We left early Sunday morning and had a beautiful day to drive. After driving through the mountains and slowing down to pay an expressway toll, the car started shaking. Tyler had noticed that it wasn't getting up the big hills very easily, but we simply accredited it to the fact that it's a four cylinder engine!
Unfortunately it was hard for us to find a mechanic, for many reasons: we cannot read Hangul (so we cannot read the shop signs), we cannot speak Hangul (so we cannot easily stop and ask where we can find one), and it was Sunday morning (so there weren't likely to be any shops open). God is so faithful though! Tyler spotted a man looking under the hood of another car at what appeared to be a mechanic shop. We pulled up and, with the use of our Korean phrase book and plenty of hand motions, and asked if he could fix our car. He didn't speak a lick of English, but indicated pop the hood. Praise God that two minutes later a friend of the mechanic, who also happened to speak pretty good English, stopped by. The mechanic changed the spark plugs and ran the computer diagnostic test. He told us, through his friend, that he could not fix the problem because he didn't have the parts, but that we could make it back to Seoul without a problem. We had no other option but to trust what he said. Tyler was a bit stressed out for the rest of the weekend, and the car continued to shake, A LOT, but we didn't have any more problems with it. 
We made it to the campground and discovered it, like many other things here, was a bit random. Though we were told there was a fee to camp there, there was nobody in the office to pay (not in the three days we were there) so we camped for free. There were no assigned or designated spots so we just picked out a spot we thought looked good. Not all of the showers and bathrooms in the campground were open so we changed out minds about our location a couple times. The showers that were open operated with only cold water and the bathrooms didn't have toilet paper. They did have a decent kitchen area we could use though.
After setting up camp we took off for the trail. We hiked along a riverbed. The water was incredibly clear and cold. It was just so nice to get away from the city and be surrounded by nature.We realized on our way back to camp that we were a bit low on Won (Korean money) so we set out to find an ATM the next morning. After spending an hour driving around trying to find a bank (which was as hard as finding a mechanic for the same reasons mentioned above!), we were getting frustrated. We found a couple banks, but none of the ATM's were on a global network and therefore weren't compatible with our foreign card. We tried stopping at some of the large hotels in hopes of exchanging what little dollars we had for Won, but no one could help. We were about give up when God answered
our prayers and we found a hotel that had an ATM that would accept our card.With money in our wallets were able to pay the entrance fee to the park and start hiking again. We hiked up to the top of a huge rocky peak (Ulsan Bawi Rock). The first part of the hike was relatively easy. The last bit was not. The trail was so steep through the rocks that they put up a steel staircase. It didn't look too hard, but looks can be deceiving...and they were!
We were told there were over 800 stairs (some of which were so steep it felt more like climbing a ladder than stairs!) The picture here only shows the first set of stairs. There were many more to follow! Unfortunately the clouds sort of blocked the view from the top. We were just glad to get to the top!It was a fun trip, in spite of, and maybe even because of all of the stressful and frustrating times. We were able to see God's faithfulness in very specific ways, we learned some lessons and we made some great memories.
No comments:
Post a Comment