Poisonous Snake Attack at Jirisan National Park

This Saturday I got up early because I was going on a road trip to Jirisan National Park. Jirisan is probably the most beautiful and famous of Korea's National Parks. It's kinda like the Banff of Korea. The biggest draw is the mountains which are the largest in mainland Korea! I was really excited because I was told that the leaves on the trees will be turning colour.

Stephanie picked me up early and I told her that I was excited to see some Korean wildlife- bears, birds, snakes. She said that I would have to watch out for the snakes because there are many poisonous snakes in Korea! We proceeded to pick up her boyfriend, Young, and another Korean teacher, Jamie.

When we got to the mountains I was a little disappointed- all the leaves on the trees were still green. We put our stuff in the condo and we were off to hike the famous Jirisan! As we drove to the mountain I saw many graves; it is a Korean custom to bury the dead on the side of the mountain. Many of these graves have beautiful mountain views and large grave stones and alters. The car continued to navigate up the twisty roads to the top of the mountain. To my surprise, the higher we drove up the mountain the more colour the leaves had. We parked the car and climbed about 5 KM up the mountain until we reached its peak (the mountains are really not that high in Korea compared to the frickin huge mountains in Canada). When we got to the top the leaves on all the trees were red, yellow, and orange! We ate lunch on top the mountain and just enjoyed the scenery and the clean, crisp air! We climbed down the mountain just in time to catch one of the most amazing sunsets I have ever seen. When we got back to the condo we had a traditional Korean BBQ and way too much to drink!

The next morning I woke up to a blood curdling scream....
I thought I must still be dreaming so I went back to bed. Then another loud scream.... this was not a dream... it was coming from just outside my bedroom door....
Half asleep, I walked out of the bedroom to check it out....
It was Stephanie and she was screaming hysterically... "SNAKE, SNAKE!!!"
"Where?" I asked
"Behind the curtain" She replied.
She then took off and ran out of the condo in her bear feet screaming (going barefoot is frowned upon in the Korean culture).
I tried to look behind the curtain but was too freaked out...
Within seconds some random, old farmer-Korean-guy barged in and kicked the curtain down. Out slithered a freaky-freaky lookin, two foot long snake!
The beige snake with brown and black spots lunged at the random, old farmer-Korean-guy...
But the old farmer must have had many encounters with a snake of this nature because in one swift blow with his staff, he had killed the snake!
Then, with hardly a word spoken the man was gone...
Close call!

Random, old farmer-Korean-guy.... YOUR MY HERO!!!