Korea yet again for the 7th time - March and April 2026 - Page 6

I was amazed to get off the bus and be greeted with blue sky. Also blossoms.

There are numerous cafes to choose from, I bypassed them all.

On a previous visit it was raining when I got off the bus, so I sat in that chain store cafe for a while before starting my hike.

Wherever you go in Korea, there is a nice drain to appreciate. You can see a bunch of tents for street food running down the right side.

The trail starts about 5 minutes away from the bus stop. Today I am going in the reverse direction to the first time I was here, and along a different route to the 2nd time I was here.

I followed a stream for a while.

Lots of rocks early on, and surprisingly quiet. Later there would be a huge number of people, I guess I was taking a less popular route.

Although I did have to pass this group of about 20 people, which I find to be obnoxious. Max group size on a hike should be 3 people. Overhiking is ruining tourism.

Here are the pagodas, I have been here in dense fog before. There are a few different trails that converge here.

Despite the great view of the sea of fog, nobody is here to enjoy it.

Nice fog.

I am not sure what exactly goes on inside this building.

There are defibrillators along the route.

Stairs are actually needed here, unless you were planning to put on abseiling gear. Very steep.

Quite the view indeed.

I will be sharing a lot of similar photos.

Main summit of the day. Not particularly high.

Not exactly the same photo as the one 2 photos ago, but similar!

Down the other side of the mountain, no fog, less interesting.

I will now continue along many of these ridges, but not all the way to the antennas, as that area is military and off limits.

Still doing fog appreciation.

I had come over and along some of those.

If you look closely you might see some stairs and ladders which I will soon be using.

OK... not the same as the one 2 photos ago (again), but similar (again).

Here you can see some stairs I had come down on the peak on the left.

The ridge line was rocky.

Not much chance of plummeting.

The fog is becoming smog now, the best fog photos are a thing of the past.

That is a huge staircase up to the next and final summit.

I had come all along there.

The valley below has many temples and will be my destination.

Far side of the ridge.

The summit area had way too many people clearing years of accumulated vape residue from their respiratory systems, I moved on quickly.

Now to head down there.

A lot of the way down is very rocky.

Looking back up the way I had come down. There were a lot more people now.

Getting there. It was a short hike today, but the course I took has all the best bits, longer ones miss most of the highlights.

Waterfall, of sorts.

I don't think you can go up to that ridge, it is in the closed off military area.

Lots of people enjoying the waterfall.

Almost back down to the valley floor.

Back down to the moss layer.

And then after not long at all, back at the temple.

Most of the temple is off limits, in fact I may have been breaking the rules by taking this photo.

The temple area entrance, which I had just exited. Lots and lots of people.

And lots of cherry blossoms.

Then just after lunch, back at the cafe area. I boarded a bus almost immediately, it was full, later in the day I may have been waiting in a line as full buses departed.
So that was a short hike, but the photos were worth it, a longer hike would have missed much of the view.

Right out the front of city hall, a legoland protest (closed on Sunday). They LOVE a protest in Korea.

This ladder goes to the roof of the crab house, for no reason at all. There are oversized human figurines playing on the ladder and the roof. The plastic guard to stop drunken idiots from climbing it is unlikely to stop too many drunken idiots from climbing it.

My destination is on the left.

It looks like a giant box. The woman in the ad appears to be wearing a leather smock.

The basement is as always, the casual dining area. The lighting is really interesting, it makes it appear as though it is daylight, quite surreal, no shadows.

My dinner is an eggplant rice bowl. It needed Gochujang, but none was on offer. Still it was ok.

Now for the roof, and the sunset. You can see in all directions. That is the science museum down there, been there before.

It is a large multi level roof garden.

With dinosaurs! Also check out the sunset.

Still the roof garden. It bothers me that the hotel is not lined up with the walkway. Move the hotel!

Below the roof again, and the upper levels are basically a normal mall, lower levels are all department store.
Tomorrow I go to Jeonju, I have not been there before, it is a tourist town for playing dress ups. Perhaps I will wear a strange Korean ancient cowboy hat?

To get to the KTX station, which is different to the one I arrived in Daejeon from, I had to go to Seodaejeonnegeori subway station, yes all one word allegedly. Anyway, right near there, a mystery bonus department store, and I thought I had seen all of Daejeon.

Between the subway and the station was the saddest shopping street of all time.

The station itself is new but very small.

Although the inside actually still manages to have a few stores to buy nothing from.

4 platforms. A surprisingly large number of trains come through here.

I had the single seat in first class again. No sick people today, but the blinds were all pulled down. There are free bottles of water and boxes of cookies for first class, I did not have any as I prefer to keep my mask on.

A bonus photo, the OUTSIDE of my hotel, a Shilla Stay, which I think is an up and coming Korean chain, there are a lot of them on booking.com all of a sudden. Booking.com got hacked again yesterday, I got lots of emails about it and now there are news stories popping up even on ABC Australia. This seems to be a weekly occurrence.

I was too early to check in so left my bags and wandered around the shopping streets, of which there are many in this tourist focused town.

Now for the hotel pics, first my bed, desk and couch. The entrance area I am standing in is very large, as big as some hotel rooms in Japan probably.

The bathroom is a 3 door setup, I an standing in a door, toilet door on left, shower door on right. No bath.

And finally my view, of an advertising sign for a Hyundai mainly, but also some distant mountains I will soon see up close.

Korean traditional cultural centre - really, nothing screams Korean tradition more than this strange building.

The sign says 'More donuts, less crime, general donut shop'. I guess they got their man (bear).

Gacha machine stores are EVERYWHERE. There is no one in any of them.

Check out the great clouds. Excellent light for this photo. The sunset looked good too but I could not find a clear view.

My dinner was a cheap Kimchi rice creation. Small serve too. I was sold by the fact that the restaurant was open, it was not rolling pasta where I went to previously in Changwon which was also open, and that the meal came in a metal bowl.

The main streets are covered with lots of spaceship looking fixtures. But cars are allowed to drive down the streets which makes walking under cover somewhat dangerous.

But here it is, the Jeonju version of the Daejeon sky road. It is not much, but at least it was turned on, unlike Daejeon.
Tomorrow is of course a hiking day. Both of my planned hikes here appear to be kind of short, but the bus rides to and from might prove challenging. I must remember to eat less food if the hikes are too short.

As I mentioned, stay on the bus until the last stop. There is a convenience store near by. The last stop has brand new toilets too.

The mountains are not too far from the bus stop, they look further away from here than they are. There are a lot of glamping campgrounds in the area.

I could have just put this photo and said it is like being in a 3rd world country, but other than this one building, there were many air bnb's and cafes around.

The fist third of the 'trail' is road with hessian bags up the middle, which made for quick progress. There were a few old ladies heading up to the temple.

Temple number one features Buddha with a pagoda hat. Fetching.

A nice wooded area, I was appreciating the shade as it was probably 23 degrees (celsius/centrigrade/metric temperature unit that is not kelvin).

Temple number 2 and Buddha has lost his hat!

After the temple, the path got more trail like.

Eventually, there will be rocks.

Parts of it were quite dark.

Sea of moss is always appreciated.

But also the odd staircase - strange colour in this photo for some reason.

My destination came into view.

The ridge was all but dead except for some purple.

No helicopters today, but there were fighter jets above the clouds circling a lot of the time, adding to the serenity.

Getting closer.

I stood taking this photo and the cable car passed what seems like 1 foot above my head. It really took me by surprise. This cable car is actually not for the public, only for the workers who fix the antennas.

View time, Jeonju is around to the left.

Random other direction, you are allowed to climb all over and on top of the buildings at this summit.

However, there are signs saying not to take photos, which I largely ignored. Antennas are serious business.

It is still an official summit area for hikers, you can see the view point and map in the bottom right, and where I am standing had the binoculars on a pole for people to gawk through. There are 3 ways up to this summit and some are much closer to a car park.

Jeonju in the distance on the left.

Bonus antenna.

I decided to go down the way I had come up, as it was longer, and I knew there was a bus at the bottom.

But first this junction tempted me. No other people on the trail, but still an emergency phone and defibrillator.

I followed a detour trail to an alternative summit. I was glad I did.

This meant it was selfie time. A pretty good one too. Wonderful hair today.

Time to head back through the dark forest.

The gate to the temple area let me know I was back at the hessian path to the bus.

There are 4 historic gates in Jeonju, and they are actually a bit away from the hanok village, much nearer a big market that I will also have to check out tomorrow. They look quite new to me.

In and around the market there are a lot of interesting shops. I am a fan of fans.

This is just one of many historic catholic or similarly Jesus related churches in the area.

Now for the hanok village outer commercial area, which is a series of very nice streets.

There are many cats, all orange.

Always looks better into the sun.

Very similar to Gyeongju from my previous Korea trip, only more trees here.

Pigeon is using the crossing.

Along here are lots of artist studios.

From atop the public toilet, a view of the village itself.

View of the view.

Garfield has glasses?

Here is one of the new historic hanok village streets under construction, there are many new historic areas coming soon.

Lots of interesting buildings, this is new, but made to look old. Hipster antiques inside, old bikes, smoking pipes, leather banana holders.

And finally my dinner. There were not many actual restaurants open in the hanok village area, just cafes for cake and strawberry themed everything. So instead I wandered back to my hotel area and went to a restaurant called 'casual Korean food', which seems to serve Korean versions of a poke bowl. Mine has strips of dried brisket, quail eggs and a few things I could not identify, on top of soba noodles, with a wasabi and honey soy dressing (I think). Not bad.
Tomorrow is all hanoking.