Busan Holiday Part One (The Mountain, The Temple, and The Tasty Goat)

A couple of weeks back we were freed from the shackles of teaching to embark on the first of our two annual holidays. At first, the plan had been to take a package trip to China, taking in such famous sights as The Great Wall and Tiananman Square, but this was eventually shelved due to financial constraints. In rough translation, my retarded misuse of money in the past, which I'm now working hard to rectify! Next, we decided to visit Jeju-do, the island off the south coast, but figured it's not going to be that much cheaper in the long run. Finally, we settled for a week in Busan, originally our first choice for living/working in Korea, mainly for its many beaches. Due to this being quite the tourist hot-spot, especially for Koreans it would seem (surprisingly few "white devils"!), we probably could have gone to China after all, but hey you live and learn eh. Don't get me wrong though, Busan was still an excellent substitute, as you will find out over the course of this 3 part epic.

After a minor setback to our original schedule, involving a noraebang and a bottle of putrid makkoli, we set off on Tuesday. While we are no strangers to ridiculously long bus journeys, we decided to make use of the relatively new KTX bullet train, taking the duration of the journey down from 5h 20m (bus or train), to a much nicer 2h50m. As expected, the KTX fairly flies along, at something like 300km/h. Is that fast? I've been on more planes than bloody trains in my life so I can't tell you how much of an improvement that is over your standard train. Unfortunately, we were seated backwards, and far to close to the "World's Noisiest Eater" with a bottomless box of kimbab. A brutal combination, thank God for MP3's.

With Busan being our original desired location, I had geeked up quite a bit on it, and still remembered the general layout of the city, and the subway system. Which is very tragic and sad. I'm turning into a map fanatic, someone should probably give me a savage beating before it gets out of control. We boarded the subway, Lynne carrying a bag so collosal she looked like a refugee, but it contained only necessary items, like 5 pairs of shoes, 3 hairdryers, and her entire summer wardrobe. I suppose it's quite easy to be a guy. Hmmm away for 5 days.....5 socks, 5 boxers, 5 t-shirts, 3 shorts.....done. Lynne hurry up eh! On the subway, we quickly made a Busan friend called Ee-Jun, or E.J. for short. She had studied in Vancouver for a year and had excellent english, so there wasn't the usual awkward silences and repetition of stock phrases like with some Korean conversations! She gave us some useful advice on things to do, and pointed us towards the beach once we had reached Haeundae Station, so we arranged to meet up a couple of nights later for some boozing.


We walked along the beach, which was very impressive, towards a cluster of "Love Motels" at the far end. The one we chose had fantastic rooms, the "beach-side" ones a fairly pricey 90,000W, the "city-side" ones a slightly better 60,000W. In the end we decided the view was so amazing we should begin throwing our money away (actually that started when we chose KTX) by staying there one night, and moving across the hall for the following 3 nights. While this Love Motel was sadly lacking the "Pleasure Chair" we had in Incheon, it did have an inconspicuous vending machine in the foyer. Where you would expect to see Space Raiders, Dairy Milks, and Skittles, you saw them replaced by vibrators, love beads, and assorted lubricants. This will sound fairly sleazy (or fantastic) to some folks back home, but it's completely at odds with the rooms themselves which are often much better than a "normal" hotel, and for a fraction of the price. Here's me knowingly posing like a fool in the splended "Hotel Waikiki" sexy robe.



Is this post quite dull so far? I think it might be, that's due to it being 6am and I can't sleep, so I'm blethering a load of pish. I think it's because I'm very excited to be meeting up with my good friend Northy later this morning. I just can't wait to see the thatched weave of hippy hair that he's been cultivating. An unnamed mutual friend says he looks like the singer in Keane, and it's hard to sleep with that gruesome image in mind.

Anyway, Day One was devoted to visiting Beomeo-sa temple, one of the most culturally and historically significant in Korea, and Geumjeong Fortress. Having studied our trusty Moon Handbook of Korea, this latter destination held particular interest to myself, as apparently you can eat some cute little goats up there. I was not to be disappointed. What I didn't realise, was that it was up a huge mountain. Lynne was to be, very disappointed. Oops!



We are almost at the point, in our Korean experience, where many temples and palaces are starting to blend together a little and become indistinguishable from each other. Certainly, for anyone reading this blog, you may feel you've seen the same photo a few times now. But each place really does have its own character and atmosphere, not to mention their different history and significance. This was especially true of Beomeo-sa, and we had a great time exploring the grounds. While retaining a very spiritual and tranquil ambience, it is also quite a busy place, as many practicing Buddhists make the arduous uphill journey daily to meditate and pray. It was very interesting to witness this, and as an experience was much more human and involving than visiting a lifeless extinct palace, however grand it may be. If you are interested in the history of Beomeo-sa temple click here.

The best part, of course, is that the temple is known as "Where Fish From Nirvana Play". Rock and Roll. Here are some pictures, with comments underneath.........



A colourful Buddhist deity, possibly peeling out the solo from "Scentless Apprentice". Like I said, rock and roll.


Like most important structures in Korea, many buildings within Beomeo-sa were burned to the ground by those pesky Japanese during the Imjin Invasions of 1592. This part remained standing and it looked extremely old. The parts of the temple that were destroyed, were rebuilt in 1602, so still very old. Wouldn't quite be the same if all this stuff was rebuilt in 1998 or something! Look, it's real bamboo! I think that's the first time I've seen bamboo growing naturally. A truly exciting moment I'm sure you'll agree haha!


What's happening here? Well, I'm possibly being attact by a large ant or spider, I can't remember. I had to buy a hat as it was unbearably hot, and I didn't want a sunburned chrome dome.


When not meditating or acheiving enlightenment, monks enjoy playing rugby. The Beomeo-sa team has performed well in the last 2 seasons, finishing top of the Inter-Temple Rugby League, despite losing their star scrum-half to missionary duties. Good Job!


This massive boulder bears the names of many important monks and priests who have visited Beomeo-sa.



The temple is set in the lush surroundings of Geumjeongsan, which looked particularly nice with the quality weather.



It's me again, what a poser.



Lynne and I standing in "The Temple Of Enlightenment". We weren't entirely sure if we were allowed to enter, but we at least had the respect to take our shoes off. Some kindly Russian sailors took this photo for us. Busan has a fairly strong Russian contingent, due to it being a huge port.



I think this is an excellent photo, well done Lynne! Looking at it, you really feel ashamed to be invading their privacy, they look so at peace. It really captured the moment. This time next year Lynne will be working for the News Of The World, taking covert snaps of Pete Doherty snorting lines of bleach off of hookers.





I knew we had 2 choices to get from Beomeo-sa to Geumjeongsanseong ("sanseong" = fortress).
Get the bus back down to the subway, go about 6 stops, get on a cable car, and hey presto. That would be the sensible route. However, I also remembered something from the trusty guidebook about a trail leading from the temple to the fortress. This decision came down to the ease and distance of the trail, as Lynne didn't have the best shoes on for a big hike, and it was about 34 degrees. Cue a fantastically futile effort to speak Korean to some of the locals. I attempted to ask whether the trail was "easy or difficult" (in Korean).

"Easy or hard"? Nope that's not working. By now about 6 old-timers are brainstorming what we are trying to say.

I say the destination "Geumjeongsanseong". Yep, they know that one. I point to the start of the trail. "Easy or hard"? Nothing. I write it in Korean, as I'm probably pronouncing it wrong. They look at each other, bewildered and chuckling.

I add in a finger example, first walking steeply up my left hand, then walking casually up a slightly uphill left hand. They think I'm crazy.

I add to this performance some theatrical huffing and puffing. Someone helpfully points to the start of the trail.

This is fairly typical, of course it's our fault for not speaking the language, and in any case, it's comical rather than frustrating. We have a breakthrough in the end, and it sounds like it will be a very easy walk, and a mere 40 minutes to the North Gate "fast-walking", so decide to give it a shot.




We soon find, that not only is it much further than they implied, but its extremely steep and rugged. We were positively pissing sweat out of every pore! I was not Lynne's favourite person at this point!


Finally, after ascending to quite an altitude, the ground levelled out and we found ourselves walking through a mountain valley, towards the old North Gate of the fortress. By this point I had performed a Madonna style costume change, opting for the coolness of a fashionable Korean tank-top which was 2 sizes too small, making me look a little like Dafydd from Little Britain. "I'm the only gay on this mountain!"



I just realised, these pictures are clickable, so if you want to hear about the fortress click the picture above to enlarge it.






Some pictures from the mountain. There aren't any buildings, just the old fortress wall to follow. We decided to attempt to walk from the North Gate to the East Gate, and get the cable car (that we should have come up in) back down. This took 4 bloody hours haha! Luckily it was an amazing walk, with stunning views all around. I'm wearing a ridiculous wicker hat for the novelty and it only cost about a pound. By the time we arrived at the East Gate, I looked at the map with horror, and tried to think of the best way to break the news to Lynne that the cable car was in fact located at the South Gate, another 3km away. It was already starting to get a little dark. To then make matters worse, a Korean man told us the cable car stopped about an hour ago. This did little to give us hope, and we started to feel a little stranded. Luckily, through the trees I spotted a tatty striped awning, and a goat wandering around! We may be stuck up a mountain, but at least I can eat some goat. We were welcomed by a man weilding a rusty scythe and eyeing us suspiciously, but his distrust turned to outright enthusiasm when I told him I'd like to sample some of his goats.

They claimed it would cost me 25,000W to eat some, a shocking £17! Calling upon my old dubious salesman superpowers, I used a clinical mixture of dejection, rapport, and poverty to drop this price to a more reasonable 15,000W. Game on. Here are some pictures of how the goat looked, before, and after it's visit to the kitchen.





Yes it appears I forgot to suck my gut in for this picture. Ah well. Although a little bit chewy at times, goat didn't taste that much different from other kalbi meats, and I'd recommend trying it if you're ever up that way. The man also gave us some free homemade makkoli to help wash it down and give us a buzz for the journey home. We were also delighted to hear there was a bus stop 10 minutes from the East Gate, so we were soon homeward bound, tired and happy, looking forward to the next days plan of getting pished on the beach all day!

Which is where I'll pick things up in Part 2 soon!