Natural Beauty...(15/8)

Life is repetitive, if you think so. After a puppy journey long time ago, I went to Switzerland again recently and then I recognise that I have been so young...the country is famous for its tranquility and picturesque scenery, and lying at the heart of the Europa, the places are really a bit too dreamy. I took nearly the same route as my previous visit from France to enter Switzerland, but I made a switch of the first stop to Geneva instead of Bern. My memory about Geneva before I re-visited the city had been only the three-leg chair outside the headquarter of the United Nations. I did not understand why my previous memory of the country had been so pale and blurred, but I did enjoy this unconsciousness for fresh idea and understanding about the place. Geneva is a business centre in the western part, and it provides a very pleasant habitat for people. My general impression about the Swiss is a very peaceful and relaxed country, and it actually is. The landscape offers the Swiss an unbelievable beautiful playground of nature. The lake areas beside major cities serve as a placebo to purify the contaminated roughness of human ego and arrogance in the world. I passed by Lake Geneva, Lake Thun, Lake Brienz and Lake Luzerne, and in front of the calmness of waterground, words become useless and stupid.
I re-did the trip from Interlaken to Jungfrau, but rather than climbing up via Lauterbrunnen, I tried the path of Grindelwald this time. Claiming Top of Europe, the tourist centre on Jungfrau is actually located at 3454m above sea level, 700m below the tip of the mountain range. The mountain is indeed much below the height of Mount Kenya (5199m) I went before. A 100% journey for tourists, there is not much special at the centre of Jungfraujoch, but the stunning scenery along the hilly way was a fascinating journey. I still recalled the climax feeling when I first took the train to the top in the summer of 1998, but facing the scenery again this time, I replaced my curiosity about the world with a much deepening respect to the nature and the possibility of our world. The weather was fine throughout the trip and I took a hiking route from Kleine Scheidegg to Brandegg.


I was very much touched by the colour of 'green' in the films of Tarkovsky, and while I was walking down the mountain, I witnessed the much translation of green in nature. This is always something which can peace a mind.
Hotel management is reputed in Swiss, but that doesn't mean that all the hotels are good in the country, at least there is some variation between my expectation and my experience this time. Not sure what is going on in Korea apart from its robust recovery of economy, Korean tourists were influx everywhere in Switzerland. This is something unexpected.