In Which We Drag My Fat Butt Up An Oreum

Well, it looks like I did get back on here today. I'm cool with that. Like I think I mentioned in my last post, we decided not to hike Hallasan (the big mountain on the island and the tallest mountain in South Korea) today because visibility was poor. As the day wore on, that proved to be an excellent decision, as the top of the mountain ended up being covered in clouds. As an alternate, we rode our bikes a little way away and instead hiked up an Oreum in our neighborhood. In case you didn't know, an oreum is a parasitic volcanic cone that is near a real volcano. Jeju has, I believe, 368 of them, so you're never far from one. Also, they all have names. The one we went to today was called Min Oreum, and it was pretty fun. There was quite a bit of forest on it, and true to Southeast Asian form, a goodly number of stairs. We got there and I realized pretty quickly that I had forgotten to put the SD card back in my camera. So, we took pictures with my phone, which takes fine pictures, but they are pretty small. Maybe if I post them extra-large they will be big, but they may be fuzzy. I'll experiment. Anyway here are some pictures:

Starting up the hill

Stairs!

All of the parks in Korea have exercise equipment in them,
but this was the first time I've seen free weights. I did twenty
reps with it. It had ten kilograms on each side, so it was probably
like 50 pounds tops.

Endless staircase. Stairway to heaven?

Summit!

Looking out over Shin(new) Jeju.

Looking out over Old Jeju (I don't know the Korean
word for old.).

They had more exercise equipment at the top.

Looking toward where Hallasan should be, if
all those stupid clouds weren't there.

On a side trail through the forest on the way back down.

So, it was pretty fun. I definitely managed to get drenched in sweat, so I'd say it was a productive hike. Overall, Korean hiking has proven (so far) to be much more about exercise than unadulterated nature, because there's definitely a whole lot of man-made stuff crammed into their nature. I can handle that, though. Also, I'm pleased to report that I hardly had any trouble at all on those stairs. I attribute it to my the fact that I've lost a bunch of weight here. It may also have something to do with the elevation. At any rate, that's about all I have for this post. This is Captain Danger out.