I’m going to start this off by saying something highly controversial, so please brace yourselves. If you’d rather not continue, that’s fine; I understand. For those of you who are prepared, here we go:

Mountains are fantastic.

Yeah, I said it. Mountains are great. So, yeah, I guess it’s not that controversial, and maybe it was all a ploy to get you to read two more sentences in the vein of the not-so-clever-but-very-effective teasers for next week’s episode of The Bachelor, not that this author would know. In all seriousness though, I don’t even really know what it is about mountains; I know that they’re beautiful. I know that they’re awe-inspiring. But I don’t know why they’re beautiful, why they cause us to pause in awe. I just know that whenever Mandi and I spend time in the mountains, it recharges our batteries in a way that other things simply don’t.

Sokcho, with nearby Seoraksan National Park, its local beaches, delicious food, and slower-paced feel, has been on our list of places to visit in Korea basically since we learned about it, and a month or so after returning from Hanoi, we thought a quick weekend trip would be the perfect time to check it out, especially with the warm spring weather in full swing. Mandi, an expert selector of accomodations (note: Daniel selected the club-side hotel in Hanoi…oops), snagged an AirBnB with a cute little deck overlooking the water, and we hopped on a particularly spacious express bus to Sokcho, just a short 2.5 hours trip from Seoul (including a well-needed restroom stop in the middle!).

Armed with a few great suggestions of what to do in Sokcho from our good friends, the Lofgrens, we headed to Seoraksan on day one to hang out in the mountains and do some hiking. Remember earlier when I said that mountains are fantastic? These mountains are really fantastic. The most-frequented area of the park is located in a valley with towering, jagged mountains on all sides bursting up through the walls of green trees that envelope the lower elevations of the valley.  There are ton of hiking options, including one that most people do in two days up to the top of Seoraksan (the mountain the park is named after). On some days, our hubris may have tempted us to attempt hiking to the summit of Seoraksan in one day, but a late start due to sipping coffee and eating scones on our deck prevented such a foolish attempt. Rough life, right?

Instead, we chose a shorter hike up to Ulsanbawi, which was just a mere 2.5 miles up with 1900 feet of elevation. Mandi was feeling a bit under the weather, so I was able to catch my breath and pretend that I wasn’t tired and was just resting because Mandi needed some rest. I’m not tired, you’re tired. It was so easy. Especially the part where we climbed seemingly a bajillion stairs. (Side note, it’s possible that Korean fried chicken is impacting my fitness level). Along the way we came to a unique temple and shrine built into the rock nearly ¾ of the way up our hike. It also featured Heundelbawi rock, which is a giant boulder that you can attempt to rock back and forth. At first we had Mandi take her picture attempting to push the rock, but it didn’t budge, and we thought that maybe it was just a thing that tourists did, but the next guy up started pushing and the boulder moved A LOT. Like, a somewhat terrifying amount. From there, we continued up, mostly vertically (check out the exponential curve-like shape of the elevation gain), to the top, where we enjoyed some spectacular views, especially considering that the air quality was pretty good that day (air quality is a big issue in South Korea right now).

Still not seasoned pros, we didn’t bring makgeolli and snacks with us on our hike, so we had to settle for snagging some after we got back down, which was easy to do given the multitude of restaurants in the valley. We fueled up and then hopped onto the cable car up to Gwongeumseong Fortress for one more spectacular view of the mountains before heading back to Sokcho for the evening, where we walked along the beach and headed to the fish market.

As it turns out, our visit to the Sokcho Tourist and Fishery Market would be the first of three. There was just too much delicious food to try, and while I, trained in the arts of continuous eating, could have gone from stall to stall consuming food forever, Mandi had to break up our eating excursions because her gluttony is not so far advanced as mine. That evening, we started with some stuffed squid sausage, which sounded a bit odd, you know, because it was squid stuffed with sausage and chopped up, and that’s not really something that happens in the US, but it was probably the most delicious thing we ate all weekend. There was tough competition though with ssiat hotteok (nut, seed, and honey-filled pancakes), makgeolli bread, squid-shaped dumplings, and, oh baby, delicious dak gangjeong (sweet and sour fried chicken…did I mention that fried chicken might be affecting my fitness?).

After another slow morning of coffee and fresh-baked bread, we snagged some of the aforementioned chicken and caught a bus to Naksan beach, where we indulged in the tasty morsels of crispy, crunchy, sweet and sour chicken, and although the weather had turned a bit since the day before, I can confirm that fried chicken is delicious regardless of the weather conditions, perhaps even enhanced by the less-desirable environment. Just up the hill from the beach, Naksansa Temple overlooks the ocean and beach, providing for fantastic views, so after snagging a coffee, which, through the power of my poor Korean skills came out as less of a coffee and more of a delicious sugar bomb with a side of cream (worse mistakes have been made), we trudged uphill, carrying the leftovers of our chicken in a to-go box.

Have you ever walked through a temple complex while carrying a half-eaten box of fried chicken? Because I have. Let me tell you, the looks that you get land somewhere between bewilderment, laughter, and intense jealousy. Maybe that wasn’t the best plan, but we certainly weren’t going to throw our treasured chicken in the trash. Anyway…we toured around the area, taking in the views, the colorful lanterns adorning seemingly every empty overhead space, and the smell of the pine trees as we meandered through the complex before hopping on a bus back to Sokcho, where we soon boarded a second bus taking us back to Seoul, concluding our weekend.

Even though it was only two days, and a full two days at that, the time away felt like it had been longer. There’s something about mountains, beaches, and trees that has that effect, slowing down the passing of time to a pace that is just a bit more manageable, a bit more enjoyable, and as we rolled back into Seoul, it was clear to both of us that we would need to make another trip out to Sokcho before our time here is over because, you know, mountains are fantastic.

• Shanghai Shenanigans
• Huangshan Mountains
• Little Things 2: Coming Back
• Beijing-ing
• Bali and The Legend of Chuck the Gecko