Hiking Achasan

Here we go with trying to catch up on the Korea posts on our blog!

Seoul is the greenest big city I've ever been in (I would guess it's probably one of the more greener metropolises in the world, but that's just a guess based on the few large cities I've experienced). In amongst the apartment buildings and sprawling city lie more mountains than you can count. On May 26, one of our Saturday's off, Jonathan and I headed over to another part of the city to hike Achasan (Mt. Acha). We started with a fairly easy climb to a pavilion at the peak. We were surprised at how fast we reached the top and spent a few minutes resting there, looking at the city below, and watching Koreans hiking up the trail, some carrying bikes above their heads. Then we realized that the trail actually went up past the pavilion and connected with another trail going up the side of the actual mountain. I guess the first part was just a small hill. So we continued on and hiked for several more hours up to the real top of Achasan. From there we could have continued on to a sister mountain, but we decided we'd have to leave that one for another time and descended the same trail we'd hiked up. It was a nice hike, but the view of the city was rather hazy that day, which was sad because otherwise we might have been able to see quite a long ways away.

Posing at what we thought was the top

Intricate ceiling paintings

A small library in the pavilion where weary hikers could rest

Some of Seoul

Stairs to the top of an old fortress wall

Us in front of hazy Seoul

Camouflaged light pole

Update: Back in NA!

Wow, it's been soooo long since we've done a thing on this blog. Sorry for our neglect. Halfway through our time in Vietnam I jotted down a short update about what we'd been up to so far on our trip and the things we hoped to see next. It turned out that our thoughts before arriving in Vietnam were way too ambitious. We definitely didn't make it to Cambodia or Laos. We almost didn't even have time to do all of the things we wanted to do in Vietnam! It really is quite a long country, and with travel being rather slow there, we were hard-pressed to have time to explore Hanoi and Halong Bay before needing to get back to Ho Chi Minh City for our flight home. In the end, we did actually get to do most everything on our list in Vietnam before heading back to North America. Yay!

Next we flew to Shanghai and spent our long layover getting to downtown, going up the Oriental Pearl tower, standing in long lines for elevators to get to the various levels of the tower, and then rushing back to the airport. It was a whirlwind visit and of course there was so much more to see than we were able to experience, but at least we got a small taste. After hurrying back to the airport, we discovered that we had a delay. Finally, four and a half hours later, we were up in the air, and then in another eleven hours we were back on the ground on Canadian soil. We caught part of the opening ceremony for the London Olympics while we waited for our baggage to arrive at the Vancouver airport and then met my parents who had come to pick us up (poor things had been waiting for several hours for us). Then we all drove back to Hope, BC where our BC Campmeeting is held. We were there for a weekend and it was so nice to visit with friends from home again! Then we went "home" to Kelowna, BC where we worked on packing up my room (Jonathan did most of the work while I went to various appointments and sorted through lots of papers). The weekend of August 5 was a fun one because lots of my relatives came to Kelowna for my grandparents 60th wedding anniversary and my great-aunt's 90th birthday celebration. It was wonderful to see so many family members all together again and the party was great fun, too. After another week or so of packing, Jonathan and I headed out pulling a U-Haul trailer across the Trans-Canada Highway. For the next five days (well, six including a stop at my sister's house in Ottawa for Sabbath) we worked our way across Canada. Finally, about 5,600 km later, we crossed the border into the U.S. and arrived in Brunswick, Maine five hours later (6,066 km total - half the distance through the earth!). It was a long trip, but I was thrilled to be able to do it. I've always wanted to drive across Canada on the Trans-Can and watch the country's landscape changing before my eyes. I loved it!

So now you're caught up with what transpired between the last post and the present. Of course we have LOTS of catching up to do, both from our last couple months in Korea and our travels during the summer. Make sure to check up on the blog in the next few weeks (or months) as we work to blog about the last part of our experiences overseas. Thanks again for being such faithful readers!