Yeongsan Alps

Nathan and his girlfriend Kat were supposed to come down for a visit a couple of weekends ago. They stood us up though...or if you've been reading Nathan's blog you'll realize that he has more important matters to attend to, like his joints. So instead of letting him drag us to a norebang we went backpacking. It turned out to be a fabulous weekend although I still wish I'd gotten to see our Seoul friends.

We went to the Yeongsan Alps with Jackie and Josh. Hiking the Alps seemed like a grandiose title for this blog so I changed it. These Alps were beautiful and big...but not what I'd imagine if I hiked the Swiss Alps or the French Alps. I love camping and we had a great time with Jackie and Josh. I'm already dreading their going back to Canada since we don't know anyone else who schelpped their camping gear across the globe.

Yeongsan was filled with waterfalls, more specifically the famous Pariso waterfall. Pariso is prounced pa-ray-sohh not pa-rhi-so like I keep saying. I still have an spanish inflection on all my foreign words, but no...I'm not in latin america - even though I sometimes wish I were since I'm so much more comfortable there.

Asia is more different to me than anywhere else I've ever been. My friend Deirdre spent a summer in Okinawa. She said she felt farther away from home there than she did when she was in Germany - even though technically Germany is farther away from California than Japan is. I know what she means now. Every day is a new cultural experience for me.



I can't help it...I still have a knee-jerk reaction to golden idols. :)



Pariso waterfall - so pretty.
Jason and Jackie showing off the safety fence that would undoubtably prevent you from falling off the side of the cliff.
Jackie groovin' while we pitched the tents on the very helpful wooden platforms.

Sorry about the lack of pics of Jason on this trip. I had to give him a beer to hold in order to get the camera out of his hands.


This is a structure we found on our trip. I could be five years old or five hundred. I prefer to think we stumbled onto the forgotten laire of some famous or adventurous Korean.

Very cool smooth black trees that grew in small groves in the canyon.

Nice jump shot.

Catching my lunch for the day.
I love hiking up canyons. I guess this a symtom of living in Arizona for too long.

At the sadle of the peaks there was a boardwalk with soju tents, soup tents, and a paragliding club. It was fantastic watching the people take off but also humbling. I know I would never have the nerve to do such a thing.

These folks were interesting. My theory is that they were training for Everest in some strange way that I'm culturally unaware of.
Yuck! Hite beer...I wish it was a Stella.

On the other side of the mountain there was a buddhist shrine near a waterfall.
The candles inside are supposed to be continuously burning. Cute couple photo.
At the end of the hike we came upon a cherry blossom grove that was so brilliant that it looked like it was snowing.