31 May 2022
Rubbish dump
The Daegu Arboretum and more
Today I did not climb a mountain, well not quite but sort of. Instead I visited a market, a park, a pond and an arboretum.
On my journey I passed what I think was a line up of poor people for free food about 100 metres long but now I am not so sure. Soon after passing the line and not taking a photo of it, a crazed woman covered in plastic with an ID badge hanging from her neck raced over to me yelling frantically in Korean, interspersed with 'free pasta' and pointing at the long line of people. I told her I don't want free pasta at 11am, or anytime really, and she thought I must be crazy. She continually shouted free pasta free pasta! pointing, at least that is what I think she was saying. Eventually she ran to another person yelling the same thing then pointed at me and said something with the word 'American' in it. I watched her for a while as she ran around pointing and yelling free pasta as everyone ignored her.
After that, at the somewhat disappointing arboretum, there was a high school group of boys and girls with water pistols. Most of them seemed uninterested, or had silly little water pistols. But then there were 3 or 4 guys, in full tactical armour (in 32 degree weather), helmets, gloves, all black, with realistic looking machine gun water pistols plumbed into backpacks carrying water. These would be the class nerds / dorks then.
So despite today being a rest day of sorts, 28,000 steps by lunch time. Probably should have applied sunscreen.
Oh yeah, nearly forget, the arboretum is built on a former rubbish dump. So there you go, tax right off, I am researching rehabilitation options for landfills.
This is a YMCA building, built in 1905. It was also where a secret resistance movement met to plan overthrowing the Japanese in about 1919. Whenever you see a historic marker in Korea, it is about fighting the Japanese.
Wat?
Here is a local gate. Not that many of them around Daegu that I have seen.
More monorail. I think this is where the under construction bit I saw last time I was here was.
Here is a small part of the Seomun market. Mainly a clothing and cloth / material / wool / sewing market that goes for many blocks, but like all markets, you can also buy anything that has ever been in the ocean.
These all appear to be identical mini food stalls. It is early so they are not serving anything yet, and it looks like they all prepare the same thing. I do not know what that thing is, but I presume it has kim chi in it. Must be traditional food for seamstresses.
I see Daegu has a tower, better go investigate.
Turns out the tower is inside an amusement park with paid admission that opens at lunch time, e-world it is called. Actually it was previously free and built by the city, but they had to sell it off to pay down debts.
Local vigilante crew.
I spotted a small mountain, could not help myself, up I go on my no mountain day. Duryu park in case anyone is wondering where this is.
Only spot for a view from the top. Clear at this point, but pollution has since rolled in.
I descended to a nice pond. I thought this photo would come out really well, it did not.
More of the pond, with bridge. It was near here that a huge line had formed, possibly for free pasta.
Over the road is the Daegu arts centre, a large building, I could not fit it all in the frame.
Last one of the pond, with a colourful structure on the island, more of the arts centre including what I think is an IMAX screen, because art is best appreciated in the form of whatever Marvel thing has somebody shooting lasers out of their eyes this week.
Apartment wall. I wanted to cut that tree down to make this a better shot.
Here is part of the arboretum. Remaining shots will all be of the arboretum. It is very large, too large as lots of it was closed down. There are lots of nice water ways with bridges and rock pools, but no water, just dust. Lots of greenhouses that no longer have plants, and the traditional Korean garden was dirt and a turtle statue. So we will focus on the parts that still have plants of some kind, first, bonsai world.
Then cactus world, definitely the best world.
Tropical world, a bit underwhelming, should probably add monkeys.
Bamboo world, bamboo mostly dead, no pandas.
A highlight was this wooden deck back to the car park. The arboretum is near the end of the subway line and then a bit of a trek up from the subway. It does connect to proper hiking trails at the top of the park, so I would probably only bother going there if you wanted to then continue hiking somewhere else. Thats all for my morning update.