City to the Bush – Daegu to Sokcho

I left Gyeongju a day early, there was not much more I was overly interested in seeing and then things that were left were a hour+ out of the city. So I boarded a bus and took a 1 hour bus ride to Daegu.

Daegu is the 3^rd largest city in Korea, and a working city. There is a few touristy things to see but not much. The first day there I spent the entire day shopping. I was after a new camera. After 2 hours of walking around looking for the shop and going through markets (all quite interesting) I found 3 large department stores. Like Westfield’s or something but the company owns all the stores inside. I had my eyes on a SLR camera that a few others had been using while I was in Jeju and Busan. After another 2 hours I had screwed the price down to as low as I could get it, plus a 12gb card, plus bag and a spare battery. The shop manager was not a happy chappy, I’m sure he said some colorful words in Korean at me J.

Armed with my new camera I was ready to keep going on my trip and snap some nice photos up.

That night the guesthouse I was staying at had a party to say farewell to a guest, the IAAF 2011 was being held in Daegu and finished the day I arrived. The guest had stayed at the guesthouse for several weeks, so we went to the markets and bought lots of local food and soju (a Korean alcohol, its much like a vodka shot but weaker, and its drank often), we headed back to the hostel with more meat than necessary and had a great time. I’m not use to shots and drunk on this scale so it was a “interesting” evening for me.

The next morning, I really wanted to go hiking and climb a mountain. I hadn’t been hiking in a few days and the weather was lovely. I headed for a mountain that had a 1600+ year old stone Buddha on at the peak. The bus out took a good 1 hour. The climb was nice as well, the trail put us past a hermitage where the local monks had recreated the temples and painted the temples new. I was not permitted photos however. The path also took us past a tall statue of Buddha that seemed to come out of no where, and was quite surprising at the time.

At the peak we had a 365 degree view of the surroundings and this old stone Buddha with people praying in front of him. It was enough to make you feel as a traveller at peace with the surroundings as well.

I descended via a different path, the way I came up was all stairs, but the way down was a smooth path, the fast pace walk turned into a run and 30 min later I was at the bottom, fast considering it took me 3 hours of none stop walking to get up.

The next day I was up at 6:30am to get to the bus depo by 7:30, I had to catch a bus to Sokcho National Park my next stop.  The bus ride would take me along the coastline of Korea and take 7 hours!

From looking at the things to see at Sokcho, it was all bush walks and things, I was surprised to find out it was a port town when I arrived. I checked into the guesthouse (which was more like a hotel, as I had my own private room and bathroom. Nice for a change actually) and got a quick tourist information layout of what sokcho had to offer from the hostel owner.

I then grabbed a free bike from the hostel and went riding around the city, up to the local lighthouse. Which gave a nice view out over the ocean and to a pavilion.

After checking out some local fish shops (it’s a port town so seafood is very fresh), I hoped on the bike again and just rode, I end up riding around this large local lake and taking a few pictures of a sculpture of a dragon that was there. The bike was terrible, so old and rusty but in the end I had ride some 30km on it. Was nice to ride a bike again.

The next morning I was up early again, I had lots to see today as I was heading into the mountains.  I boarded a local bus and headed 45 minutes out of town to Seorksan National Park. The guesthouse had given me some rough times on how long the walks would take, so I had a good idea on where to go to see it all. After entering the park I headed towards my first hike,  Ulsanbawi Rock was a 5 hour hike to a peak of 875m, the path took me past easily the largest statue I have seen thus far and some lovely temples.

 

The path was nice and well made, after about 2 hours I arrived at a temple rock (Heundelbawi Rock). It was founded in 600~AD and features several words inscribed into the rock bed. It was also a great place for a photo of the peak we were about to climb.

Leaving the rock the climb got steam fast, and before I knew it we were walking on a iron staircase. The staircase made me extremely worried, some of the fittings to the rock face were very rusted and only had what looked like centimeters actually holding it to the wall. The wind had also picked up so what wasn’t permanently attached to you was gone… several people lost there hats (not me though).

 

The rock was in all shapes and formations so beautiful, and the view out over the land was likewise. The view down though would make most people dizzy. The remaining of the climb to the top was very straight forward, once I reached the top a south Korean flag and a 360 degree view of the landscape was my reward for the effort.

The climb down was significantly faster, it was said to take 2 ½ hours but I cleared it in around 45 min, I didn’t have time to waste on walking slowly.

The next thing on my agenda was the cable car climb to that mountains peak. The cable ride was cool, it was a good 10 minute ride up to the top and gave a nice birds eye view of the area.

At the top, I started the 10 min walk to the peak. The wind had really picked up now and the peak had no guide rails or stairs. They even had the Korean Red cross mountain rescues team were training today and watching all the silly people mountain climb without equipment to get to the peak. I started and got about ½ way up and thought that it was far to stupid to continue. I turned around and took a few snaps of people climbing down and then headed back down myself.

 

After checking out the temple at the peak I headed down and to the waterfall, it was a quick hike and it wasn’t that special (or maybe I got lost).

With the day over I was exhausted, and as soon as I got back to my room I crashed.

Im now back in Seoul now, preparing for my next jump to China!


Korea has been great!, The people that I have met along the way and the places I managed to visit have been amazing and fun. 


As for China, Im not sure if I will be able to blog in china or have access to my email because of the famous Chinese Firewall, but will see.

For now I have 3 nights left to party in Seoul! Wooooooo.....