N Seoul Tower - Seoul

Two Weeks Vacation in South Korea - Part XV

Part XIV: Two Weeks Vacation in South Korea - Part XIV
Part XV: Two Weeks Vacation in South Korea - Part XV

Itinerary to South Korea 

Day 15: Seoul

From Petite France, we drove back to Seoul, I dropped my mom and sister at Dongdaemun while my dad and I returned the rental car to Gimpo Airport. We stayed at Grand Hyatt for two nights. As a diamond member, I was upgraded to a suite. I would rate this hotel 4.5/5. The hotel was too crowded and the room that we got was so noisy at night from the air conditioner. The noise was very loud that my mom could not sleep at all. Also, there were lots of lights in the room but all connected to only one button so that I cannot just turn some of the lights that I want to turn on or off. The air conditioner was not working and the room got very hot at night. Other than that, the hotel room was nice and big.

N Seoul Tower

The next morning, we ate the breakfast at the executive lounge at Grand Hyatt Hotel and headed out to N Seoul Tower with a cab. From the parking lot where the cab drop us, we walked to the building to take a cable car to where the N Seoul Tower located.

Fee: 8,500 won/adult (Round trip) and 6,000 won/adult (One way ticket)

Cable car to N Tower

Wefie inside the cable car

N Seoul Tower is a communication an observation tower located at Namsan Mountain with a total of 236m tall that marks the highest point in Seoul. In this location, there were lots of movies, dramas, and variety shows that was filming in here such as 1 night 2 days and what's with my family? During night time, there are different lighting and have its own meaning for each color.

Sky Blue: means that the air quality is clean and it is excellent to do outdoors activities

Green: means that the love of the earth

Red: shine during World Blood Donation Day and appreciation of blood donors 

Earth Hour: the light is off for an hour to decrease carbon emission

 

The last three days, I spent shopping and did not take any pictures. On last day, when flying back to United States, I lost my wallet with all my credit cards, ID card, and US dollar. I looked for it at the lost and found and cannot find it. I let them know if they found it to call me at my US number. I was thinking that I would no longer find it. This is why I love South Korea, a week later, someone found my wallet and turned it to the lost and found. One of the staff called me to ask me to pick it up. When I received it, I lost nothing from my wallet. I am so happy and thanks god to found it back for me. 

Another great thing that happened during my last day at South Korea was that I met EXO at Asiana Lounge. They sat in front of where I sat. I scared to take a picture of them because it seems like no one in the lounge knew them and lots of security guards around them.

Le Tour-du-Mont-Albert at National Park Gaspesie

Credit @ Miguasha

National Park Gaspesie or Parc National de la Gaspesie is located near the city of Sainte-Anne-Des-Monts in Quebec. There are couple mountains in this park. These mountains are part of the Appalachian trails. The two highest and popular mountains to hike are Mont-Albert and Mont-Jacques Cartier. The one that I hike was Mont-Albert. I drove about  hours to get here and camped here for one night before I hiked the next day. There are couple of campgrounds in the area. The closest one to the Mont-Albert are Camping Mont-Albert and Camping de la Riviere. I stayed at the Camping de la Riviere. The entrance to the Mont-Albert trail was just next to where I camped at. 

The view of a mountain in Parc National de la Gaspesie

Camping de la Riviere

The camping fee for a campground without any services is CAD$29.75/night and the national park entry fee is CAD$7.39/day. The total with tax for both camping and entry fee is CAD$ 42.71. There are two choices to hike the Mont-Albert: Le Mont-Albert (roundtrip 11.4km) and Le Tour-du-Mont-Albert (loop 17.4 km). The hike up and down trail for Le Mont-Albert was the same. The trail that I chose was Le Tour-du-Mont-Albert. This trail was the longest trail that I had ever hike. In my opinion, this trail was harder that Chimney pond trail + saddle trail at Baxter State Park. 

Le Tour-du-Mont-Albert Loop Trail

The entrance to the Mont-Albert trail

The river from the entrance bridge

The first part of the trail was steep up sometimes the trail was nice sometimes it was rocky.

After about 1.5 km hikes, I could see the Auberge Le Gite du Mont-Albert hotel at the La Saillie observation deck. 

From this point, the trails got harder.

3km left out of 5.4 km to the top

Small waterfall on the way up

1km left out of 5.4km to the top

Rest point at 5km. There is a restroom here.

0.4km out of 5.4km to the top

Steps to the top

View from the top

View from the top

View from the top

View from the top and a restroom

 
Once arrived at the top, you can either chose to hike down from where I hike up or continue the loop as part of the Le Tour-du-Mont-Albert. I had a lunch at Les Rabougris, a small shack at the top of Mont Albert before continue the loop. Inside the shack, there is a book that you can sign showed that you reach the top of Mt. Albert. After lunch, I continued the hike thru the tableland, Le Versant about 1.1 km. In this tableland, lots of people can see caribou so keep an eye for them. 

The Tableland, Le Versant trail from top of Mt. Albert

The First part of Le Versant Trail

The Second Part of LeVersant Trail

There are five caribous far away from the Le Versant Trail. In the middle of the pictures. You see it better there than from the picture

Amazing view from the tableland

Snow left on the mountain

Hike down the tableland next to three levels of waterfall

 

First part of the three levels of waterfall

Second part of the three levels of waterfall

The three levels of waterfall

From this point, the hike was getting harder due to rocky trails next to a river and up and down another mountain. The next rest area located at La Serpentine about 3.2km away. 

The first part of 3.2km trail to La Serpentine shack was rocky like the picture above. The next part was getting worse because the rocks were bigger and bigger. The worse part was to hike up this rocky trail

I wished the trail was getting better but the next part was the trail with hardened roots mix with the rocky trails. Since the day before was raining, some of the trail was muddy. At the end of my hike, my shoes were very dirty and covered with mud.

After 3.2km, I finally reached the La Serpentine and rest for 30 minutes before I continued. There was 6.1km left. After eating and resting, I continued the hike. About 0.5km, I reached Lac du Diable with an amazing view. 

The next point was Chute du Diable. The trail was mostly hiking down. This fall is the highest waterfall in this trail loop.

Water flow from Chute du Diable

From this point, there was 4.5km left. The trail was getting easier from this point. The last attraction in this trail was chute st-Anne.

  

By the time I was almost reach the end of the trail, I was so tired and did not feel like to take any pictures anymore. I was so excited that I finished the trail in total of 8 hours. The trail was amazing with lots of attraction to see and capture. There were lots of stuffs that I did not capture in my pictures. I would recommend people to try to hike this trail. It was long and hard but worth the hike. I rate this trail 5/5. Thanks for the information on this site. He had lots of pictures about the trail and more detail. Please check his website.