Yesterday we traveled to Bukhansan National Park for a hike up its mountain towards a Buddhist temple. Since it rained yesterday, the trip up was brutal. The river was more active and fuller than it usually is, and the ground was slippery and muddy at times. Thankfully, no one was seriously hurt during our hike. It was a long trip that took a couple of hours and had an elevation of around 800 meters. Although it was hard, I found the trip fun and relaxing.
Once we made it to the top, we had to climb over 100 steps to get to the base of the temple. And beyond that, another 100 steps to reach the Budda which was ingrained in stone. Needless to say, my legs were mush by the end of the long hike. I think that the journey was worth it because we were able to get to see some unique cultural aspects of Korea on the top of a mountain that had a fabulous view. It was nice and quiet at the peak, and we were able to relax while taking in the view. The way back down the mountain was much easier because we followed a road instead of a hiking trail.
The last event of the day was a cultural cooking class. We were taught how to cook bibimbap which is made by combining five different colored foods into a rice dish. The cook made it look extremely easy, but once we got started, we knew it would not be as easy as we thought. There was a lot of things we had to remember to add into our dish. My team struggled with cutting the vegetables into similar sizes and our yokes broke on our eggs which removed the yellow color they were supposed to be. However, once we started eating we were satisfied with our work because it was really good.