This was my first evening/night hike, and was an interesting hike, because it was the first one initiated by me. I mentioned to Jasmine that I would like to climb one of the mountains in Daejeon Saturday to look at the city, and then the ball got rolling, pushed along by Jasmine. She mentioned it to some people from her hiking club and 4 people ended up joining our group. We met up at 4, and headed out on our trek around 4:40. It was a short hike, just under 3 hours, but a fun one. We had a lot of good laughs debating over which route to take and which was right. Coming down from the peak in the darkness was "fun", but we had 4 lights between the 6 of us, so everyone made it uninjured. Although I had a couple of slipped at the start, but without my ass actually touching the snow...it came very close both times though. After the hike, we meet back up downtown for dinner, which proved difficult. ALL of the restaurants seemed full, be we eventually found a place and settled in to good food and even a little bit of Soju. Really...just a little, only 4 shots for me.
This was our starting point. There is a little cable car you can see on the right that goes a short way up the mountain, but it is kind of useless since we hit the upper station in 20-30 minutes. Not that much of a time saver. As you can see, the sun was low already.
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The beginning part of the hike had it's share of dangers. Smells that could knock you off your feet and barking dogs. I've seen quite a few areas like this on the fringe of the city. It seems fairly common here. Gives you a bit of an idea how much lower the lower class is here than in Canada.
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A really neat bird house...well I guess it's a bit more than just one big house, more like a bird apartment building.
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Here's a view of part of the city by light. It's over twice as wide as what you can see here, and stretches into the distance. The fog diminished the view a bit.
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Most of our path was clear of snow, but it was quite a steep climb for how short it was. There seemed to be and never ending incline right to the top. But happily that made the dark descent quite quick.
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This was the first sun rise I have really noticed while I've been here. Usually I'm inside teaching during this time, or it's blocked by all of the building. It was very beautiful.
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As we got higher though, some snow started to appear.
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Here's a picture of everyone from the hike. I had met them all at Taebeaksan and the girl (I think) and the guy in the orange at Togyunsan. They were a lot of fun to hike with.
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Further up, just a short distance from the top twilight set in and lights start to emerge from below. It was fun to watch lights start to pop on one by one. A bight glow suddenly appearing from nowhere.
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At the very top, the city was aglow with light. All of the neon signs burned brightly into the sky. We also got to the top just a few minutes before the fireworks started for the zoo. (Check out my zoo section, I have on picture of them.) It was very strange to be looking down to see fireworks, not up. I really odd, but neat sensation.
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Everyone at the top. No one took this picture either. My new tripod and the timer. My tripod was actually the inspiration for the climb. I knew I needed one for night pictures, and I wanted to see some night scenery...so I guess everything needed each other in the end.
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