Hwanseongul

Sorry, I poofed again.  For those of you who missed my presence and my writings suffused with insanity spells, you can now expel an awkward sigh of relief.  My vanishing act is now complete. The past couple of weeks had been arduously long and difficult, to say the least.  The things is, I work two jobs (in a country where people love taking unnecessary mid-afternoon naps and sipping lattes in coffee shops at excruciatingly slow pace during work days, I am the ironic oddity). Getting two monthly paychecks obviously entails hard work (lots of it) and zero free time.  Add a looming long holiday to the mix and my normally tight schedule becomes the mother of all crunch time.  Blogging became an impossibility. Whatever brain function I have left when I get home, I spend it in the bathroom doing my bathroom business, or a few, dull moments in front of the television before I collapse to sleep.

Thank God for the holiday.  The nauseating mix of my daily grind is momentarily over.  I feel centered now, with a more pleasant frame of mind.  It's only fitting that I blog. Afterall, this moment of calm comes rarely, and too far in between.

So today I'll share with you the speedy version of my adventure in Hwanseon Cave.  If you've spent some time in Korea, chances are you've heard about it.  In case you haven't, let me enlighten you with some facts.  Hwanseongul is the biggest cave in Korea.  It's vastness intrigues more than a million visitors each year.  The whole cave spans eight kilometers (could be more, geologists are still exploring it), but only two kilometers of which is open for the public to see.

The cave is up the mountain.  It's mouth hidden amongst the foggy backdrop. This is how the start of the trail going to the cave looks like.



There are two ways to get to the cave.  You can do a grueling full hour of uphill hike or you can use the mono rail.  I was lazy that day so I chose to ride the mono rail. I forgot the exact cost of the ride, but I'm guessing it was around 7,000 - 8,000 won. The picture below shows the tracks.  Left one is for going down and right is for going up.

The car looks so modern right?

Upon reaching the top, you have to shell out another 3,000 won at the ticket booth. Once inside, you'll see bridges built across innumerable pools, streams, and cracks. Railings are amply lit and there are lamp posts to guide the way.  The temperature inside is comfortably cool at somewhere between 10-15 degrees C.

The coolest thing inside the cave is the presence of waterfalls.  I've seen several of them inside, but I was only able to take a picture of one. From where I stood and took this picture, it looked miniature. But I'm guessing with closer inspection, it's expanse is far greater than all of the waterfalls I've seen in my life.

The tour generally lasts for two hours. In my case it took three.  Only because I enjoyed it so much that I wanted to soak up the scene for as long as possible.

So there goes another interesting spot you can add to your Korean bucket list of travel.

I feel a teensy bit tired at the moment so I am going to split. I hope everyone is having a super awesome day.