#palgongsan

So last weekend we met up with a new friend (from our trip to Seoul that I haven’t blogged about yet…. I’m so so behind that the order I’m putting them up in no way reflects the order of events) and we decided to go to Palgongsan. I’ve heard of this mountain, and is supposedly a ‘must see’ if your in Daegu.We really suck at visiting our own city, but hey, it happens.

Well, the funny thing about this misleading title of it being a ‘must see of Daegu’ is that it isn’t in Daegu… We took the train for about an hour trip to a small town. The train was super cheap. Like 1600won ($1.60) cheap. I can’t even ride a local bus in Edmonton for that cost.

So, we had complete faith in the internet. fools.

#gallery-0-20 { margin: auto; } #gallery-0-20 .gallery-item { float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 33%; } #gallery-0-20 img { border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; } #gallery-0-20 .gallery-caption { margin-left: 0; } /* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes/media.php */

The internet suggested that we would have a super easy fun time getting to the base of the mountain. Multiple pages said to get off the train and take the local city bus #311. Whelp, that bus doesn’t exist. We searched everywhere, consulted the internet again and nothing.We were fairly confident that we were at the right bus stop. We scoured the bus map )lists every bus route and bus stop) for 팔공산 but couldn’t see it at all. It’s difficult to search through all the places even in English so looking for certain Korean letters was not easy. Our friend knew no Korean (he is just here on holiday) and Pat is, well, not great.

We got the courage to ask one of the locals. In my severely broken Korean (I am currently taking Korean classes so I know a bit more than I would have before) I ask 팔공산 아디에 있어요? (Where is Palgongsan?). To my surprise, she knew English. She said to take the bus $503 to Palgongsan and pointed us in the direction we needed to go. Whelp, guess what other bus doesn’t exist….

#gallery-0-22 { margin: auto; } #gallery-0-22 .gallery-item { float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 100%; } #gallery-0-22 img { border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; } #gallery-0-22 .gallery-caption { margin-left: 0; } /* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes/media.php */

I decided to use Naver (basically Korea’s google. It’s awesome, but you have to type everything in Korean) and we found a pretty sure way to get there. Take the bus #803. Ah, so the Korean lady probably just made a mistake or remembered incorrectly. so, we look at the bus map again under the #803 bus line. Oh my gosh, it isn’t there. What the heck!!! I decided to just read every single stop and see if any of them sounded familiar. We figured it out. The stop we needed was 갓바위 (The specific part of the base we wanted to go to). guuuuuuh. well, whatever, we figured it out, let’s go!

Not much to say about the hike itself. We climbed. We saw stuff.

Edit: I forgot to mention that the closer we got to the top, the more we heard some chanting/singing coming through the speakers. It was kind of interesting ^^.

Once we got to the top. We saw the amazing Buddha (I’m guessing??? He isn’t fat though, so I have no idea. That’s all I have to go on about Buddhism apparently. fat Buddha.) statue that this mountain is famous for. He was really cool!

#gallery-0-25 { margin: auto; } #gallery-0-25 .gallery-item { float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 100%; } #gallery-0-25 img { border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; } #gallery-0-25 .gallery-caption { margin-left: 0; } /* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes/media.php */

There were a ton of people praying and making wishes and placing coins on the mountains walls. It was pretty neat. Apperently, according to my coworker, The Buddha guy will fulfill only 3 wishes/hopes a day. It is really common to hike up there during exam season or before a job interview. Interesting.

people praying

We didn’t partake. we enjoyed the Scenery, but we didn’t feel the desire to pray or wish for anything.

#gallery-0-27 { margin: auto; } #gallery-0-27 .gallery-item { float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 50%; } #gallery-0-27 img { border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; } #gallery-0-27 .gallery-caption { margin-left: 0; } /* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes/media.php */