Picture One-Buddha giving to the poor, a frescoe at the temple
Picture Two-
The view from half way up the mountain looking twoards the sea
Picture Three-
The bell tower
Picture Four-
The view from the top of the mountain
Ulzinbawi- The Old Man
Sokcho Diary
23.9.06
There is a new waygooks here in town, an Irish lad named Conner from Dublin. He just arrived in Sokcho last week and we met here in Dongjin today as I was leaving to go and climb Ulzinbawi with Karen. He seemed like a nice enough guy, and being new in town I asked him if he would like to go up the mountain with us, kind of like a little tour.
We walked down to the bus stop about noon, and what a nice day it was. Blue skies with little streaks of white clouds at about twenty five thousand feet and a warm sun keeping the temperature at about seventy degrees, a really great fall day.
We met Karen down by Sokcho beach where she lives, on the other side of town from me and we rode out to Sorak-san together, talking about schools, jobs, and the places that we have been.
Turns out that this is Conner’s second tour in Korea, he had worked for a chain school in Incheon before and wanted to get back to nature this time around so he looked around a bit and found our little piece of heaven here in Gangwon-do.
We rode out through the river valley, past the rice fields that are just about ready to harvest. It was just a few weeks ago that the rice paddies were a deep, dark green and now they have become golden, like ripe wheat. The hulls at the top of the rice wave gently in the breeze that has become a daily part of here in Sokcho.
Rice is what makes life here in Korea what it is. A popular greeting, still to this day, here in Korea, is “Did you eat your rice today?” This harks back to the time just after the Korean War when food of any kind, even rice, was scarce. It is good to see, even today in the age of huge agribusiness, the small family farms here, and all over Korea, that provide this staple to the Korean people.
Back to the story of Ulzinbawi, so sorry for the digression about rice!
When the bus headed through Sorak town the traffic started. Even though the leaves are not even starting to turn the park was packed with tourists from all over Korea and even abroad. The bus was stuck in a massive traffic jam and we got off at the Kensington Hotel stop to walk the rest of the way.
After stopping by the statue of Buddha to pray for a safe hike we headed up into the hills. Along the way we stopped and went through a temple that was originally built in 1543, destroyed during the Korean War and rebuilt in the sixties.
This temple is not the commercial enterprise that so many have become. It is a pretty simple place with a few buildings housing the gold statues of Buddha and some long, low, yellow buildings that the monks live in.
All the buildings are painted in brilliant colours and have wonderful frescos on the walls depicting Buddha seeking enlightenment and giving to the poor.
When you walk through the main gate of the temple you pass through a building that houses some statues of Buddha and the saints. In front of you is a gravel courtyard with a two buildings, one bigger than the other, that house the gold statues of Buddha where the faithful kneel and pray, lighting joss sticks to ensure good fortune.
Behind the courtyard there is a small building, probably the most ornate in the temple that houses the bell that calls the monks to prayer. The building is painted in brilliant colours, reds, greens, blues, and yellows and there is a small walkway leading to it, unfortunately blocked off. The bell itself is huge and there is a wooden beam tied on a frayed rope that hangs next to the bell that the monks slam against the bell to make its sound.
After leaving the temple we hiked up through the greenery and past the usual rest areas that serve beer, soju, and seafood pancakes.
When we got to the base of the rock we started up through a rock fall and soon reached the bottom of 833 very steep stairs that wind their way up to the top.
After about forty minutes we reached the top of Ulzinbawi. The rock outcropping that is Ulzinbawi looks out over Sokcho and the sea. There is not one specific peak; rather it stretches in a line about a half a kilometer like jagged teeth that are set away from the more major mountains that are behind the rock.
A very old Korean legend says that the god of the city of Ulsan heard that the Sokcho area was very beautiful and he decided to move there. When he got to Sorak-san all of the other gods had taken the best spots and he was forced to move outside of Sorak-san and he became the jagged line of peaks that have become Ulzinbawi.
I really expected the climb to be harder than it was. People had been telling me for a while that this climb was very difficult and strenuous, that the 833 stairs would do me in, but it just wasn’t. Too be honest I felt the climb was almost too easy, it lacked the challenge of Dae-chun-bong, the mountain that I climbed a few weeks ago. While the view from the top was good and it was fun to climb with Karen and Conner I am going to seek out more strenuous hikes before the snow and cold of winter close down the hiking in Sorak-san.
