Hiking In Korea

Koreans love to hike and they love to buy hiking gear.  Even if they are going for what we would consider "a walk" the Koreans will get dressed in expensive hiking gear all the way down to the hiking poles.  Many times it makes Russ and I laugh because they have hundreds of dollars worth of high-tech hiking clothing on and we have a bottle of water and some Nikes.

Knowing this we were not sure what to expect when we were invited to go hiking with some Koreans that partner with Russ' unit.  (Many of the military units here partner up with local Korean business people in order to form good relationships between the community and the military.  This program is called the Good Neighbor Program-GNP.  The Marines' have a very active GNP.  They typically have a GNP outing once a month to various places all over Seoul.  Over our next 3 years we will do many activities with the GNP and you will hear a lot about it.)  So we laced up our Nikes, filled our water bottles and headed out to the meeting place.  We took a bus about an hour outside of Seoul to a mountain called

Easier to take a picture then try to write it down.

It was a beautiful day for a hike and the scenery was breathtaking.  We hiked along an old fortress wall up to a command post.

There were about 20 American and about 10 Koreans with us on the hike.

Lucy taking some pictures.  She is a great photographer.  It is fun to see the world through "Lucy's eyes".

Taking a break to check out the view.

Unfortunately it was a little hazy that day which made it difficult to see far.

This is the Republic of Korea (ROK) Marine Commandant's wife.  Since I have been in Korea I have met both the US Marine Commandant's wife and the ROK Commandant's wife. 

After the hike we had a very Korean lunch and watched a traditional Korean performance.

It was a good day for our family.  We love to hike and will do many more hikes in the next months as the weather cools and the leaves change.