Autumn Leaves at Songnisan

At last the bright colors of fall are here.

We planned a day trip with our neighbor friends to Songnisan, a very large national mountain park. Having gone to the mountains quite a few times now, I think I have a decent grasp on what a casual Korean mountain visit looks like.

Before you reach the mountain itself, you will walk through a main thoroughfare of restaurants and street vendors. It reminds me a little of the feel of resort towns, with many small shops selling ceramics and traditional-looking souvenirs. But the sidewalks are also crowded with little old women and men selling fresh and dried produce.

At Songnisan, mushrooms and daechu were the local crops being sold by many street vendors. Daechu are about the size of a grape tomato and are the texture of an apple with a very subtle sweet flavor. Daechu are sold fresh and dried, and the dried version is used in traditional medicines and food dishes.

You've done well to make it past all of the shops and then you arrive at the park itself. If there is a mountain in Korea, it has at least one Buddhist temple. That is a gross underestimation. Usually the mountains are pocked with the pointy roofs of several temples. So if you are going for a hike in the mountains of Korea, you will see many temples.

Even before entering the park you can see Buddhist influence, like the symbols on the bridge below or the gate.

I'm more of a nature person, wanting to admire the trees and fall colors, but the temple we visited was pretty impressive, with something like a 1500 year history. It also housed two national treasures, the giant buddha statue and the 5 story building below. I don't remember much information about the particular history of this temple. It did have more fish-related things than other temples we have visited before. Small bells with hanging fish are on the corners of the 5-story building, and there is a carved wooden water dragon.

It's a relaxing and picturesque stroll mixing pretty man-made structures with beautiful nature.

You can always find little alcoves of trickling mountain water and ladles to refresh yourself. Many people splash the water in their face and drink out of the ladles. Drinking fresh mountain water is another highlight and standard of visiting the Korean mountains.

We headed back down the mountain and prepared to have lunch at one of the shops we passed before. We returned along a different path and I especially liked hopping these rocks across a calm mountain stream. It reminded me a little bit of the rocks back home in the Congaree River.

If you look closely you will see little rock cairns stacked in the river and along its edge. You can see a person or two admiring one of those cairns. Those are our neighbors and they were especially impressed with a cairn that used large, oddly shaped rocks yet still was balanced and stable.

On the way down, we did a special rock walk. You take off your shoes and there are countless tiny marbles of a certain type of clay that has some health benefits. It is part torture, part foot massage, and the clay beads coat your feet with a fine chalky layer. For some reason the guys found this more uncomfortable than we girls did.

I had to pause during our somewhat excruciating rock walk to snap this picture. This tree was my favorite, for obvious reasons.

Food time! There are foods especially associated with autumn trips to the mountains, so I'm told. Korean pancakes and dongdong ju. Korean pancakes have a salty, not sweet, batter with vegetables, kimchi and/or seafood mixed in. Dongdong ju is a fun name for a traditional tasting drink. It's a sweet rice wine that has ginseng and daechu steeped in it.

The other things we ate: mixed rice with mountain mushrooms in the silver bowls, and I believe pork tenderloin. Isaac saw meat roasting on a skewer out front of this restaurant and had to eat it. :)

So that is Songnisan as we saw it. Walking on, looking at and eating wonderful things.