More of the same of Korea - March and April 2024 - Page 6

Like I mentioned, I transferred one stop late at Dongnae and walked back one stop. Which went along this underground park. I am literally under the station. I thought this was great.

The nearby mega church was indeed mega. The leader is in there now (it is Sunday morning) receiving donations from idiots who are awaiting transport off the face of the earth when the rapture arrives. On this occasion, the actual church building transforms into a space ship (look at it, you know I am right).
So in summary today I have offended the leaders of the Buddhist temple and a mega church.

The drain near the church was adorned with yellow flowers. How often do you get to say adorned in your life?

This is Osiria station, where I got off to walk to the temple. It is in the middle of nowhere and a new city area is being built around it. The train to here while technically part of the metro, is actually the commuter line to Ulsan. It only runs about once every 20 minutes.

The theme park is huge, but hard to get a photo that shows any of it.

Somehow I ended up under the road in a home-wares mega mall. More mega malls to come. This place was all mega malls for the temple goers.

Behold, another mega mall, I shall go through it on my way back to the station.

Approaching the temple and there are millions of people (possible exaggeration) but it was really slow going.

There it is. That is all of it.

Sure, the rocks are nice.

The bridge is nice too. There were numerous statues you are supposed to touch to ensure you have a male baby. And the bridge is where you can drown unwanted female babies. This is not longer really a thing in Korea, because no one has any babies.

CONFIDENTLY INCORRECT. This sign really sums up what I think about this place. It is marketed really really well, but is really just a tourist trap.

Today's Buddha is a plastic gold coloured fat Buddha.

I hoped to walk around the coast, but you cannot. This is as far as I could get. There was a loudspeaker announcement in every language that a free lunch of instant Korean noodles was now being served. This caused a stampede. A stampede for instant noodles.

A statue.

Technically this is part of the pay car park that is not affiliated with the Temple. There seems to be some kind of dispute about that.

Time to exit via the plastic religious artefacts stores.

On my way back, I passed a different part of the theme park. It might be a separate thing entirely. This one has a luge track and a zip line. You take the chair lifts back to the top. Both activities seem potentially holiday / life ending, so I continued on.

The mega mall I passed earlier is still in the process of opening in stages. Much of it is the Lotte outlet mall, so semi outdoor like a DFO in Australia. Finding a toilet that was actually open was challenging!

And for my final photo today, here is the city under construction nearby. I suspect no one lives there yet.

Lets follow this stream/sewer and see where it goes. You are no longer allowed to go down there and walk at water level. I think you could last time I was here.

Starting off with a low down view, but already, ascending staircases.

I kept going until I got to the temple at the top. There was no one around at all. Probably because there are no blossoms.

The left view. I was somewhere about 30km away in that direction earlier today.

The right view. You can see the Busan tower on the extreme right edge of this picture, which is the area where my hotel is at.

I climbed further up around the back of the temple to get a shot of the view plus temple.

Going down, and it seems like I am trespassing. I am sure there were many sets of eyes on me at all times. There are also a lot of cameras. The cameras surely see into peoples houses.

Last view shot for today. The big building on the left is a high school. Not the shiny towers, the concrete monolith on the extreme left.

Now to examine the local recycling centre. In this shot is random crap.

Where as in this pile, pots and pans. There were also a lot of fans for some reason (not pictured).

That is where I had come back down from. A nice walk.

Now to head back down the same stream / sewer. You saw it earlier on the way up, here it is on the way down.

The local market was closing. Impressive roof.

Next I went along Texas street, which I showed the other night. Turns out it is more like Filipino street and is mainly brothels. I saw some 'girls' waiting to start their shift hanging around. People were not too amused at me pointing my camera at them.

Time to run away from the mob bosses and head into a place where they cannot get me. Busan station. They spent a fortune deciding on their city slogan.

And finally, first bibimbap of the trip. No meat. Flavourless until I added a lot of Gochujang.
It is supposed to rain all day tomorrow. My day on / day off hiking schedule might be blown!

I got up early to walk around before the rain arrived. First stop, down at the docks to check out the fish market. It is extensive.

There are actually little eating spots all the way along here, and some people enjoy fish guts compressed into blocks and shoved onto sticks for breakfast. It is this area that gets all the weekend tour package groups, many of whom may be Japanese as I think they come by ferry. Today however, very quiet.

The fleet is in. I am not sure why, the water was very calm.

Barbie fever is taking over the world.

This is the upmarket cafe street in Nanpo.

RIP movies?

An example of a film gallery along this street. Busan has the big international film festival, literally called BIFF.

I decided to climb up the Busan tower area and look for the rain that was not here yet. The view from up here is weak compared to the views from up the hills on my previous 2 evening walks.

The gardens around the tower are nice though.

Behold, the tower, it has an entrance fee and it not open yet.

Just another nice street in Nanpo, drops of rain were starting to fall, time to head underground and get the subway to the mega department store experience extravaganza.

There are 2 department stores connected underground. Shinsegae is the main event but their major competitor in Lotte has decided to build a Trevi plaza to lure customers away from the nearby attraction that advertises heavily as worlds largest.

I headed outside to see if it was raining properly yet. Still no. That is a Trump housing development. There are hundreds of these across Korea. A quick google reveals it is an ongoing partnership between South Korea's favourite USA president and Daewoo.

There it is, on the left, the worlds largest department store. Lotte on the right, pfft so puny.

You can go into the laser room and ruin your eyesight / camera sensor by looking directly into laser beams.

The Shinsegae seems to be a department store surrounded by malls. This made it hard for me to measure the exact square footage to ratify their claim of worlds largest.

Raining now though! I felt better about not being on top of a mountain.

Instead I could go ice skating. The store rink seems about as popular as all other department store ice skating rinks I have encountered on my travels, even though South Korea has some very famous short course speed skaters. Maybe the Zamboni is out of action because it gassed people like the one in Adelaide?

I headed up to the dinosaur themed roof garden, and stood around in the rain. I had the roof to myself.

Yep, really raining now.

Bonus roof garden shot.

And after I got suitably wet and subsequently turned away from the golf driving range, I descended down into basement level 3 and perused the food court offerings before choosing a gourmet sandwich from one of the ten or so competing bakeries.
I suspect it will still be raining later, underground subway tunnel walking night?

Yep, still raining. The hill in the distance is now a cloud.

I have walked the entire length of this underground pedestrian mall before. It strangely has entire sections selling giant digital LED wall clocks. Tonight I decided to just photograph a section with nothing at all to see.

After discovering my planned dinner location at the Lotte department store was closed, I had to head out into the rain. Very quiet on a rainy Monday night.

The Fuzzy Navel was an option, but I checked and mine was not fuzzy enough.

It may be Monday, but there are still plenty of places open for food.

Sapporo soup curry, with 17 kinds of vegetables (it is what the menu said). I got the pork option. Delicious. I am not sure I counted 17 different vegetables, maybe 15. Should I complain?

Now for some neon reflections. I think I took a photo of this street this morning too.

BIFF square.

OK, I am wet enough. Time to head back to the hotel.
I am confident it will stop raining shortly and it will be good weather for a long hiking day tomorrow. I plan to do a hike I have done previuosly, in reverse.

The rain is gone. The drains are raging. Would I have to cross some raging streams today? Time will tell.

The road up to Beomeosa temple is nice. It is not quite how I remember it coming down. Today's stats were 14km, 28k steps, 5 hours. But that is not quite the full picture as it is probably 5k steps from the station to the temple to start the hike, and a few more at the other end to get back to the station.

After walking uphill along the road for a while I joined a parallel path along the road to the temple, this is more what I remember from my previous visits.

Arriving in the temple area and it is time for some giant rocks, and a lot of German chatter.

I am never sure if these are tombstones or not.

The temple here is extensive and quite nice. The good thing is with the Germans moving in regimented groups, you can actually avoid them easily.

A bit more temple.

And one more. Normally by the time I get to here I am exhausted as it is the end of my day, today it is the start.

Despite the rain, no raging torrent of water. Lots of rocks and these ones look mossy, but the actual ones you walk up were fine. I am standing on a little bridge to take this photo.

After about 20 minutes the path veers away from the rocks. It is here that I wanted to turn right and go a different way up to the main peak, but that way is now removed from the maps. That part of the forest is closed for natural rejuvenation, for 20 years. I think last time I accidentally went through it on the way down and ended up climbing over a sea of boulders to get back on the permitted path.

Periodic staircases today, it is a very popular hike.

So popular, that there are public toilets along the journey. The path crosses roads a couple of times at different points where you can get a bus too.

This is the North gate. I made a turn up to the highest point here, which I would then have to double back from due to the just mentioned forest rejuvenation.

The wall up to the highest peak of the day, Godangbong, which is the highest point within Busan city limits. Apparently this is also the second most popular national park in the country after Bukhansan in Seoul. A lof of strangely factual information today.

The path has some low bamboo. I love low bamboo.

The official hike map does not send you up to this peak, either on the local signs or on alltrails if you use that app. It will add about 50 minutes onto your day to go up and back.

The last bits up are staircases, so it makes for quick progress.

I thought the cloud would disappear, it stayed around this peak all day. Photos would be better with sparse or no cloud.

Godangbong peak, and other people.

Bonus view.

Peak marker. Proof I was there. Well I guess I could have given my camera to someone else to go up and back.

I am standing with my back to the spiral staircase down that goes to the closed off bit of the forest.

Time to double back and get back on the wall. You can see it below.

But I must first appreciate low bamboo some more.

Last part of my doubling back path.

Now it was time to head up again, a different way.

There is the peak I just came down from in the distance.

A photozone, OK then. They mean the actual bridge, there is no view from the bridge.

My next target.

City below. I wish it was clearer. Today was cloud rather than pollution. It never rained and was quite warm and humid.

There are people up there. Me next! Turns out they were ABK's (American born Koreans), I could hear them talking. Looked like a church group.

View from the top of the previous pic. Great view of that cool rock.

Little yellow flag. You can also see the wall going back up the hill here.

More wall, I will be going in that direction.

The fourth watchtower. I walked... all along the watchtower. I bet if I re-read my last 2 visits to here I typed the same thing both times.

There is a mixture of restored and un-restored parts of the wall. Much of it was last built in the 1500's to repel the Japanese.

At times I was walking along a sea of blossoms.

The central gate. A lot of people come up to just this bit.

You can walk through the gate, so I did.

The wall in this area is completely restored and maintained.

More wall.

The occasional view was starting to appear, I am getting closer to the end!

More view, with trees.

There is this service road up to the cable car station. There are ways to avoid almost all of it, which I did. Still it is a nice area with trees with actual leaves.

Another watchtower, this one has no view.

There is the cable car. It is operating. It is old and appears to have a driver.

Around the cable car station there is a cafe and a restaurant. Hard to fit into one shot. I will NOT be taking the cable car down, I knew the views on the way down were great.

And behold, view. Looking back to the north.

And from the same spot around to the south.

THE STANCE. The veins in my leg look concerning. Load the full size one and zoom in at your own risk.

Last view shot, I am most of the way down here.

The path down is excellent, there are a number of rocky grotto's to explore.

There is a stream to follow, but thankfully it was not flooded from the recent rain.

The exit (normally entrance) to this trail is a large park, full of badminton courts and old people doing old people things.

The park entrance.

Today I did not exit via farmland, in Busan you exit a mountain right into a high rise development.

And like I said, it is a bit of a walk back to the station. That surely is enough photos for now!

There is part of the Lotte mall complex at the end of the street my hotel is on.

To get there I went through some dried fish product stalls in the process of closing.

Now for the roof garden shots. It really is a great roof garden. For some reason there are less and less of these on the top of big stores, a lot of them are now closed off permanently, presumably because people jump?

The view is not as good when there is no sun, but there are a lot of boats.

This is part of the area ABOVE the roof garden, where you can laze around on the actual roof.

And here is a bit more of the upper roof deck area.

Some more view in another direction.

Part of the garden. The grass looks a bit dead. There is actually a dog walking area too.

Garden and sunset.

Top tip, do not pay to go up that tower, come to the Lotte roof garden instead.

OK, the last one of the roof garden.

Not only was this restaurant my 3rd pick, the meal I wanted was sold out (hot soba with deep fried vegetables). Instead I got a huge amount of very dark coloured cold soba and a pork schnitzel. Another case of find the flavour (I failed). I do not mind soba, but prefer it hot, the whole dunk it in the cold broth from about 2 metres above the table and then get it in your mouth without splashing everything in a 3 metre radius is unnecessary fanfare.

I should have gone to the basement, that was still open and there were many good places to eat. It seems I am not good enough for the 10th floor restaurants, I am forever just a basement dweller.
Tomorrow is not a hiking day, but I think there will be a lot of walking, I have a plan already.