Korea again - Incheon - Daegu - Busan - Gwangju - Seoul - 2015 - Page 4

This is the hill from the subway station to the start of the trail. The red poles going up are for the cable car.
I stopped at the homeplus supermarket for supplies, and successfully used the Korean self service checkout thing.
It was in Korean but made by the same people that make the Australian ones, so the icons and order of doing stuff were the same.
I saw plenty of Koreans angry at the stupid machines though.

What kind of bullshit hike is this. Also theres an amusement park.

My route goes beyond the right edge of this map.

The hardest part as far as navigation went today was to find the start of the trail at the back of the amusement park.
They dont really want you to avoid paying for the cable car. This is a common thing around the world.
I downloaded the maps.naver.com app to my phone, which is Korean google, and fantastic, it has hiking routes and topography incorporated in the main map.

First of many photos of the view. I zoomed. Those 2 big buildings are quite near my hotel. I can see them now out my window. And if they look in my direction, they can see my bright purple underpants as its all I am wearing.

Taken from near wear the cable car tops out. Those big buildings by the ocean are the futuristic part of Busan.
Note all the hills in the city itself, when you are at street level you dont know that theres more city behind them.

This is looking more in the direction I will be heading, along the various ridges.

Panorama 1. I broke the rules today and uploaded more than 1 panorama. I should add a link here to a full resolution version, but I cant be bothered.

The cable car is more of your traditional variety. It doesnt seem to run constantly, and the one I did see go past had no one on it.
I stood here for a few minutes waiting for it to leave the station to make for a better photo, but it never did.

And this is the first gatehouse, and the start of the great wall of Korean military failure.
Rebuilt. The rebuilt parts were guarded by rope, the old parts, you can dismantle by hand and walk along.

Very well maintained section of faux wall. Its much higher on the downward side, probably 12 feet in most places.

And here I am at the next watchtower. This is my happy face.

Selfie time.

And the next gatehouse, at another rebuilt section.

I am about half way here, and that ridge on the left side, in the background, behind the rocky ridge, I think thats the ridge I would come down on in a few hours time.
Got it?

Heres a view from the half way point of the ridges I had crossed so far.
Much of the time you are in trees and its not apparent you are going over the top. It really wasnt strenuous or technically challenging.

Next gatehouse....
Return of .....

There were a lot more boulders to come, but I thought these ones framed the shot well. I am an expert at photographic composition.
Sun is on the wrong side though.

And now, first glimpse of the other side of the mountain range. A great plain. With seas of presumably rice.

A good view of the wall running along a ridge.
I am setting a world record for use of the word 'ridge'.

I enjoyed the view from here. Its probably one of the spots I appreciated some pocari sweat energy drink and a calorie balance bar.

Next gathouse, I climbed up those rocks too.

Then I risked plummeting to a hilarious end snapping yet another selfie.

Wall snaking along the....RIDGE

2nd panorama for today, featuring rocks, wall, city and ridge.

Finally, somewhere to put my camera for a self timer selfie! Nailed it.

The final gatehouse. Now for the descent. Only another 90 minutes!

Turns out going down was the hardest part of todays journey, over this sea of boulders.
It literally was called, the sea of boulders. It went for about 3km.

Eventually I got to the top temple, where there were no people. Just this dog.
This dog did not want me to see the temple.
I thought I outsmarted him and went around to a side entrance.

No.

Then I got to the main temple, Beomeosa.
It had many areas under construction.
You can get to this by road, which many people had done, however the nice walk isnt over yet, theres a wooden deck going for a few more kilometres along a stream basically all the way to the subway station.

Wooden deck walk goes past some very nice, very unusual houses. This is a cafe and porcelain museum.

I celebrated my 7 hour journey with a Nougat ice cream, which was $1 and fantastic.
Todays route is HIGHLY recommended, it gets my 5 star maximum rating for fun time in the mountains.
You can review my rating system elsewhere online.
The collection of mountains and ridges which join them are called Geumjeongsan. You are more likely to find info by looking up Busan fortress mountain hike.

Tonights area has replaced bronzed children with chrome children.

AWESOME!

Tonights random neon. No people in this street, but plenty of bright lights.

This heater is an amazing device. I simply could not believe the amount of heat it put out. Inside it is what looks like the afterburner off a fighter jet.
It was actually painful to stand near it.

And this is a car parking garage at a department store. Would you trust it?
It is at least 12 cars high.

Tasteful department store decoration.

And now my dinner. Chinese beef noodle was in the process of becoming Vietnamese Pho.
The menu was a strange hybrid, the decor was in the process of being changed (literally as I was eating).
I suspect once they run out of the remaining Chinese style food in their freezer, they will be Pho only.
So I got shrimp wonton soup, with rice noodles and pho broth. It was actually very good despite the fusion of Canton and Ho Chi Minh.

Haeundae beach is the area most people associate with Busan, lots of backpacker places, but the wrong time of year for tourists, thankfully.
I suspect lots of dudes with no shirts like to hang around here in summer and drink convenience store beer.
Anyway, theres lots of touristy things like this that exist for no point at all. This is out front of a pub.

Looking along the beach back towards another part of Busan. Yesterday when I was looking down at the city on my many ridges ridge walk, I could not see this entire area, as its behind another mountain entirely.

There is no smoking on any beach. Is this the case in Australia? I dont know. There is usually no smoking anywhere outside in Korea other than the designated shame huts for smokers.

I stopped for second coffee. I fear Australians might frequent this area.

And looking back in the other direction, from the island thats not an island. The ships are doing stuff with the sand.
Those tall buildings on the cliff at the other end are all apartments.
The little colorful houses (usually colorful, today hazey) going up the hill make it look a lot like bondi.

There was some sort of elaborate tragic story about this mermaid, involving pirates, the moon, attempted rape and mass drowning.

Boardwalk around the island was pleasant. Old person friendly.

I dont think this is functional. Japan is only 2 hours boat ride from here. I read that on a very clear day you can see Japan from the top of the mountain. I find this a little hard to believe.

First glimpse of the pointless bridge. Also that big building was constructed for the ASEAN summit attended by President Bush and others.

Now we start getting into Donald Trump Town.

Its guarded by a chrome robot.

Now a better view of the Gwangan bridge, its 7420 metres long, which is roughly 7x longer than the Sydney harbour bridge.
Its only purpose is to bypass the ocean boulevarde filled with pedestrians and cyclists visiting the cafes along the sea front.
It is one of my great rants that Adelaide does not have a continual road all the way along our coast, with a 40kmph speed limit, I think it would transform our city, it would become one long retail strip on one side, with beach views for all to enjoy uninterupted on the other.
Instead we have a few people with beach shacks hogging the view, and the road is diverted in land and around sewage treatment works and caravan parks....ok I am on a rant.

Impressive buildings. Theres a great promo video on youtube of a helicopter flying around in between them.

I had already spent too much on coffee, so I couldnt appreciate the Audrey Hepburn Cafe. Maybe tomorrow.

Instead I yelled at this sign for a while to see if I could make my voice be heard. Couldnt.

This is the local massive catholic church, in a wealthy area as we are by the beach and the yacht club.
It is much bigger than the picture suggests, The blue truck going past is a long way from the Church. I estimate it to be 10 storeys.

And this is the new car belonging to one of the catholic priests who collect money for that church. Not even joking. Hes even Italian if the mirrors are anything to go by.
Note the rolls royce behind the glass too.

And now here we are at the other beach.

Todays panorama, featuring the huge bridge. It extends far to the left and right of this image.

Final photo from today, thats future city on the right edge, which was about the half way point of my walk. I think today was only about a 5 hour walk, but my legs are sorer than after mountain walks.
Better head back to the mountains tomorrow, unless its raining!

The subway comes out at basement level 3 of the Shinsegae store at Centrum city, which is a great food court, a bit different from the others, many choices.
There was a store devoted to puffer fish, in all its forms. The worlds biggest puffer fish specialty food court restaurant.

Up on level 4, and its the worlds biggest ice skating rink built on top of a subway station.

I think the entire monolithic building used to be filled with retail, but times are tough, some of the 'store' is now the training centre for employees. Other parts that are off limits are a private spa, gym, driving range.
Thats not to say the place isnt enormous, there are 9 starbucks stores within the store.

One of the corners where theres little specialty stores, mainly featuring crushed molluscs you can either rub on your face or eat, or rub on your face then eat, whilst looking at yourself on your phone.

Without a doubt, the worlds largest pirate ship and crystal skull rooftop playground.

The rooftop garden was just me, enjoying the view, in the rain. It was very warm though.

The worlds largest rooftop dinosaur park and African safari zoo.

My dinner was up on the 9th floor, and surprisingly, given the reputation for Shinsagae to be super expensive, it was only $10.
It looks like bibimbap, but it was advertised as a mushroom hotpot, which it largely is, the picture had different vegetables, but they added the regular kind.
Plenty of delicious pickled side dishes though, and I really like the concept of add your own pepper sauce, that way I can just be stupid about it and add it all.

Whats going on with this pencil?

I did my best to photograph it, but we will struggle for scale. The central bit is 14 storeys, but the place is a cube, and goes far undergroud.
The cars in the foreground here are a long way from the store.
If you look closely at the much smaller Lotte store next to it, you can see the stair cases on its right edge.

This area is called Centrum city, a different area to this mornings future city, although still partially owned by Donald Trump.

Now we move onto the worlds biggest cinema / outdoor cinema, roof, LED display. This structure is just stupidly impressive, built for the Busan international film festival thats on each year. I cant fit all of the angled roof in the shot.

In this photo, I have gone back as far as I can, but cant get the whole place in. For perspective, if you look just to the bottom left of the cinema screen, you can see a lady in an orange jacket.

And now the greatest shot of all. This is at least 100 metres long, and changes pattern constantly like the Rundle lantern in Adelaide.
The statue is a giant eagle on its side. Look closely at the centre of the photo, thats the stadium seating.
There is still more of that roof behind me too.

I now need it to stop raining so I can go to the mountain tomorrow, forecast says sun, but I fear mud!

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.

View looking out to sea, except theres more land over there, and islands and whatever, and a huge bridge. Very confusing geography.

The other direction also had land and housing. If I didnt check google maps, I would assume it was a lake.

Inside the multilevel wet market that goes as far as the eye can see. Everything is alive, and leaping out of those tanks and plastic buckets.

Go up a level and its EAT EVERYTHING RAW super food court. Seriously, they were eating everything raw, prawns, crabs, things out of shells, gnawing into a still moving fish scales and all.
You also have to sit Asian style, on the floor with your shoes off. I wasnt about to take my shoes off in case a crab wandered off someones plate and got my toe.

Further along, and you get to the people that cant afford a spot indoors, and just set up outdoors, with dead things rather than live things.
It goes forever, yet theres hardly anyone here. A lot of these people looked like seasoned fishermen though, not a lot of teeth.

And then for dinner, I decided to go with fast good again! Coco curry, only it was not like it should be. They added tomato sauce and sour cream to the curry, this was not in the picture on the menu, and its never had a tomato sauce flavour when I have had it in other countries.
Still, I tried for omurice the other night in Daegu, and got a fried egg on top of rice, at least this time they got that right.
Probably best I go back to Korean food tomorrow.