bush bashing in the dark Korean style

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Better make this quick as laptop power is running out and the stupid power points in this room do not seem to be working.

After checking out the wonderful world class beach of Korea Haeundae (agree with the LP that this is bunk) with an awful lot of whities with tatts all over them, which is definitely something I have not been missing, I headed for the mountains. In other words I headed into the city on line 2, which I am near the end of, to then headed north on line 1 towards where I will be going tomorrow, the bus terminal. However fortunately I took a break at Seomyeon where I had to change and went in search of some food. Just as well actually given my privations later when I needed the energy. For the first time I tried a Korean style smorgasbord for about seven dollars in the food basement. This was actually pretty good value as you could choose sushi style rice, cold octopus and small cooked fish, Korean chicken chilli style and all that sort of stuff. And then go and load your plate with mochi, those chewy sort of sweet glutinous rice paste balls.

After that resumed my journey to Oncheonjan subway station (near which is allegedly the biggest public bath (jjimjilbang) in Asia -- not seen however). My purpose was to go to the cable car/rope way as the Korean/Japanese say and get myself winched up 540 m of mountain. Needless to say the view over the parts of the city in the valley is fairly impressive. This takes you up onto Geumjeongsan (the -san bit is mountain) from whence there is a 8.5km or so hike along the top of the mountain. That essentially goes along the eastern wall of the old fortress.The concept as a fortress was essentially flawed, although the natural defensive aspects of the site are wonderful. The main problem here is the sheer size of the ultimate enclosure as the total length of the walls is about 17.5 km! It fell into disuse due to the rather large maintenance problem. What you can see of the walls is relatively low as you will likely see from the photographs -- very much a Junior Wall -- not a Great Wall. The Lonely Planet, which is now somewhat old, had some adverse comments about the lack of signage at various points, and most of it is in Korean anyway. But as you can see you get the general drift from the distance markings.

I did think this was going to take about three hours (famous last words) but by the time I got to the North Gate, and then faced the downward descent of some 2km or so, it was almost 8 o'clock (sunset officially at about 7:45 PM). This meant I really had to get a wriggle on and scramble as fast as I could. Unfortunately a lot of the path is fairly rocky and the ability to make swift progress was limited. I was naturally concerned about twisting my ankle or somesuch disaster (no mobile on me to ring 119). I also had no warm clothes other than a plastic rain jacket. There was an unlocked cabin near the top with a night watchman's type jacket which was tempting!

It was virtually 8:30pm, and it was starting to get very very dim, when I finally reached the supposedly magical setting of the monastery at Beomeosa in the valley. It was so dark I ended up on the wrong side of the rocky creek bed. I met a woman coming the other way who was likely heading to the monastery with some food provisions so got a bit of a clue as to the direction of continued downward progress. There were quite a few parked cars there but there are a number of monastery stay type places there as well - it is very peasceful. Generally there seemed to be very little action so I had to take a bit of a punt and generally headed down hill wherever there were lights. I finally found a little shed with a man warming his feet on a heater (its 20 degrees man! - not that chilly). He indicated the general direction of the metro/subway. So it was a major relief to stumble into a lit main street of some sort of civilisation which proved to be quite close to the subway. So then merely 30 mins sitting on line 1, then the reverse on line 2 to Haeundae. This is taking "getouta Haeundae" to the ridiculous extreme!

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Photos

Haeundae Beach
hirise view

Haeundae tatts & whities
I could do without

check the suits on left
not much to perve at - Yankee/Brit whities only

Haeundae Beach 119
shoulda taken my mobile to the scrub

Haeundae Beach
Koreans are very competitive - for actionman clothing

Geumjeong cablecar vue
a rather tall, close city

Geumjeong cablecar vue
at the top

eek!
this was near some ponds

Geumjeongsan 119 sign
this is the emergency no. - but not if you don't have a phone!

Geumjeongsan rocks&trees
very zen

Geumjeongsan rocks
vue towards the city

Geumjeongsan lilies
actually saw some flowers

Geumjeongsan junior wall
its steep enough you would hardly need it

Geumjeongsan - the North gate
finally! I can go downhill

Comments

[Huddo]

Mountain climbing.
Hi Mike, Phew that was some hike up Geumjeongsa. The views were superb, and the photo's of the rocks and tree's were dramatic with the view. The snake one was a beauty, could do with that in OZ. Your late finish off the mountain top was a classic. Great shot of the cable-car view, and the "suits" over looking the beach tatts? They should have been at your smorgasboard! Love Huddo and girls.