Samcheok: Hwanseongul Cave (with Grandma & Grandpa)

Our last stop on our Samcheok adventure today was at the Hwanseongul Cave.  There are two cave entrances right next to each other, but we chose Hwanseongul because we only had enough time to do one and this cave is the largest cave in Asia.  To get to the cave entrance, you first had to walk up the bottom portion of the mountain.  It seemed to take forever to get to the ticket booth.  Everyone was still a little sore from yesterdays 500 meter stair climb.

After walking for what seemed like an hour, we reached the cable car ticket booth and bought out tickets and waited in line.  The girls were super excited about the cable car, because it went straight up the mountain.  It was an intensely steep straight up!  The walls were all glass so we could look out and see just as high we were off the ground.

Once we reached the top, we were at the cave's entrance.

I had all the kids pack some sweaters before we left, and I am so glad!  It was chilly in the cave and they were all cold.

Monster kept putting his hood on and saying over and over again, "It's cold, it's cold. Hat on."

My parents had to check in on their flight, so we went in the cave and figured we would be able to meet up with them.  This particular cave is a one-way cave.  Once you enter the cave, you are committed to complete the entire perimeter of the inside.  There is a narrow one way walkway that takes you all around the inside.  Our hopes of meeting up with my parents quickly faded.

The cave was so gigantic!  It was seriously the largest cave I have been in.  There was also constant rivers flowing and small waterfalls.  The only frustrating thing was the lighting inside the cave.  There wasn't any spots with decent lighting to get a good picture of the cave, and all the pictures we got are super grainy.  Oh well.

A lot of portions of the walkway were narrow or had a steep drop off, so Monster was confined to the hiking backpack.  For the most part he was not happy about that!  All he wanted to do was walk around on his own, we had to bribe him to stay in with candy.

We finished the cave and about 15 minutes later were joined by my parents.  They seemed to like the cave.  I was sad we didn't get to go through together, but glad they had the opportunity to go through it!

While we were waiting for the cable car to take us back down the mountain, we took the time to take in the scenery around us.  The mountains here are super beautiful!  There are peaks and green trees covering the entire land!  It was so pretty!