"You Learn What You Experience" 서당 개 삼 년이면 풍월을 읊는다 -

To Korea.

Cindy and I are headed to two conferences in Korea. The first is called the Fourth Lausanne Congress and the second is Billion Soul Harvest. More on each of them in the days to come.

To prepare our bodies and minds for the conference we are going a few days early. It is a 14-hour time difference and it means switching your body's time clock to get up when it's used to going to sleep and going to sleep when it is normally waking up. It is a difficult transition. The rule of thumb is that it takes one day to shift your body one hour, which means it takes two weeks to get your body to feel "normal" in this new time.

We chose to go 4 days early to get over the worst of the jet lag before we needed to be clear-headed for the meetings. Also, we have never been to Korea, so it felt like a great investment of time.

On Sunday night we traveled to Arlington and spent the night with my stepmom in preparation for arriving early at DFW on Monday morning. One thing that makes me anxious, born of my childhood, is getting to the airport early. We flew space available due to my dad's job with the airlines. We were required to arrive 4 hours before any flight to check in. Then we frequently missed flights, so my brain tells me, "Get to the airport early" and my gut tells me, "You are probably not going to get on this flight." The two collided to make me a little crazy at the airport.

We arrived at the airport by Uber, leaving our car in her garage. We arrived three and a half hours early.

We got on the plane and then hunkered down for the 15-hour journey. They fed us quickly, turned out the lights, and then at noon we tried to convince our bodies it was night and go to sleep. It was a tough sell, but eventually, we both took naps. I would wake up and consider the clock. I wanted to wake up on the plane and then stay awake on Korean time. When we reached that spot, I put up my pillow and sat up straight. Then we crossed the international date line and when we arrived in Korea it was three in the afternoon on Tuesday. Or about 29 hours after we left Dallas.

Upon arrival, we got ready to make our way to Seoul. The airport is about an hour away from downtown. On the recommendation of Korean travelers, I had already downloaded a Korean mapping app, because Google Maps will not give routes in Korea. We waited at baggage claim with growing anxiety as the crowd slowly thinned. Due to getting to the airport early, our bags are almost always on the plane first, which means they come off the plane last. In fact,Cindy's bag was the last one to plop onto the carousel.

We headed to the subway to ride to our hotel. My plan was to go straight to the hotel, shower, clean up, and then go to sleep. We were both bleary-eyed.

We needed to get a subway card to ride the train and that took some doing because the card we wanted could only be purchased once you had a train ticket. So we finally managed to buy 1 way single-use tickets and then get to the machine to buy "Wowcards." Which function as debit cards and transport cards. We put some money on the card and then headed off to our hotel.

I put the name into the map and we followed the instructions. We arrived by express train to the main terminal. We were zombie-like as we navigated the corridors. The map said to exit at #12 and then walk a block to the hotel. We thought we could share a wowcard, but learned that we each needed one, so we searched until we found the machine lurking in the dark under some escalator steps. Then we decided to get some lunch and settled for a burger and fries at the place next store, we were not ready yet to explore Korean cuisine.

Then off the info booth and directions to exit #12. It was hot and very humid and by the time we arrived at the hotel, we were both drenched with sweat and in a stupor from sleep deprivation. Hotel reception seemed ready to get out the garlic and crosses to keep our undead bodies at bay. It was especially true when she told us that we were at the wrong hotel. This was a crushing and confusing blow. I pulled up our reservation and showed it to her. She then said, "There are two hotels here by the same name." She had seen this look before.

She offered to call a taxi. The call never materialized. I found the other hotel on the map and it said that a city bus led from right outside this hotel past 10 stops to the other hotel. So we descended to the street level and headed to the bus stop.

The right number bus arrived and we hoped on. I swiped my card and it chirped in a pleasing manner. Cindy swiped and it gave a sharp angry rebuttal. She tried again to no avail. My card was working, but hers was not. We exited the bus at our stop and apologized to the bus driver who seemed glad to get the walking dead off of his bus.

The doppelganger hotel was just a few feet away and we gladly slid into the cooler air. We finally got into our room and started making plans for the next day. I needed to solve the bus ticket problem. After digging, I discovered that the money we had put on the card was only useful for the debt card side part of the card and that transportation money had to be added separately. So I walked to a convenience store, handed them some money and they were glad to put that money on the T-Card. I finally got back to the hotel, clean-up and then laid down and went right to sleep.

찬물도 위아래가 있다 

There is a proper order to everything.

To the mountains.

We woke up early which meant it was 4 PM back home and 6 AM on our clocks. We repacked into one bag, just enough for an overnight excursion. We checked our bags with the hotel front desk and then slid down the elevator to the ground floor. We walked 50 feet to entrance #12 (the same number that led to the wrong hotel) and went into the subway. We walked for about 5 min until we reached the orange 3 train and rode it to the Express Bus Terminal.

We scurried underground through a warren of tunnels, making progress and missteps, until we finally emerged and found the bus stop. I had made reservations on a sleeper bus to take us two and a half hours to the East coast of the country to the town of Sokcho. From there, we would get a local bus #7 to head to Seoraksan National Park.

For the first hour, we enjoyed seeing the city and then the countryside. It's very mountainous. We made a pit stop and then rested as we arrived at the seaside village.

The bus terminal was humble and there was not much signage and it was pouring down rain. It is always at this point when we are traveling that our brains are shouting, "Go home!", but our wills are telling us, "Press ON!"

We went to the ticket booth and asked for the #7 bus and were given a dismissive hand wave and sharp answer that we took to mean, "Outside, that way."

We walked into the rain and over to a bus stop and tried to read the signs. It took a while for us to grasp that we were at the taxi stand and they could not understand why were were not getting into one of the cars. Cindy retraced our steps and got the same answer. She then found an information booth outside the station and returned triumphant with the answer, "Walk 100 yards, down the street, cross the street, walk 50 yards back up the street to a bus stop, and wait there."

We followed those helpful instructions and then dutifully our chariot arrived. We hopped on, swiped our cards, got happy chirps, and settled into our seats for the 45-minute journey to the park.

설악산 국립공원 (외설악

Seoraksan National Park

"Seoraksan Mountain is renowned for its natural splendors and breathtaking views. It holds the distinction of being Korea's first UNESCO Biosphere Reserve and is also listed on the IUCN Green List. The mountain is divided into Inner Seorak, South Seorak, and Outer Seorak, which includes Daecheongbong Peak (1,708 meters above sea level), ranking as the third-highest peak in Korea. The area is celebrated for its popular hiking trails, with the sunrise and sunset views from the top being particularly spectacular."

They had me at "third highest peak."

The bus dropped us off at the entrance. We walked about 5 minutes back to our hotel, dropped off our bags, and then headed into the park for our first hike. We were disappointed that we could not see the mountains, due to the low-lying fog, but it was still very beautiful. There were lots of people, but not crowded. There were very few Westerners. Mostly families out for a stroll and hikers intent on a workout. Some people were in serious gear, while others looked like they were dressed for an evening at the theater.

We stopped for grilled ham/cheese sandwiches and some delightful honey treats which were the specialty of the area (It looked like a Twinkie but was filled with honey and honeycomb instead of cream and it was cooked fresh as we waited). We then took the path up the stream toward Biseondae Rock. It was barrier-free at first and then got a bit more challenging. By the time we got back to the hotel we were soaked to the bone, had walked 9.23 miles, gained 1,273 feet, been out about 6 hours, and were exhausted.

We went to the convenience store to get something to eat because the hotel restaurant did not open for another hour but settled for protein bars we had brought from home and early sleep.