Hiking Seoraksan National Park

The Sanwooro hiking club of Siemens invited for a one day trip to the Seoraksan National Park. I accepted and on Friday, the 26th of September we started in a bus to the west coast of Korea. I was the only expat within a group of 13 hikers. After a three hours' drive we arrived at a leisure pension nearby our hiking startig point at about 500 meter above sea level. A dinner was prepared at the pension, lots of meat, rice, tofu soup, various vegetables and Soju. All the vegetables were from fields growing around the pension and home prepared. Some of the food ingredients take a long time to become proper food, up to eight years. I liked especially the variety of chilies, fresh ones, dried ones and fresh green chili leaves. The hot and tasty dinner was long and with a lot of Soju even loud, the night became quite short. 

Breakfast early in the morning at another house, nearby the pension. Here all food home-made too and delicious likewise. After breakfast the bus brought us to Jangsudae Ranger Station, our entry to the huge Seoraksan National Park. From here we followed the path to Daeseungnyeang, than over the Eungbang Falls to the Namcyori Park Ranger Station. A six hours walk, three hours on mostly steep wooden stairs up to a high point of 1370 meter, than three hours down on mostly gently sloping, but pebbly paths. Wonderful sceneries and best weather for such a hike made my first approach to Korean countryside to a great experience.

our leisure pension

pickled food ingredients

chili field

various vegetables

breakfast lodge

sun comes out

our starting point

hiking colleagues, I was the only expat

two of the 'Twelve Fairy Bathing Springs' in the Sibiseonnyeotang Valley

the most famous 'Bathing Spring'

beneath the road on the way home

Drum performance Seoul Plaza

Two days off work with my visitors from Vienna brought some exploring-Seoul-surprises. A very nice one turned out to be a drum performance at Seoul Plaza. 

Alexander and Sabine made friends with some schoolgirls which were involved in the performance. Of course we followed the program. 

Korean nationwide archery competition 1961 in Seoul

By chance a got three photos from 1961, showing a Korean national archery competition in Seoul. With the help of my teacher in Koran language I found out some interesting Korean archery history. The Chinese inscription on one of the photos identified the building as Hwanghakjeoung and we found out that this building still exists. The 1961 event was the fourth competition; this nationwide archery competition for men and women was started in 1958. The inscription on the transparent shows the name of the sponsoring Korean daily newspaper Hankook. By internet we found some photos from the 1958 archery competition, sponsored by the same newspaper already.

The three photos are by Wide World Photo, an American stock photo agency, which still exists. Each photo still has its original caption, which is shown here too.

A visit of the actual site of the Hwanghakjeoung pavilion today showed nearly the same scenery as on the 1961 photos. The attending archers, which still use the traditional Korean bow, were highly interested in the old photos. The description of the pavilion is in English too, thus I learned some more historical details, which I let follow in abridged form.

The Hwanghakjeoung archery pavilion originally was built in 1898 at the area of the Gyeonghiugung Palace in Seoul.

In the year 1894 bows were excluded from military use, but Emperor Gojong gave command to use archery for the cultivation of mind and body of the Korean people. As a result of that command, the Hwanghakjeoung pavilion was built in the Royal Palace and opened to the public. It is said, that Emperor Gojong personally enjoyed archery and often visited Hwanghakjeoung.

During the Japanese government the Gyeonghiugung Palace was demolished and government buildings were erected instead of the Palace.

The Hwanghakjeoung was moved to its current site at Sajik-dong in 1922. Seoul had during the Joseon Dynasty five bow training places and this current site of the Hwanghakjeoung is one of these traditional ones. 

  

the Hwanghakjeoung pavilion

same sight and shoot length as in 1961

the old Chinese name of the pavilion

Further reading:

http://m.blog.naver.com/sun0665/90193582429

http://www.archerynews.net/