Korea for the 4th time - May and June 2022 - Page 9

The journey from my hotel to the island took me all around the main harbour, under the bridges again that I went under before but would later go over. I appreciated the ship building yards once more.

Grey day today, mostly, here is a view of ye olde Yeosu. Osu is the Korean word for old.

Brief sun lit up the shore.

This was a weird bit, I am on an elevated boardwalk that goes all the way to that headland, and then stops at a dead end. No way to get off, you just have to turn back and walk a few hundred metres to where it rejoins the road. Also note the concrete things in the water, a common feature in all Asian countries.

After walking back and then back and then back again, I went through this tunnel, a few Ferrari's came through and did the stick it in neutral and rev the crap out of it thing.

Upon exiting the tunnel, here is the elevator (lift) to the cable car. Hmm, I hope I do not have to use this later.

I think this is the nicest hotel in Yeosu, no doubt built for the famous World Expo Yeosu 2012 all Korea Yeosu international exposition expo that was held in 2012.

Now I will walk over to the island. Thankfully you can walk, although there is a fake train thing which is a truck towing trailers to take you too.

View of the expo area, now largely a ghost town from what I have seen. Busan is building all kinds of stuff to do the same thing in 2030, it seems like an expensive thing to do. Brisbane did it in 1988, who remembers that? No one.

The path around the island looked mainly like this. There were roughly 50 public toilets. Periodically you walk down a couple of hundred stairs to look at a view, then come back up again.

Here is a view, lighthouse and ships. The lighthouse here probably still functions.

Apparently, a dragon lives in this cave. I threw a few rocks in there but he did not come out to say hello.

Well well well, we meet again.

This is not the penis tree.

This is the penis tree, I was very disappointed. Although as I came around a corner grandmas were being photographed stroking it. They scurried off.

A bit more view, lots of ships, medium density pollution.

Last shot of the island.

As I crossed back over the causeway, it was apparent that I would not have to use the cable car lift tower thing, there is a beautiful staircase to climb instead! I started skipping ahead with increased glee.

I was at the top in no time, hurling obscenities at the people who took the lift (elevator).

Here are some of those lazy people, trying to ignore my ongoing insults.

I tried to make the wire snap with my mind. To the best of my knowledge I failed.

Above the cable car station is a nice park, with many sculptures such as this.

Time for me to climb down and find the start of that bridge.

OK, it was easy enough to find the start of the bridge, but it is covered in rubbish, and cars were blowing (honking) their horns at me, so I do not think very many people walk over the bridge. Having said that, cars often blow their horns at me wherever I am in the world.

View of cable car and city. Not a lot of breeze today.

Now I am at the end of the cable car, you can see the bridge I walked over if you squint.

The upper cable car station, it has a mini shopping mall inside of it.

There is a viewing deck at the top of the cable car station, which gives a great view of the car park.

More bridge and cable cars.

More monuments, this one has a woman with her BOSOMS showing.

Now I just need to find a way down to bridge #2 for the day, FINAL BRIDGE.

That was easy enough. This one has no rubbish, I suspect it gets some pedestrian use.

View from bridge #2. A bit hard to see, but there is a floating platform with white igloos on it. There are a few such platforms anchored along the coast in other spots. I suspect these are for fishing adventures, the igloos are your tent, they tow you out to the middle of the ocean somewhere and drop anchor. Of course, I could be wrong.

I saved the best pic for last, a local drain! I feel as though I have seen a lot of Yeosu in a couple of days.

About 1 block from my hotel is the only thing resembling a department store in Yeosu. I had not been in there yet, that would change tonight. Yes I know the photo is crooked, only way I could fit it in.

Down at the fishing port, food trucks are setting up. Actually this is interesting, behind me along the waterfront there are some rather sad looking parks. I can see them out of my hotel window. There has been no one there the last couple of days but now a band has set up, and people are setting up tents. The park extends into the water. I think this is all a setup for people to go fishing all night, with food, music and camping. Lots of kids running around.

Here is the only ferry I have seen the whole time I have been here. Scabs! It is arriving at an unmarked boat ramp.

And the impressive police fleet. The gun looking things are just water cannons.

I walked across all these boats back to the shore.

Some time later and I am doing a few laps of the running track. This is actually the local university, very small. But it is open for old people to entertain themselves on a Saturday night. They were getting in the way of me setting a fast time.

Now for the local Lotte mall. No basement! The 1st level is just a huge supermarket. The 3 levels above it are individual stores like this, in a grid layout more like a factory outlet or market than what we tend to call a mall these days.

Before going to the food court, I went up to the roof car parking for a couple more view shots. I have seen the view of Yeosu enought times now.

OK one more. Quite a few solar cells.

The mall has a little food court with about 6 places to eat. One is Lotteria which is Korean Mcdonalds, over to the right is a shabu shabu, but I would have neither of those....

When Koreans think of Chinese food, this is what they think of. This and ONLY this. If you ever go to Incheon Chinatown, the largest in Korea, there are 200 places serving ONLY this. Actually it is often served with noodles, but the sauce which my research tells me was actually invented in Incheon by a Chinese immigrant, is what Koreans understand is 'Chinese food'. It is a black bean based sauce, with larger bits of bean in it, and probably some pork, and this being Yeosu, probably leftover bits of octopus.

I was up super early and went for a walk along the shore of Yeosu. Very clear skies today, so a few more pics were in order. The first one is an interesting choice for a sculpture, as diving boats with tourists leave from where this is!

Clear view into the early sun.

Very clear. This photo is noted for the clearness of the clear.

In the middle of nowhere is this hotel. It is up a long private driveway from the road (I walked along it followed by security). Look at the weird sky bridges between different parts of the building.

These are the last fishing boats you will see on this trip.

Now for the expo. Here is the main entrance, you are greeted by a giant brown small wooden boy. This is a Korean welcome to country, and the boy does represent a native group that lived near here. I have never seen anyone resembling this boy though, so I presume they are extinct.

There are lots of escalators. They all look like this. I would assume they would have been worth money to pull out and sell, but I guess that would be admitting the expensive buildings erected for the month long expo are now useless.

I think this was a combination fountain and laser show. Look how rusty it is.

Everything was rusty. There really were wooden decks with big holes in them, stepping on them would have you fall into the ocean.

OK, enough expo, onto the station. 4 bullet trains waiting to go. While I was here huge numbers of people got off incoming trains, and then raced to store their baggage. I assume they come all the way from Seoul for a day trip. They are probably on their way back now as I am typing this with suitcases full of live octopusereses's.

A view of Iksan. As soon as the train departed Yeosu it got very grey, and it is still grey now here in Seoul.

Iksan station is well appointed, all the high speed lines meet up at this station.

And here is my hotel in the Gangnam area of Seoul. It is a Dormy Inn. It is just like the Japanese Dormy Inns with the free ramen service and bath house etc. I have stayed here before. It is cheap because there is a lot of hate directed at Japan lately in Korea (I may have mentioned that?), so no Koreans want to stay here and there are not many tourists, although more on that below.

This is the official logo of Gangnam, and I think it is to recognise the Gangnam style thing which is that everyone in Gangnam is very selfish and only cares about money. Which is 100 percent accurate. However, big news! I.SEOUL.U was retired yesterday, and is being replaced by, 'My Soul, Seoul'. Really! This is big news, I.SEOUL.U is written on everything in holographic 3d spinning neon letters. Replacing it all will cost billions.

Gangnam food street. I knew where I was going.

Getting closer now.

Ahh yes, I had this last time I was here. Excellent Taiwan style beef noodle soup with hand cut fresh noodles. The best food in Korea is Taiwanese food.

It was still early, so there was time to head underground. This is the cheap fashion part of Gangnam, hence it is all underground.

And final pic for the evening, a long underground tunnel between stations. This one is a bit more varied, a few restaurants, bakeries, even a greengrocer with the guy out the front screaming 1000 won 1000 won 1000 won!

Here is where the train I was on ended before the end of the line and I had to wait 20 minutes for the next one. I pad $1.20 or so to exit the station and go back in again to take this photo, it is called Pyeongnae-Hopyeong Station so that should be easy to remember.
Terrible photo, but my mountain for the day is the one in the middle of the screen with the bit of cloud / fog at the top.

On my walk to the start of the hike from Cheonmasan station, I checked for where I went 3 weeks ago by mistake. I believe that is it. There were no views down this way at any time on that hike, but there was a long trail that joined up to today's location.

The start of the right hike had all the stairs and amenities that were promised by previous reviewers.

There was even a swing bridge to jump on and test the cable integrity. Passed.

Fog view. More to come.

You know you are on a popular trail when it has brand new toilet blocks in seemingly random spots.

The stairs gave way to rocks. I was a careful as it was quite wet still, but never slipped once all day.

Probably the best view of the day, we will get it again later on the way down with less fog. And actually, this was the only hike on this whole trip that was an up and back course rather than coming down a different way course. That seems an improbable feat, but I believe it is correct.

I was concerned about coming back down this slippery looking rock, but it was fine. I don't mind slipping going up as I fall onto my soft underbelly and hug a rock, but slipping going down I land on my bony pelvis and continue sliding.

My peak is over there, in the cloud. I was hoping it would be dense fog.

This might have been a great shot in clear weather.

This mountain is well known for its views all the way back to Seoul. Not today.

Getting near the top and it was steep enough for some more stairs.

Unfortunately, this was the best the fog had to offer. Needed more denseness.

OK, here I am holding my breath, as this is where the young guy was sneezing, coughing, flemming massive amounts of flems, crying, wheezing, gargling sputum. There was another woman on the summit, she saw this and put her mask on, after this shot I did the same, but there was more to come.

Summit view away from Seoul.

Bonus view.

There is the sick guy. I had to get back past him. If I come home sick, this is the guy that made me sick. KILL HIM.

Nice tree stump. There are ski resorts near here. I think they sprung up as Korea was hosting the winter olympics, and are possibly already no longer operating.

Here is the same view from earlier. And try as I might to avoid the sick guy, I think he was following me. I let him pass and he stopped soon after. I went fast and he tried to catch up, piss off and leave me alone. I did the whole descent wearing a mask.

Back at the bottom and I was warning everyone about the sick guy. To try and avoid him I did a few sets on the giant steering wheel.

And after only about 3 hours and 20,000 steps I was back at the station. It was a shorter hike, but I beat the rain, it was however a very steep hike, 800 metres ascent with no let up. OK, no more hikes, tomorrow I will do something tourists are supposed to do, or go to the hospital for a covid test when I wake up with whatever super mucus inducing infection today's idiot had.

Oh look, here is the actual casino. I knew where it was but did not know there was a street entrance, I thought it was underground along with the COEX mall.

I was back at a mall I have been to a few times, once on this trip and on past trips. It has more food options than anywhere else I know of, but it also has many art galleries.

The book shop has live flowers to sit in and have your photo taken. There was a line of people, I got in the line, and then took a photo of the seat with no one on it. This amused the people in the line behind me.

It is the only mall I know of with an indoor underground running track around the whole thing. This is a great thing, but people need to get out of my way.

Here is my dinner. A very typical Korean meal. The pork is apparently 'boiled'. I believe you are supposed to wrap various things into the leaves in the middle. This is a test of metal chopstick proficiency. I did not see any of the locals wrapping their pork and pickled things in leaves, when I left I did a lap of the restaurant and everyone had left their leaves untouched, hmmm.

And finally, if you want your pants taken up, you get to choose your preferred sewing machine.