Hiking In The Freezing Weather

When we received orders to Korea we started to look at and ask other people about the weather.  The general consensus we learned was that Korea has wet, hot summers and dry, very cold winters with the temperatures ranging around the same as Washington D.C. temperatures.  I guess after living in NC for the last 3 years I had forgotten when very cold meant because it is FREEZING here.  Literally, we haven't had a day above freezing for weeks.  In fact, if it gets up in the 30's it is warm and we all talk about what a beautiful day it is.  And as for a dry winter--well that was a joke.  We have had snow at least once a week for the last 4 weeks.  And a fairly significant amount as well.  We are really regretting our decision to leave the snow shovel in storage.  At first we stayed inside everyday, because it was just to cold to go outside, but after a few weeks inside we decided we needed to venture out in the snow and cold or we would be stuck inside all winter.  The Koreans don't really do snow removal here.  The roads aren't too bad because so many people drive on them, but the snow on the side walks just get pounded down until they are long slick surfaces.  This makes getting out a bit rough since we walk pretty much everywhere.

This is what all the sidewalks look like all over Seoul for days (or weeks) after it snows.

Russ' job here right now is very demanding with long hours and not very many days off.  But his boss took a few days of leave over the Christmas holiday which meant Russ was able to take a few days off as well.  He had 6 full days off in a row!  That was, by far, my best Christmas present.  We spent Christmas inside but after Christmas we decided to venture out and do some hiking.  Our family loves to hike and be outdoors and Korea is the perfect place for that activity.  Seoul is surrounded by 4 mountains and each have numerous hiking trails on them.  The Koreans also love to hike and you may remember from a previous post that I did about hiking that they love to buy all the gear and get all decked out before they go for a hike.  Our family doesn't really do that, we just make due with what we have.  Since we knew there was a bunch of snow on the ground we decided that the girls should wear their snow boots to hike instead of sneakers.  That ended up being a very good decision.  The higher on the mountain we went the more snow there was.  Lucy especially CANNOT keep her hands and feet out of the snow and so it was much better for her to have the waterproof shoes on.

We decided to hike a mountain that was about an hour subway ride away.  The scenery was beautiful and completely snow covered.

This was a frozen, snow covered stream.

 

As we hiked and worked up a sweat we started to strip off the layers we had put on.

The last half of the mountain was pretty much just straight up steps.  They had numbered the steps for us so we could see how many we had climbed.  I don't know if it was encouraging or discouraging to see how many steps you had climbed.

This was pretty close to the top.  A lot of the numbers were covered in snow and ice so this was the last one we could see before the top.

Here we are almost at the top of the mountain at a beautiful, and very cold, lookout.

Once we got to the very top we ate lunch and Russ had packed some hot water to make cider and coffee to drink to help us warm up.  They had a small vendor stand at the top of the mountain where you could buy hot ramen noodles and a few other warm drinks.  Here is a man bringing supplies up to the top of the mountain:

Shorts and a t-shirt in the 30 degree weather.

Eating our lunch at the top.

Family picture at the very top-it was COLD. 

Hiking back down the mountain is always much faster and easier.  We stopped to take a few pictures on the way down as well.

They have natural springs along the trail where you can fill up your water bottles and get a cold drink of water.  

These are especially nice in the summer when it is very hot.

Lucy can't help herself, she has to play in the ice and snow.

We finally made it back to the bottom of the mountain.  It was a good hike but a little bit cold.  We got the girls a snack to eat on the way home.

Heading back down in the subway to go home.

Lucy just wants to eat her snack...she isn't into taking any more pictures.

Taylor got a new ipod touch for Christmas.  Russ saw this cool advertisement in the subway and stopped to take a picture of her beside it.

I didn't let those few seconds of time go to waste...  :)

Russ said "Seriously, I stop for 30 seconds to take a picture and you have gone shopping and purchased something.  That must be a record."

The Koreans have no sense of personal space.  They will just continue to crowd you in until there is no space between you and them.  It was very difficult for me at first, but I'm getting better with it.