So as I’ve mentioned, my friend Rob and I went to Busan on Sunday. The weather was gorgeous when I rolled out of bed around 9:30, but by the time I made it to the bus station, the skies were overcast and grey. Although we managed to avoid being rained on, the day was dreary throughout. But at least it wasn’t thunderstormy as predicted. Take tha, weather channel! Anyway, we caught the bus from the Express Buss Terminal near Dongdaegu Station here in Daegu around 11:00am, and arrived at the Nopodong Bus Terminal in north Busan roughly an hour later. Nopodong is just one subway stop away from Beomeosa, (Beomeo Temple), our first destination. In case you’re planning on going there – leave the subway via either exit 5 or 7. Between those exits is a road. Take it up the hill about 50 meters and you can take bus 90 to the temple for an easy 1000 won. (That’s roughly $1 for those of you not familiar with Korean currency.) Or you can do like we did and pool a taxi with some locals for the same price per person. (Melissa, Rachael and I actually *walked* from the subway stop to the temple in 2001… and I don’t recommend it. Trust me; it’s a lot easier when you go on wheels!)
Beomeosa was full of much temply goodness, like that scary little fella there.
And there are 23 more shots where he came from – just click here.
After leaving Beomeosa, we took the subway six more stops to the Oncheonjang subway station, and from there walked to Geumgang Park. (In case you’re interested in going there, let me quote the surprisingly detailed and accurate directions from Lonely Planet: “Take Exit 1 and walk left towards the overhead pedestrian crosswalk. After crossing the crosswalk, walk down the left staircase and turn right at the first corner.” At that point, simply follow the brown signs to Geumgang Park.) We knew that there was supposed to be a lot to do at Geumgang Park, and we were quite interested in seeing the Geumjeong Fortress atop the mountain in Geumgang Park. To reach the top of the mountain, you can either hike, or pay roughly $3 to ride the cable car.
We took the cable car. What we neglected to do was read Lonely Planet’s description of the Geumjeong Fortress until we disembarked at the top of the mountain:
Today, Geumjeong Fortress consists of stone walls occasionally covered with shrubbery and a handful of gates and watchtowers. Although a disappointment for those coming with expectations as to what constitutes a fortress (ie, there’s a fort), your efforts to reach the mountaintop will be rewarded.
There wasn’t much on top of this mountain. I am extremely glad we didn’t try to hike to the summit. It was worth the $3 cable car fare, but not a day-long strenuous hike up the side of a mountain. What we found at the top were the occasional remnants of an ancient fort, many people picnicking, crazy cool rocks to clamber about on and under...
...the crappiest excuse for a Buddhist temple ever, and whole teams of people who had arrived at the mountaintop for the sole purpose of playing soccer-volleyball (a game like volleyball, except that you can only hit the ball with your feet or head).
Finally we located a map along a mountain trail, which appeared to show many interesting things atop the mountain. Luckily someone found us staring at the map in consternation and pointed out that the interesting things were at the bottom of the cable car, not at the top. I really should have taken a photo of this map so that you could understand our consternation. I’m a kickass map reader; this thing was poorly designed. I rather suspect that the Korean dude who told us that the stuff we wanted to see was at the bottom of the mountain probably thought we were complete idiots.
This was actually a different (and much better) map.
We probably should have paid more attention to it!
We wandered around the mountain top a little while longer, then took the cable car back down into Geumgang Park, which was indeed full of many interesting things….
Like crazy statues...
...a temple,
...and the scariest looking carnival ride ever.
We didn’t ride it, although when the fellow in charge of it saw us taking photos, he turned it on – possibly in an attempt to lure us on board.
After leaving the park, we walked back down to the subway station. Having decided to hunt around for somewhere to snag some dinner, we wandered into a shopping center which just happened to have some of the most absurd fountains and statues ever.
Click here to watch the octopus fountain spin!
