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Published: September 9th 2009
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Active Yangsan Logo
This logo is plastered everywhere around the city - buildings, taxis, signs, bus stations, everything! Active Yangsan is something like the motto for this city, as well as an initiative to get people outside, being active, and it is quite incredible. They have put in all these walking paths made of track rubber (much nicer to walk on than a regular sidewalk) around the city and there are speakers on every lamp post playing music that is quite enjoyable!!! The pathways are marked with 200m markings so you can determine how far your walk or run was… the rubber path is for the pedestrian and there is a concrete path closer to the water for both pedestrians and bicycles… these paths wind for kilometers on end, our landlord was unable to tell us how far they would go outside of the city limits. It is believed that one day it will link all the neighboring cities…. Also, scattered at about 1/2km intervals are these outdoor, free-use weight/exercise machines. That’s right, you can go for your walk or jog and get a work-out along the way, all for free! It’s amazing really, and people really do use them! It’s not a wonder they are all skinny! A few evenings ago, our building owners (An and his wife
Walking track
Here you can see the trails that we walk on. The green in the distance is the subway. Everything here is full of colour! Kim) invited us to go walking with them (this is how we discovered some of this stuff). An speaks very good English, so he was able to explain some of this to us. Besides along the walkways, they also have the weight and work-out machines in many of their parks. Within the city all the sidewalks are done with paving stone (red yellow and green)… The yellow is a pathway for the blind, the stones are raised with different patterns for different areas so they can follow it where ever they please.
And then, of course, there are the mountains and hiking trails! We set out on Wednesday to find a way to hike the mountain and managed to stumble upon a trail! Of course we couldn’t read the map, but we followed the trail, basically straight up the mountain. Yup… 500+ meters straight up the side… a total of 3.2 km as it winded its ways through the trees. It was a tough climb on the legs, but the view from the top was amazing!! We have posted a whole bunch of pics to see around us. You can see the entire city , all the different valleys
Bridge over water
This is one of the many bridges connecting the two sides of Yangsan separated by a river. This bridge also has the track rubber! around us, the ocean, the mountains seem to go on and on and on! And, believe it or not, scattered along the trail were workout machines! Because apparently, hiking up a mountain isn’t workout enough! Lol. And along the trail were people of all ages, even some who I would have thought the trail was too tough for…they sure showed me! Once all said and done and our legs feeling like christmas bowl of jelly, you arrive back at the head of the trails where a compressor stand awaits you. The compressor stand is to clean you off after, your shoes and clothes come out dust free… its an odd thing but I guess they just like being dirt free.
Mike and I have yet to take a bus or taxi anywhere in the city - we just walk everywhere! It’s really so easy and enjoyable, I mean who wouldn’t want to stare at the mountains non-stop! Haha!
It’s nearly impossible not to be active here, which we are stoked about! It’s awesome!
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anonymous
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Just got back from visiting my brother there, it was great! Stumbled upon this page while looking for info on how the mountains were formed. The funny thing is he lives directly across that side street from Pusan Univ. Hospital, him and his Korean wife have a small English Hagwon there.