逍遙山 Soyosan
Today I climbed Soyosan. I was curious about going there because it was the end of Seoul subway line number 1. Line number 1 has three endpoints – now I have been to two of them.
Before getting on at City Hall station, I could see protesters making their way to the venue:
I had heard from people I know that Soyosan was not recommended because it costs 2,000 won to get in (less than 2USD). I think the real reason was that following the ridgeline, the trail wasn’t really marked. Given that I got there fairly late in the day, I had no hikers blocking me. I was on my own. I was able to beat the time given to follow the trail easily. There was an interesting Buddhist temple at the entrance to the actual trails.
As I said, the trail isn’t really marked, other than guideposts in some difficult places and the occasional sections of actual trail worn down by hikers previously:
I went around the mountains in a clockwise direction. Coming down would have normally been fairly quick, especially since the trail was marked and had steps going down. However there was a lot of rain recently, so I had to take extra care not to slide down the trail. Perhaps I should have brought some spikes with me.
At the end, I saw the Buddha cave where I had started.
When I got off the subway again at City Hall station, I couldn’t go home by bus. Though the crowds were smaller than last week (probably due to it being Memorial Day), the streets were blocked off just as much.
綠茶納豆パンダ 
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