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Published: February 9th 2007
Gateway to Haeinsa
UNESCO World Heritage Temple in Gayasan National ParkAt last…two weeks before leaving the country for good, we made it back to Mel’s Korean hometown…Daegu. And even more excitingly, we were able to catch up with Chris (that’s Chris-aaa in Korean) - Mel’s travel buddy and know-it-all oracle from way back when.
Lovely, smelly, sprawling old Daegu has changed little in four years…except that the subway, tragically disabled by a fire which killed almost 200 people while Mel was there, has finally got the funding to be repaired and extended. This means that instead of a clunky bus taking an hour to get from home to downtown, it’s now possible to do it all underground in about 25 minutes. And they have cool little round subway tokens. Ooooh!
The great thing about Chris is that he really knows where it’s at food-and-drink-wise. We “enjoyed” everything from soju to chewy barbecued scallops (questioningly garnished with pizza cheese) to bundegi (yep, silk worm larvae…a little crunchy, very protein rich. Ick!) But we did eat very well despite all that.
We enjoyed a little meander around downtown and Daegu impressed Gareth with its crazy weekend shopping crowds. We also visited the ole’ hood and had a
Tripitaka Koreana
81,340 carved woodblocks, on which are the complete Buddhist scriptures gimbap at the place Mel shed tears at after her last supper there in 2003.
And so on to Busan, via Haeinsa, a favourite temple in Korea. Haeinsa is World Heritage listed for its impressive collection of the Tripitaka Koreana; 81,340 3kg woodblocks carved with the entire Buddhist scriptures. It’s an impressive sight.
We spent our one full day in Busan (Korea’s number 1 beach city) nowhere near the beach. Instead we hiked four hours along the length of an old mountaintop fortress and down to Beomeosa, a pleasingly ragged-looking, peaceful old temple. The air smelled of spring. We hiked in t-shirts in a warm breeze. It was a heavenly prelude to our upcoming Siberian freeze.
We spent a blissful evening in Asia’s largest spa complex. We’d have said we were in Heaven, but surely the fashion can’t be so bad up there. But seriously…Korea’s got it going on in the bathing department. Us Aussies could learn a lesson or two.
Our 5-day break finished at the airport, meeting our Mongolian buddy Muugii. She’s got a scholarship to do her Masters in social welfare in Seoul, meaning that she certainly won’t be
there for us to drop in on in Ulaanbaatar, but we get to catch up with her briefly here.
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cousin Bastien...
non-member comment
nice place!
it seems u r visiting some nice places roud the world... hope u'll enjoy your travel time... and of course... lots of luv from all the family in switzerland... see ya soon!