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National & Provincial Parks
I began this blog with the idea of documenting my adventures. And what better way to start with one of my biggest to date? When I came back to Korea in late 2015, it was with the idea that I would explore Korea’s mountains. That mission became one of those life-changing experiences that pointed the way towards my path. I wanted to write about that. So, my first blog posts turned into a series about Korea’s national parks. A series about all of Korea’s provincial parks soon followed!
It took me nearly a full year of writing, but I now have articles up about every park: 22 national parks and 20 provincial parks. These detail my experiences in each, and hopefully provide readers with some inspiration and insight into some of Korea’s special places. It was incredibly rewarding for me to write these: poring over old journals and photos, reliving each experience. So these two parks series’ form something of an archive for me personally. But it is my hope that they will do more than that. I’m still learning how, but my aim is to reach out to tourists and expatriates to provide something of use: to help get people out into the beautiful natural world of South Korea!
Although in a sense, these two series are complete because they contain information about each park. However, I plan to continue to add and adjust, particularly for parks that I’ve visited multiple times and explored extensively, like Bukhansan, Odaesan, Jirisan and Seoraksan!
Check out the national park and provincial park pages to explore all of these parks with me!
A new mountain mission!
I’ve hinted at this project on a couple of occasions, and it has finally arrived! Kent and I are in the midst of a new project in Korea’s mountains, beyond the national and provincial parks! Offline, this project is nearing completion after 6 months of weekend adventures and just over of 50 new summits. Head over to the 120 summits page for an overview of the project and to check out more magnificent mountains!
Race Reports
In 2015, my husband and I started trail running – and fell in love all over again! In 2016. we started to join organized trail races – and before we knew it, trail running had become our main focus. It was the next logical step to explore Korea’s mountains: running allowed us to roam farther and explore longer! This sport remains our passion, our favorite hobby and one of the most essential parts of our lifestyle. In a way, we’ve grown up alongside the sport’s growing popularity in Korea. When we started, trail running was relatively new in South Korea, but in two short years, we’ve seen new trail running organizations and races enter the scene. We’ve attended many of these local trail events, and starting this year, several international events as well!
It seems only natural that trail running and racing became another central focus of Peaks and Penguins. Starting this spring, I wrote 13 articles relating our adventures at trail races. One of these actually details our training for our first ultra, and most of my race reports feature races in South Korea. In these reports, I explore my personal experiences, describe the race courses and consider what I learned along the way. In addition to preserving my memories of each, I aspire to provide information to potential racers considering these events.
Please visit the races page to experience these!
This series will be ongoing, as I will continue to write race reports on races and other running adventures that we have. Stay tuned!
More runs, please!
Of course, our adventures in our own little neck of the woods have been ongoing as well! And, besides races, we’ve had a lot of fun adventures on foot that have not yet been covered. I’d like to show you some of my favorite mountains that are neither parks nor famous peaks – but are incredibly special nonetheless. As mentioned above, more running related stuff will be covered on the races page.
Places from the past
In addition to detailing our most recent adventures on our second mountain mission, I plan to finally fill out my places page. Another one of the things I’m sharing with you via Peaks and Penguins is a passion for travel – of the active and motivated-by-animals kind! I spent my whole life dreaming about exotic animals and wandering in exciting landscapes. When I moved to Korea for the first time in 2011 and met my husband, we decided to explore the world together, bit by beautiful bit.
For the past year, the places page has only contained small teaser images. But this year, I’m going to delve into the archives in order to post some of our favorite photos and write some of our stories from the big wide world. I’ll also organize what I’ve already written by country to make it accessible from there too. Keep your eye on the places page in coming months for some pretty and fun stuff!
Beyond the blog
I’ve got a lot to learn in terms of making my space more accessible and useful to the people I hope it can help! Recently, I’ve started to use social media to invite readers to my blog, and I plan to increase and improve my social posts this coming year. I’d also like to start sharing some mountain videos, perhaps here or perhaps on another platform. I’m pretty shy in person, so networking is a challenge for me. However, it’s one that I’d like to take on, because I’d love to do my small bit to help promote all of the awesome that is natural Korea.
But just as important as seeking growth is maintaining balance. I love being able to create digital content, and I love the offline times when I’m creating content for my life, too. I’d like to put a lot of focus into becoming a better runner, friend, family member and partner this upcoming year as well.
Thanks for your support of Peaks and Penguins! I love having you here! And, as always, happy trails to you!