14 March 2015
Mine zone
Hiking Hwangnyeongsan in Busan
The rain is gone!
This means only one thing, to the mountains!!! Yes 3 exclamation marks.
Todays mountain is right in the city, which probably means great views, I couldnt wait to find out, and was out the door early, via coffee and a delicious blueberry bagel that had cranberrys in it, with cream cheese that was crunchy.
It is warm today, so I elected for just T-shirt and jacket, oh and pants.
Luckily I also remembered my gloves, as a few times on the way down today I slid on my ass and had to grab hold of things. Nothing too dramatic, just quite sandy and steep in places.
Todays mountain was called Jangsan, and is right at the very end of the subway line, a 30 minute ride from the centre of town.
I bought some wafer biscuits for my summit snack (tm). This was a bad choice, as they somehow got crumbled, and at the top I got to pour some crumbs down my throat.
It wasnt a particularly long or difficult ascent, but the descent was tricky, and once I got back into the city, it was just as steep, yet somehow the bus makes it way up there, for me to ignore it and walk for an hour or so to the subway.
The race was on to get back to my room in time to steal the formula 1 qualifying stream from somewhere using Koreas fantastic internet, so far as I type this, its working perfectly.
Unfortunately, when I got to my room it was in the process of being cleaned, by 3 Korean ladies, who were very apologetic that I arrived before they had finished. I gave them 10 minutes to do what they needed to do and GET OUT, as i had streaming internet tv to watch. They complied, this time...
Update: I made good on my promise to myself to upload hi resolution versions of the panorama photos, you can find the link on the left in the menu.
It may be the last subway stop, but its still a metropolis of tall buildings. Actually what seems to be a very nice suburb. Quiet on a saturday morning.
Speaking of subways, the subway sandwich shop does not exist in Korea. I need to look that up and confirm, but I have not seen one yet, and in all other countries including non popular areas of China, they are everywhere.
Todays mountain, actually the ridge behind the peak in the foreground. Todays path was very easy to follow, and being a Saturday, there were quite a few people.
Never enough to hinder progress, but I passed someone every minute or two.
Also, different sorts of people, less 70 year olds, more children with their parents, teens on a hiking date, plus 70 year olds.
The fluoro-oscity of your jacket directly correlates with your age, the older you are the brighter it is.
Mine is matte black.
This mobile phone tower features a realistic tree like trunk, and some hyper realistic plastic branches.
The lower areas of todays hike, basically in a park, featured a few waterfalls. There was no snow or ice at all today.
The last bit that was road was extremely steep. Steep enough for people to be coming down backwards. At the bottom of this is a huge outdoor old persons exercise area, featuring the usual machines, but also free weights, hula hoops, medicine balls, boxing gloves and bags to practice your moves for the subway ride home.
Todays sea of boulders was short but challenging. I think it was also optional. I opted.
I thought I lost the trail. But no, the trail goes directly through this makeshift tent city, which as it turns out, is a cafe. Free wifi. Cheaper than starbucks. No yak milk.
The Korean Aunties running the place looked pretty mad at me for daring to walk through. Their dog which was thankfully chained up then went crazy, it was only a small dog but I think he wanted to tear my throat out.
Time for a selfie at a convenient observation deck perhaps half way up.
As the title for todays adventure suggests, this mountain has landmines.
If you google Jangsan, you will see a picture of this sign, which is all over the mountains.
Some people suggest its a lie to make you stick to the path, and perhaps the US military is installing the missile shield system up here.
Some people (me) think they put landmines up here so that when Japan invades and the people of Busan flee to the useless wall on the next mountain range by going over this one, that they all get blown up so they dont wreck the rebuilt wall.
Bonus sea of boulders. I was listening for the click sound with every step which would alert me to the fact I had stepped on a mine.
And now I am at the top. With the greatest view ever. These guys were extremely happy to be here. Nice clear day.
You can get close to a 360 degree view from here. I stayed here for close to an hour absorbing it.
One of many panoramas I took today. I might make a link to them in full high res on the menu at some point.
That mountain was the Korean great wall mountain from 2 days ago. I started on the left edge, went over the first one left to right, along that lower bit, then up again and all along the ridges and off the right edge of the screen.
So I probably should have typed whats on the above photo on this one instead, which shows the whole trek from the other day. I should draw a red line on the photo.
I took my jacket off. Bad idea. Cold.
One last picture from the top. This is looking down on the main beach area which is towards the right of this photo.
I am very confident where everything in Busan is when on top of the mountain. Hopeless at understanding what direction I am facing when on the ground.
I went down a completely different way, basically the opposite side of the mountain, which was steep and slippery. It didnt take long, but then I ended up in a part of the city built on a very steep hill.
It took me 90 minutes to walk back to the subway, but like everywhere else in Busan, seems to be a really nice part of town. Where are the slums?
And so I finally decided to have Dos Tacos. I was won over by their burrito salad, which admittedly was delicious. Lots of colors in the salad, good hot sauces, hardly any useless sour cream added. I do recommend when you are sick of Korean food. It probably could come with some kimchi though.