River Trekking in Korea

Korea is so perverse in some senses. I don't think the country understands how valuable sleep is. If there is one country that really coins the phrase "you can sleep when your dead," it is Korea. Another thing Koreans need to understand is the vast difference between beginner, intermediate, and advanced by the universal standard. For example if a Korean travel group says that a hike will be for beginners realize that this saying is comparable to your parents telling you santa clause exists because it is furthest from the truth. There is no such thing as santa clause or a beginners level hike in Korea. Every mountain that came to be in Korea shot straight up and is going to be a mix between hiking and rock climbing. I don't think any others exist. Secondly if a korean says the words intermediate hike BEWARE. This hike will most likely be hiking Everest or some kind of endurance hike where the Koreans hike straight up for 8 hours without a single break. Now if you're dealing with water it is completely the opposite. If they say that the rapids in the river are for advanced rafters then imagine a lazy river in a water park and multiply it by two. You will be lucky if the river is even moving. I went after a giant rain storm to the supposed grand canyon of Korea. They told us that the water was very dangerous that day and it reminded me of one of those rides in disney land like It's a Small World After All where you are strapped in and don't feel a single bump. I almost fell asleep at one point I think....no no it was fun but honestly when it's dealing with water the Koreans have no idea how to rate it. When it deals with hiking always presume that it is one hundred times more difficult than they lead you to believe. If they say bring one bottle of water bring twelve gallons of water and as much food as possible because most likely you will be doing something similar to one of the episodes of survivor man. Oh and I'm not talking about the new sissy Bear in "Man vs. Wild," who has his own camera man and intentionally throws himself into harms way to show you how to get out of situations. That is how you can tell he isn't really vs. the wild in fact I'm sure his camera man is eating a snickers bar half the time and chugging energy water or red bulls. He is in no real danger in the show and we know this because he has to throw himself into quick sand or a pit of tar to show us how to survive it. The original man (who didn't have his own camera man) in the show Surviver Man was dropped off in the middle of no where with barely anything and then he had to actually try and survive. He had no idea where an exit point was and he had to use some of his energy setting up the camera to film himself because of shots the network wanted. I saw him eat the leather on his bag to survive one time. He wasn't like "hey there's a group of hungry polar bears let me show you how to survive if you happen to cut your own chest with a knife and accidently throw yourself into the middle of them naked. Man Vs. Wild reminds me of a real version of Jim Carrey as the fire safety marshall in living color. Sorry about that quick tangent but it needed to be said. Anyways expect the worst and always and I mean always count on no sleep. So, Lauren and I just recently went on a river trekking trip that told us it was a beginners to intermediate hike. The hike said to make sure to only bring one small water bottle and a lunch. With that being said let me tell you the trip. We left Seoul at 11 at night on a bus and drove till 4:38 in the morning. I didn't get any sleep because of this German and Russian guy trying to meet each other in English all night. I don't think they learned how to ever whisper and the Russian decided to express over and over again how and I quote

"I HEARD GERMANS ARE REALLY PARTY PEOPLE LIKE THEY REALLY LIKE TO PARTY" He said it around a hundred times and that with the movie they decided to watch....yes you heard correctly...for those that hated sleep they could enjoy a movie on the bus. For those of us that wanted to sleep we got to enjoy the sound and glare of the TV. With that being said I got little to no sleep. We got to the mountain and didn't break or anything we just began hiking down into what I thought was a valley. After thirty minutes our leader realized he had taken us the wrong way. We hiked back the way we came and arrived at the nightmare bus again. This time though we went on the correct path which was a stairway that went straight up the mountain. I know I am bad at remembering details sometimes but honestly I know the difference between a stairway straight up and a nice gradual decline into a valley. So we had a little wake us up hike before we went straight to the top of this mountain with hardly any stops. We made it to the top after about four hours and then hiked down the other side for about one hour. We finally came to the river trekking which was gorgeous. We went through pool after pool with beautiful waterfalls. Natural water slides littered the river and the nature was unfathomable. I was jumping off cliffs and into crystal clear refreshing water. Remember that whole one water bottle thing though. Well everyone ran out of water and began drinking from the waterfalls which we didn't know if it was safe but we knew that we had been hiking now for eight hours and had to drink something for the next six hours. Some of the girls almost began giving up. This one girl had fallen so many times and some of the climbing was very difficult. At one point we were swinging on a rope like cliff hanger that was being held by the leader of the group. If he slipped you died basically. It was pretty crazy...I guess beginner means repelling down slippery cliff faces and advanced rock climbing straight up. By the ninth hour we had three injuries. One girl had fallen and hit her head on a rock the other had slipped and slid down the river and scraped her entire right side and bruised the hell out of her left arm, and the final girl had cut open her knee by falling on loose rocks....her leg by the eighth hour resembled a peg legged pirate because she swung it lifelessly most likely because it had gone numb. Some girl even began crying. Anyways it was an amazing experience but we only got a break for about an hour and a half and we got back to the buses at 7:50 PM. So a beginners hike that was supposed to be only eight hours total ended up taking around 15 and a half hours. So I'd say fourteen hours of straight hiking. So just remember to pack smart. I had no problem other than feeling like a zombie but a lot of others did. So I hope this helps you in understanding how Koreans rate activities.