Juwangsan National Park

Helen, Rabey, Chris, Frank, Melissa, and Jessie

Last Sunday, our boss Chris and his wife Jessie rented a mini-van and took us, along with two of our coworkers, on a three hour trip north to Juwangsan National Park. We haven't had many opportunities to travel much within Korea, so we jumped at the chance to see a new place in this country we've called home for 11 months now. The drive there was gorgeous! We drove through mountains, fields of apple orchards, and various farm land. Plus, we got to see the beautiful fall leaves!

Here we are with Helen (the receptionist at Omni) in the van we rented.

apple orchard

After driving by so many apple orchards, we decided to pull over and try some. They're called Red Honey Apples and were delicious.

Apples were everywhere in this city! The bus stops and light posts were even made to look like apples.

After the three hour drive, we were all ready to get out of the car and start exploring the national park. Well, it turned out that we weren't the only ones who thought it would be a good idea to visit the park that day...we waited in traffic for an hour outside the entrance. We finally decided it would be quicker to walk, so we parked in a random parking lot and walked along the side of the road for 45 minutes till we finally reached the entrance! It really was unbelievable how many people there were.

During our 45 minute walk, we passed more apple orchards, plus cabbage and red pepper gardens.

red pepper garden

Rabey decided to take a closer look at some goats we passed on our walk to the park.

Just outside of the entrance to the park was a street filled with restaurants and souvenir shops. We ate lunch outside and got to try a lot of new Korean foods that the area is known for.

The woman at the restaurant preparing our lunch.

One food that we tried was green onion pancakes called "Pajeon." This type of dish is really popular and is sometimes referred to as Korean pizza. It's also made by putting kimchi or other veggies in it. It's definitely not the healthiest food, but it tastes really good. If you're interested in trying to make it, check out this link for a recipe: http://www.koreanfeast.com/Recipe.html

Makgeolli- This is a traditional Korean alcohol made from rice that was served in every restaurant there. The rice gives it a milky, sweet flavor. It's made by fermenting boiled rice and water and was originally made by poor farmers. This makgeolli had apples added to it because the area is so well-known for their apples.

Never in Korea have we seen a man dressed in drag! We convinced Rabey to go and pose with the man...woman?

We finally made it into the park!

A temple in the park

The lake and rock cliffs were beautiful!

A huge pile of rocks...not sure the meaning behind it, but everyone was taking pictures with it!

It was sooooooo crowded with people! Picture Disney during Spring Break.

Throughout the national park were many rock cliffs. We particularly liked this one because it looked like it had a face!

Waterfalls:

The trails led to 3 different waterfalls. The one above was the first one we came across. We expected to turn the corner and see the real one, but, no, this was it.

We walked another 30 minutes down the path to waterfall #2. This one was worse than the first!!! We weren't even sure these would qualify as "waterfalls," more like "waterleaks." haha We opted to skip waterfall #3 and go check out the cave!

Cave: We really enjoyed exploring the cave. To get there, we had to climb 200 meters almost straight up, but the good thing was we were the only ones there, which was a nice break from the crowds.

Melissa in the cave

Helen

Rabey and Frank at the back of the cave.

We really had a great day at Juwangsan National Park! Next time, we want to climb to the peak of the mountain there since we didn't have time to climb this time.