Camping in Korea

For the Cheusok holiday we decided to go camping and headed out to Gayasan National Park, about 2.5 hours away. Korean National Parks are really cool because they tend to pair up beautiful natural places with World Heritage sites so you get some cool history hand in hand with natural beauty. We got to the campsite Friday evening and on Saturday headed out for a hike to the top of Gayasan Mountain.

First we hit this amazing temple complex. We had no idea what to expect so we just went exploring

Went up a long path and through some gateways and went into this beautiful temple/monastary complex. This temple is 600 years old, but still actively in use! There were monks everywhere and some sort of ceremony going on in the main temple complex.

As always the beautiful, vibrant colors on the undersides of the eaves are amazing!

The kids were pretty fascinated and we peeked into the main building to see what all the chanting was about. This place also has an important historical significance as it is the hub of Korean printing. There are 1,000's of wooden tablets or "tripitaka" that were used to print and stuff. Check out the Wiki HERE.

We headed out some smaller gates that were still amazingly cool with all their colors.

Then down a beautiful tree-lined road back down to the main gate of the temple. One thing we still can't get over is how you just stumble across these amazing places in Korea. Here was a temple/monastery more beautiful than anything we saw in Japan, and it was totally uncrowded and totally FREE!! We were welcome to explore and look around and we didn't even have to pay to walk in a shoulder to shoulder zombie-like shuffle. Soooo cool.

Next we headed up the 4 km path (8 km round trip!) to the top of Mt. Gayasan. This was an extremely steep and challenging trail and the kids made it all the way to the top!

We climbed for a long time before we hit a neat rock with a great view and stopped for lunch. The temperature was perfect!

We finally got to the point just below the peak. We saw many hikers and hiking clubs but NO children. The Koreans couldn't get over Sasha and Teddy and how they were hiking on such a long and challenging trail. They made a huge fuss over them and many people gave them little candies and treats for being so strong and burly. One dude right before I took this pic gave Teddy an entire Kit-Kat bar which he is proudly showing off! Jeffs Fav! We were stoked.....

Went a little higher and got some great pics of these awesome rock outcrops.

And another view over one of the lesser peaks:

Us very close to the top: From here you can go back down the same trail back to Haeinsa or back down another way to a different spot in the park. We had to go back down the same trail to our car and our camp.

My proud little Teddy:

Back down the hill we went across a neat little bridge that the kids spotted and found some more traditional buildings and gardens. I snapped this shot where you can see Gayasan Mt. over the tops of the buildings.

A tomb complex that we thought was neat-o:

We went back to our camp and cooked dinner and then piled into the Team Stolasz tent. We actually slept very cozy and well both nights. The kids looove tenting out. The next day was Sunday and we broke camp and started heading slowly out of the park but had time to stop and see anything we thought looked cool. Of course we had to stop and see what this was:

It seemed to be some kind of shrine with lots of candles and statues. They were HUGE!! And this whole thing was carved out of solid Granite! To the left of the shrine area was a weird long staircase carved into the side of the mountain and we spotted some buildings up there so we had to go check it out.

Climbed WAAAAAY up and there were more temple buildings and this Amazing gong/chime/bell (take your pick) that I did not ring but wanted to sooooo bad!

I mean that sucker's just asking to be rung right? But it probably has some sort of special religious significance and I don't want to be imprisoned in a foreign country so I am getting really good about self-restraint.

Went around a building and Teddy found this little shrine so we climbed even higher!

What a cool find Ted! It was painted beautifully and this entire area up the mountain seemed to be functioning as another monastery location. There were monks all around going about their business.

Beautiful colors:

Kids laughing down at Dad:

When we headed back around the first temple building a monk had opened up the front of it and we got to peek inside. He started some chanting 5 minutes later but didn't ring the cool gong. Bummer.

Next we headed down the road again and hit this beautiful bridge and waterfall. Take a close look and you'll see some characters carved into the rock just above the water. We had to hike up to the bridge and cross of course.

Turns out that the entire rock face was carved with writing! Click on these pics and take a closer look!

Some of it was being erased by the water, some was worn almost totally away, and some was very clear and looked almost recent. It must have taken so much work to carve all that. Maybe if you were a monk and you blew it like said "pass the salt" at breakfast when there was supposed to be silence then you had to go write something as punishment. Worse the offense the closer to the water you had to work. It's just one hypothesis....

There was an open air pavilion on the other side of the bridge as well that was also beautifully painted and very old. My two awesome travelers:

The country side is beautiful right now and they are all most ready to start the next rice harvest. Here you can see a ton of rice paddies that are all green and ready.

So that was our Korean camping experience. SOOOO much fun, we saw another beautiful part of the country and the entire weekend cost us about 4,000 won. ($3.65  We had to buy some more bottled water.) You can't beat that! There is a really short video that gives you a taste of the sights and sounds inside the temple complex HERE.

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