South Korea day 2

I woke up at 6:20am to go hiking with the American guy, Nick. The hostel was already quite far north west of Seoul, so it was only a half hour public transport ride to Bukhansan National park. We decided to do the Baegundae peak which was the shortest of the hikes so we could be back at the hostel by 1:00pm. I was quite amazed to see how many elderly people were climbing the mounting with us. Sure, they were slow, and hilariously over equiped; seriously they all had walking poles, and professional hiking clothes, but I got pretty inspired by it none the less, mainly because most Australian elderly people I meet typically waste away watching TV and drinking beer all day. Go Korea! 

The hike itself was easy and short, although some icy bits made it a bit tough at times. The peak itself was amazing though. I got an epic panorama shot which I'll share on Facebook soon.

For the hike I had repurposed a plastic beer bottle from last night by filling it with water. Funnily enough, the beer flavored water tasted identical to the actual Cass beer I drank last night. Drinking from the bottle with powerful, desperate gulps in the early morning on the public bus on the way back might have given the other Koreans a very concrete stereotype of white westerners.

When we got back, the Koreans had made a huge lunch and invited us to eat with them. It was a broth filled with vegetables, clams and a few spices. Delicious.

After I had rested up I decided to go to IPark mall to see the world famous esports stadium. It's an arena littered with seats, plasma screens and 10 computers. Sadly the famous Dota 2 international tournament had ended 2 days before I arrived, so the stadium was empty. The cleaner there still allowed me to look around after I begged him for 5 minutes. The next big computer game being played there was "heartstone" on Friday. Even I was not nerdy enough to see that.

From there I decided to walk to Iteawan, a 30 min walk. On the way I visited the Korean National Museum and passed an American Army base. Once I hit Iteawan ibwas blown away at how western it was. There were Americans everywhere and every street was littered with pubs, food outlets, and clubs.

It was getting quite late at this point so I decided to buy some more rice cake with spicy sauce and head back to the hostel.