Jirisan NP - Day 3

Our third and final day of hiking. Today was such a beautiful and clear day. It was my favorite day of hiking for sure and the views were so spectacular. I just couldn't stop taking pictures. We got up at 5 am again, ate pop tarts and started on the trail. The sunrise was breathtaking.Wow. I wish you could have seen it. It took a little under 3 hours to hike to Cheonwangbong Peak (1,915m) the 2nd highest peak in South Korea. So now we have hiked the highest peak (Mt. Hallasan on Jeju Island), the 2nd highest (Cheonwangbong) and the 3rd highest when we were at Soraksan NP. Despite the pain (my foot) and how tired we were, the views today and the time we spent with each other doing this 3 day adventure, made it all worth it. So, here are some views from Cheonwangbong.We then took the direct way down which was really hard on my foot and our knees, but we made it. I tried really hard not to think about the pain, and for the most part it worked. Its amazing what you can do if put your mind to it. It was another 4 hours of hiking to get to the Jungsani park entrance. Once we got to the bottom, we found that we had to take a bus to Jinju. However we got confused as to where the bus would pick us up and ended up missing the first bus we could have gotten. Before we knew that though, we got something to eat just outside the entrance. A nice Korean man from Seoul helped us figure out the menu and suggested a vegetable pizza and potato pizza, which were really like pancakes instead of pizzas and he paid for the meal too. We tried to pay, but he wouldn't let us. That was so nice of him. I can't even put into words how nice that was. We really liked the vegetable pancake thing. Here is Ben with both.
When we realized, with the help of one of the park workers, that we were in the wrong place for the bus, we had 2 minutes to walk 15-20 minutes. Thus we started walking quickly. We didn't have the energy to run. The same park worker then got in his truck and told us to get in and he drove us (very quickly) down the hill to the bus stop. Unfortunately we didn't get there in time, but were thankful for the ride. Random acts of kindness, just amazing and really awesome to benefit from. We took the bus, then another 2 buses, and 2 taxi rides and finally got back to my room around 10pm. It was a long day. The experience was great though. What I love about hiking here in Korea, is that almost everyone says hi and so now I always say hi to everyone and they say hi back. I love that. People are genuinely nice here and are helpful. It is awesome. If you come here, I wouldn't expect it and I wouldn't seek it out, but when it happens, just randomly happens, its a great feeling. I am tired from this weekend, but glad that we did it.