Sept. 6, 2008 Inwangsan Shamanist Hillsdie Walk turned into Mt. Inwang Hike

We decided to take a Lonely Planet Walking tour to the Inwangsan Shamanist Hillside to see a few of the Shaman temples: Bongwonsa and also Guksadang. Well, Lonely Planet must have left off a few important details because, we were quickly in wandering mode. It doesn't help ease the situation either when there are no street signs to find out where and the world you are. The Koreans use buildings as reference sites when giving directions. It's really a funny way of trying to get around. I'm thankful to our upstairs German neighbor who gave us his business card. On the back is a map to our house and our address written in Korean as well.

It's been very humid here, and B and I are waiting for the temperatures to drop. I think it was 86 + high humidity. Well, we wound up asking a few people for directions--they basically motioned us to go straight. We went straight all right..straight up into some Korean's garden and all. As we trucked through the tall brush and plants to try and get to the other side, we finally found an opening that led us back to the street. We kept climbing...and walking straight as we were told to do so--passing nothing Lonely Planet was referring to. We climbed 300-400 m. up Mt. Inwang across rocky terrain (I haven't mentioned the fact that I was in a white skirt and my sandals--all the Koreans were decked out in their hiking gear) for a lovely view of the city!!

We saw a Korean lady filling up her water jug from a fresh water spring. She managed to carry the container on her head back down. Wow...that takes talent. We wandered back down the mountain and had not a clue where we were. We quickly bought cold melon pops to cool us down--they are amazing. They taste like honeydoo melon but are ice cream pops!!

Sat. night we decided to hit a Live Jazz Bar located in the Daehangno area--They had a lot of cute cozy bars and restaurants in this area of town. The jazz band was nice except for the overly energetic Saxophone player--he was playing like he was on some serious cans of Red Bull.

Check out the wiring system here! This is very common! Scary eh? Walking through some Korean's garden

You can see the old fortress wall and Namsan (Seoul) tower in the background.

Seriously...check out the veggies growing on the right.
The rock that looks like a man doing the "kimchi" squat.
Amazing view from the top. This was worth the climb. Well..maybe.
Another view of the city.
The Blue House. This is the Korean Presidential House.
You can see it on the left. Blue stands for nobility.

While we were lost, we randomly passed by the Front Gate of Sajikdan

On our walk back to our home...Korean cooks chilling on the steps of Itaewon.
Live Jazz