The purple mountain (Mt. Daegeumsan)

I can’t believe I’m already re-living events from the past…HERE in Korea! You should know by now we’re all about the hustle and bustle of spring festivals, flowers, and fun.

Last year Derik and I went hiking up Mt. Daegeumsan (aka Azalea Mountain) with our old church. It was so crazy to see a mountain bursting with purple flowers, and it immediately reminded me of something I would see in Dr. Seuss. I loved it.

(Check out last year’s post here)

I was more than excited to go back to this magical place and hike up the mountain again this year. Due to Derik’s ankle injury from February, he still doesn’t have full range of his ankle yet. He’s working on it, and is making more movement progress each day.

My awesome friend Amber said she’d take on this adventure with me, so we headed out in search of this mountain.

We had absolutely no idea where to go, but thankfully Geoje isn’t a very big island. We found it without taking a single wrong turn (thank you huge festival signs), and wound our way up the steep, narrow road that stopped 2.5km from the top of the mountain.

The Azalea Festival starts this next week, but knowing the ridiculous amount of people that would most likely show up to the event, we decided to beat the crowd and go a week earlier. We were not disappointed! The flowers are in full bloom, and as pretty as I remembered.

The hiking trail.

We made it to the top!

This girl knew exactly how to pose for her dad. No instructions needed!

At the top!

All the hiking ribbons people hang to signify they made it.

If you think we’ve had enough of flowers think again! Next week we’ll be headed to Jinhae (also mentioned in the link above from our spring festivities last year) for the Cherry Blossom Festival. I’m excited for the beauty and all the merriment festivities, but not excited about the mass crowds of people. Welcome to Asia.