Blog 40 - 17th April

The past few weeks has witnessed an amazing and speedy transformation from winter snow to spring time and cherry blossom. These first photos were taken 2 weeks ago when we climbed Taewhasan, with the Faculty Alpine Walking Club. This land and mountain are owned by the College of Agriculture and Life Science at Seoul National University. It was remote and wild and we spent 5 hours tramping through ice and beautiful snow.



Damien was so intent on not slipping he hit his head. It was literally two steps forward and one step back as we slipped and slid down hillsides with no paths in many places. Felt like King Wenceslaus as we followed in each other's footsteps. Luckily one of our party was a doctor and even though he has a 3 month waiting list, Damien got to see him immediately and was declared fit with no brain damage!

Hooray! At least the women made it to the summit!

Our friends Seungh Hee and Seun Bin, seen here eating lunch at the top, invited us to accompany them on this casual country stroll!

No Korean climb is without obligatory feast including soju and a full bottle of whiskey that was quickly consumed. In this case it was Ballantyne 21.

And now spring is here! We drove 2 hours to see a beautiful botanic gardens today a gorgeous mild and sunny day. Here is the link.

http://eng.gg.go.kr/entry/Come-and-See-Wild-Flowers-Hantaek-Botanical-Garden

The Australian garden displayed a boab tree and grass trees.


Here we are with our dear friends Esther and Mark having the obligatory coffee - in real cups too!

This post is subtitled to announce that I have just had the worst week of my time in Korea as computer, visa and assorted ailments have aligned with the stars, the moon and sun to conspire to challenge my life. Hopefully Skpye, email and English will soon be restored to my computer. So far four different technical people have visited to no avail. Fingers crossed that this week will be better! At least the weather is wonderful and warm.