Him and Her still on the road.: June 2010

To start this blog I am going back a bit to China where this article regarding exam cheats caught the eye.. I don't think these were maths exams somehow..

Now Back to the main Blog : Busan South Korea

The first picture below is on our last night in Seoul with our great room mates, Moon and Heejung.

To get to Busan we caught the KTX express train, said to be Koreas Bullet equivalent. It was ok but failed to get over 300kph, maxing at 297 kph.

Busan is South Korea's 2nd City with a population of 4.6 million, it's more of a working city with a huge fishing industry based here but it lacks the glitz of Seoul. The appeal of Busan is its coastline and outlying Islands so it was always on the cards to do some walking from here. The Islands are mostly connected via bridges and as such have become quite developed so the sense of open space was not too apparent to start with. With did a 12 km walk to Yeongdo-gu Island and its coastal path which has lots of ups and downs and hundreds of stepped paths to kep the blood pumping. The views were not at their best as the weather was overcast but the walk was really enjoyable and peaceful. More of this when we go to Jeju Island in 3 days time we hope.

Busan has a really efficient Metro system which makes getting to places a doddle though an additional bus was needed at times from the Metro to get into the hills.

The biggest and most famous Temple in South Korea is the Beomeosa Temple. Set on the hillside to the North of Busan it houses 27 different temples and prayer rooms. Being on the hillside its surrounded by forest so its not easy to see the temple from a distance. Many of the buildings have bright paint work on the wooden eves, which give the temples a bright appearance. Though inside they are often plain and simple.

Our Digs in Busan were another hostel but this time it was known to the Western Backpackers and was very noisy, as the other guests only ever seemed to wake up in the afternoon in time to go out and get drunk and come back at 04:30 or later making plenty of noise. So we were not sad to leave this partiular hostel. One Canadian guy in particular really got on our nerves. Though the couple who ran the place were fine.

We thought this might have been a seafood restaurant..

And it was, though these things look like errrrr !

Crab in a tank.

Squid anyone?

Busan Harbour ( one of many ).

Coastal pathway surounded by flowers.

Rather hazy skyline with Busan in the background.

Linda taking a breather on the coastal pathway.

Man fishing.

Further along the Coastal pathway.

Linda seems distracted by something..

Some of the thousands of steps..

The road leading to Beomeosa Temples. Not sure what these pillars are.

Prayer Beads; and Mal thought they were Korean Bingo Balls ! Idiot.

Beomeosa Temple.

Flowers of the Azalea type.

Beomeosa Temple.

Bamboo.

Pink Lillies and the perfume was fantastic.

Colourful paintwork at the Beomeosa Temple.

Beomeosa Temple.

Wall painting on one of the temples.

Even the guttering and roof tiles are pretty.

Plant on a roof..

Beomeosa Temple.

Temple Deity.

Not a lot of people at this place.

Now did Terry Pratchett pinch this idea for disc world... Atuin ?? sorry those of you who have never read the books will not understand the Atuin reference.

Linda paying attention this time. Beomeosa Temple. Forest walk.

This ends the Busan Blog, next blog Jeju or so we thought... due to fog in Jeju all flights were cancelled so we got a refund on our tickets and decided that Seoul was worth going back too as there is much to see and do around the Capital area. So we hopped on the KTX and were soon back in Seoul.

So next blog will be stuff from around Seoul.

Seoul : Not sure what we expected but this is a great city. The people are really friendly and getting about is a doddle, although most people do not speak English there are enough that can manage a few useful sentences. Our digs are a 9 bed dorm in the heart of the city above a Dunkin Donuts outlet.

Our room mate, Moon soon made us feel at home, she took us out on our first night and we ate at a Korean BBQ, which was superb. Later we went to City Hall and took in a few of the night sights.

Next day we ventured across town to get some books as we had read our last ones 5 weeks ago and had not been able to get any replacements in China. After acquiring a few tomes we headed for the Seoul Tower. Later we ventured to the Gyeongbokgung Palace, a large traditional Palace in the heart of Seoul.

Our last day in Seoul we took a trip to the DMZ the 4 km wide no mans land between North and South Korea. Since the peace treaty of 1975 was signed the South Koreans have discovered 4 tunnels from North Korea under the DMZ and into South Korea, all dug by North Korea who claimed they were old coal mines, not a bad excuse considering they are are in prime Granite Geology. We were not allowed to take photographs inside the Tunnel we entered nor at the Boarder wall lookout station. There was a short film showing how and why the DMZ was created. Areas around the DMZ are littered with mines so much of the area is fenced off, quite a scary place.

On the way back from the DMZ we stopped at a new train station Gyeongui Stationwhich was constructed with agreement from North Korea to allow the transportation of goods but shortly after it was finished the North Korean Government refused any trains permission to enter their territory, so there sits a brand new station which goes to nowhere. It had that Mary Celeste feel about the place, very strange.

It would be bad manners not too mention how great our room mates were in Seoul, Moon, Heejung and yun were fantastic. Thank you.