding that these are my personal observations and opinions based on my so-far limited experiences in Seoul and related to differences from my UK or USA experiences)

• Hiking in Korea can be a busy and crowded experience. I have been surprised by the sheer number of people taking part in outdoor experiences in general here in Korea, and hiking in particular. I have seen tiny kids hiking up massive rock faces and the vast majority of the people I have seen on the trail are older, to the point I would say elderly, which generally I haven’t found in other countries. Hiking with lots of people around you is both helpful and totally sucks in equal measure. As I am hiking in a foreign country and therefore have no experience as to what to expect here, I am reassured there are at least people around me who might potentially call for help if I got injured. On the other hand, having to wait in queues of up to an hour to reach the summit of a location sucks eggs to the point of ruining the hike.   

• People out here listen to music or the radio when they hike. Out loud. This very much surprised me given that everything I’ve seen so far of people keeping to themselves or staying in the socially ‘acceptable’ realm of behaviour, I would have thought that playing music out loud where it may disturb others would be frowned upon, but I guess not. Personally it doesn’t faze me, I like Korean music.

• I’ve seen a surprising number of people hiking barefoot.

• People out here definitely like name brand hiking equipment and it is indeed almost like a fashion show on the trails. This contrasts to me who throws on the rough and ready clothes because I know I’m going to sweat like a trooper and no doubt find myself having to shuffle down from some high crevice on my butt at some point. Even out in the wilderness I feel totally underdressed in Korea.  

• Inventions like these…one is to dowse yourself in insecticide, the other is to blow off the dirt from hiking before you head home. Never have I seen such things before.

• The fact I might be out in the woods or at least on a hiking trail and come across these….as if I wasn’t putting in enough effort to walk and hike, I am potentially expected to do further exercise along the trail. And people definitely do.

• People in Korea spit. This is actually one of the exceptionally few things about the culture I do not like. You can be in the wilds or the city centre minding your own business and suddenly you hear this overwhelming hacking roll of the throat and then spit from behind you. We should just apply the term hocking a loogie here, cause that’s what it is.  It scares the living shit out of me because it is completely unexpected and without warning. It’s also totally disgusting. You need to spit, fine. Sometimes we do. But don’t be walking close behind people when you do so, try to be a little discrete. Also, as a final nail in the coffin on this point, while this practice I have seen mostly with older men, it is by no means limited to them. I have seen pretty young girls walking down the street and do the same thing. I literally stopped in shock.

• Stairs. Stairs. Stairs. Why so many stairs in this country? Please, Hiking Minister for Korea, go to another country and discover switchbacks, I implore you. Your people will thank you.

• Map makers of Korea, please go to England and see the nice OS map making people there. Learn how to make beautiful maps with scales, features and contour lines so that stupid foreigners like me will stop getting lost on your hiking trails when presented with this.

• The whiplash transition between gentle hiking trail or moderate steps, and suddenly being presented with a steel wire handrail, sheer rock face, and space for only a single line of hiker travel despite there being 600 people attempting to traverse the cliff in both directions.    

• Leading on to…Korean people appear to have no spatial awareness. I’m just going to lay that out there, and have actually had a couple Korean people themselves tell me this is true. Whether in the city or in the wilderness, Korean people appear to have an extremely small amount of space around them of which they pay attention to, maybe an arm’s length at best, and anything outside that space can basically go fuck itself. I can only assume this is a cultural thing, potentially borne from the exceptionally competitive nature of the country, but that would just be me speculating. Whatever the reason, if you are visiting this country, please expect to be walked in front of, nudged out of the way, blatantly cut off, have to be forceful about getting on and off public transportation, have people come to a grinding stop in front of you with no warning or care (especially awesome when that person is hiking in front of you with poles and they helpfully pick them up, and thrust them backwards under their arms without a care for the person they have just impaled behind them – also true with umbrellas in the city), and do not have a sense of giving way or letting someone pass a small space, or saying thank you/any type of acknowledgement that you are even alive if you let them through somewhere. There. I think that covers a lot of the spatial issues I have seen here so far. Might be more to come though. The most important thing to note here though, I honestly, genuinely don’t believe that this is rudeness on the part of Korean people, it just is what they do. From what I have seen, no-one seems offended in the slightest by these things. It is just the way the society and cultural norm functions here, and it is just very different to the experiences we generally have in the UK/US.    

• Koreans know how to pack a hiking lunch. I would like to discover the secret of this, because everyone here carries really small day packs, but when they sit down for lunch I have seen people in front of pots and stoves with enough soups, gimbap, and banchan to feed an army. No sandwiches and snacks here. Wherever people go, they eat well and have proper meals.

• Stamps. I like stamps. I like collecting hiking stamps and certificates. I really like they provide this as a motivation in this country. It totally strikes at something deep and child-like at me to be able to visually see what I have achieved. Thumbs up.  

And there you have it 🙂

See you next time…