We both landed at Incheon International Airport early in the morning on May 30, Brandon was flying from New Zealand and Marilyne from Vietnam. Marilyne had pre-ordered a Sim card with mobile company Olleh, we picked it up at the airport. You can also purchase Sim cards directly at the airport so no need to pre-order, though the activation process will take a little longer than if you pre-ordered it.
First group picture in Seoul, as we are walking to our hotel!
Huge South Korean fruits!
In the Seoul subway
We did not end up doing much on our first day in Seoul other than sorting our gear, trying to book the shelters in Jiri-San national park (trail starting point) and getting our packs ready. Marilyne had shipped most of her camping gear to the hotel in Seoul, fortunately it made it and we were able to pick it up!
Trying to book the shelters for the first national park was a challenge. The reservation website is in Korean. We ended up calling the national park who told us we had to book online. Someone at the hotel tried to help us to book online and was not able to figure out how to use the system. We ended up calling the first shelter directly. Fortunately someone spoke English and accepted to take our reservation over the phone. We tried to book the shelter for the second night but they refused to take our reservation over the phone. We’ll have to figure out something when we get there! National park shelters are very popular here and book out pretty quickly…
May 31: We headed to subway station Jongno-5-ga, where most of the outdoor stores seem to be. Even though it’s Sunday, a lot of stores are open and we see a lot of gear! Prices for foreign brands are very high (even higher than in New Zealand!) but local brands are reasonably priced. We purchased fuel for our stoves.
We later meet Brandon’s friend Yena, who takes us on a tour around the city.
Yena took us to this market, where we got to try a lot of Korean food. Thanks Yena, because of you, we’ll be able to order food now! 🙂
We then asked Yena to take us to a supermarket so we could buy food for the trail. We were lucky to had her with us to help us out, otherwise we might have been stuck in this section!
Picking food was challenging. We purchased noodles, rice, lentils, pasta, tuna, dried vegetables, nut mixes and crackers. We hope to look at what other hikers are eating in order to get more meal ideas!
Our hostel in Seoul, Korea guesthouse. We recommend it!
Marilyne’s food for the first days. Some items come from New Zealand and Canada!
Seoul’s transit system is amazing and was very convenient for our first days in South Korea.
Sometimes I wish I could understand what is written…
Baekdu Daegan 2015 
Hi, I just found your blog through Te Araroa on facebook. I am from Germany and have lived in Korea on Jeju Island for the last 20 years. I heard about Baekdu Daegan from Korean friends. They are not happy with the trail because the government imposes too many regulation on it and parts of the trail are often closed unexpectedly for reasons of conservation and preventing bush fires. Those might be the real reasons or not. It is also not permitted anymore to cook and put up a tent for the night in National Parks in Korea, one must sleep in huts and those must be booked in advance. I am sure you are aware of all this.
Food options: Most Korean hikers and climbers cook rice and ramen for meals. You can find more food options in big supermarkets like E-mart or Homeplus (muesli).
I wish you good luck with your hike and look forward to reading your blog.
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Hi Ralf,
Good to hear from you, Jeju Island is on the list of places to visit after the trail.
Thank you for the information on possible closures, it looks like none of the fire closures affect us in our timeframe (ones posted online anyways) and hope none spring up as we go. Yeah the national park reservation site is not in English so it makes it tough to book, some let us call in the booking though.
We looked at all the food the local hikers where eating, everything from rice to grilled meat and vegetables (don’t know about carrying a grill for that long though, but it smelled amazing).
Thank you for the message, and for following the blog!
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