Crossing off items on my Bucket List - Part 2

After Geumsansa we decided to conquer Moaksan, or Moak Mountain. Remember that 'sa/사' means temple? 'san/산' means 'mountain' and calling it Moaksan Mountain will result in you being cut. Just so you know.

Another warning about this blog post - it features pictures of me all gross and sweaty. Yay!

Pre-hike. FACT: Korea has increased my usage of peace signs 300%.

There are a number of trails to the peak but the one we took goes right past the temple gates. Farting man from Gimje told us that the walk would take 5 hours, so we got a little bit freaked out and called our friend Lauren who reassured us that it would be a mere 2. It took me 4 hours, it took Tom about 3 and a half, but we stopped to eat at the top (recommended.)

From the temple there's a 30-40 minute walk on a moderate incline through the bush. The trail meanders along a stream with a few small waterfalls and pools. It is getting rapidly warmer in Korea at the moment, so as we walked I fantasised about swimming in each of the pools and annoyed Tom by doing so. I'm ridiculously unfit so this part of the walk was a challenge and had me sweating buckets:

Damn tourists!

Sexy.

After 2 and a bit kilometres, you'll reach the base of the mountain. From there, it's about an hour of solid stair climbing. I wish I was kidding.

Contemplating will to live. There's 2.6 kilometres of this stuff.

The steps are seemingly endless. When you get higher up they morph into proper wooden staircases that stretch as far as you can see and for a great deal of the hike you can't tell how far you've come. At one point, when I'd been climbing for 40 minutes and I spotted a sign that said I had another 1.2 kilometres to go, I cried.

Pretty much hating life right now.

To give the mountain some credit, it's beautiful. The trees are a gorgeous green, the path is well constructed and it's peaceful, especially if you head up in the late afternoon when the trail is nearly empty. The only sound is the heavy breathing of one lumbering waygook as she tries to burn a few extra calories. I had to take a break every 20 - 30 steps as I was zonked, Tom muscled on ahead and reached the peak about 15 minutes before I did. We passed about 6 other people on the trail. 

When you reach the summit there's a cluster of strange (and if I'm honest, really ugly) buildings and aerials. One of the buildings houses a gondola that ferries people up from the path at the bottom and the other ones host a few satellite dishes and lord knows what else. On the very top there's a helicopter pad for... mountain... rescue... agh, I don't know. It was nice to stand up there and the view was absolutely stunning, but the buildings were UUUUUUGLY.

Smidge of ugly buildings, one tired Anna.

When we reached the top we sat in a small pergola and ate some lunch, after 3 hours of walking and 7 hours of not eating it was probably the Best Lunch Ever. As we were there quite late all of the buildings were closed, I'm not sure if there's a store or a vending machine up there so I'd advise you to buy some water at the temple first. I took two bottles and was dying by the time we got back down. Also, it's windy at the peak and I didn't bring a jumper so I was bloody freezing, take one with you - it's worth it even though you have to lug it all the way up. Learn from my mistakes! After a few photographs it was time to head back down.

YEAAAAAHHH!

Wonju?

Jeonju?

The walk downhill was almost as unpleasant as the uphill journey but at least it went faster! My legs were tired and wobbly and the steps are an annoying not-quite-big-enough for two paces, not-quite-small-enough for one pace so I had to stop a few times just to get my bearings back in order. About halfway down, a Korean man caught up with us and kept us company until the car park. We had a stilted conversation in my terrible Korean and his limited English, but the three of us were keeping an eye out for each other. The 5.8 kilometre journey from the peak to the bus stop took us just over an hour.

After buying some water and some delicious Fanta, we boarded the 7:44 bus back to Gimje and then on to home. Today I'm at school and in a moderate amount of muscle pain, but I feel pretty proud of myself. If you live in the Jeollabukdo area I totally recommend Geumsansa and Moaksan for a day out. 

Crossing off items on my Bucket List - Part 1

I got a little bit tipsy on Saturday night and wrote a Korean Bucket List for myself. We've only got 3 months left here and time feels like it is flying by. That and I'm ridiculously disorganised but who doesn't like writing lists?!

Two of the items fell within my 10,000 won budget and were a doable day-trip from Buan - Geumsan Temple and Moak Mountain.

To get to Geumsansa (sa/사 is the Korean for temple, if you call it Geumsansa Temple I will cut you) we took a bus from Buan to Gimje, and then from Gimje we caught the number 5 bus to the temple. The 5 leaves every 25-30 minutes and the easiest stop to reach is across the road from the Gimje bus terminal and up about 20 metres, in front of Pizza Maru. It cost 2,800 won return ($3.25) and is a 40-minute journey each way.

Geumsansa is the last stop on the route, and it's about 500m from the bus stop to the temple grounds. There's a HUGE amount of parking and a bunch of restaurants, marts, a small fairground and people selling wood carvings, including this one:

Entrance to the grounds costs 3,000 won per person, something that was not mentioned to me in any of the websites I looked at so TAKE NOTE PEOPLE. Nearly blew my budget. The temple grounds include a beautiful stream, a flat and grassy picnic area (rare in Korea) and a camping ground. 

OMG GRASSY AREA. Took a lot of self restraint to not roll in it.

After walking another 500m from the gate, you'll reach the temple. I've visited several temples in Korea and Geumsansa is easily the most beautiful. It's nestled in the hills at the bottom of Moak Mountain and it's surrounded by lush forest and if it's quiet enough you can hear the stream burbling nearby. Although there were a number of people visiting on Sunday, it still felt peaceful and I lost a lot of the antipathy I've felt towards temples lately. 

When we first entered we were approached by a Korean man who asked if he could speak English with us. He was lovely and friendly and teaches English in the Adult Welfare centre in Gimje, but unfortunately the only thing I'm going to remember about him was the giant fart he did, mid-sentence without stopping and without mentioning it afterwards. It was an interesting (and, okay, hilarious) interruption to the tranquility of the temple. And on that note, here's some pictures:

This building contains three huge statues of Buddha.

Monk says no.

Farting Korean Man

Post-hike prayer.

See the next entry for our adventures with Moak Mountain. 

I Need More Names for my Beijing Posts - Part 6

When we left Lama Temple and the surrounds, we met up with our friends at the hostel and commenced proper New Years celebrations - drinking and fireworks! First we went out for dinner, to a place recommended by our hostel. The main item on the menu was Peking Duck (we got four for under $100, a bargain) but the best items were in Engrish. I spent a good 10 minutes taking pictures and I intend to put them all in a post somewhere. Here's my favourite:

On our way back to the hostel we passed something which seemed to be a designated let-fireworks-off street. There was a small stall selling them for cheap and a few policemen keeping their eyes on the festivities. Every few minutes, someone would walk down from the apartments nearby with an armload of fireworks and spend a good amount of time setting them up before letting them off. As soon as one cacophony of explosions finished, another one would begin. The street filled up with smoke and bright bits of paper, and more than once we were hit with flying debris. We bought a few fireworks of our own in preparation, and our hostel  put on a little display in the alleyway outside. 

Roman candles: $2.50. Five metre roll of crackers: $4. Chance to use MasterCard slogan: Priceless.

Then: drinking! We gathered up the cups from our rooms and banded together to drink 40c Tsingtao and Baijiu, Baijiu is China's soju, but it's lethal. The stuff we got was some horrible percentage of alcohol (Baijiu is between 40 and 60%) and it made me make this face afterwards:

But we are New Zealanders, and years of drinking Kristov and Tui have prepared us for booze like this. We started the evening like this:

A few hours later we looked like this:

And in the morning we all ended up looking a lot like I did, three photos up. Because I still want to have SOME stories to tell when I get back to New Zealand, this will have to suffice: At one point a few of our group had a Roman Candle fight, one person bit another and then poured their own drinks at the bar. One lovely fellow forgot how to play the guitar and yet another tried to steal the fire extinguisher. One likely lass put herself to bed and missed half the fun. It was a much needed improvement on our awful morning.

Beijingaling - Part 5

New Years Eve in Beijing was awesome and awful. We experienced the awful part first.

Although they have fireworks and drinking in common, New Years in China is a little different than in New Zealand. It's a time for Chinese people to visit their families and celebrate together (read the Wikipedia article for more detail!) So many people travel during this period that the process has a name: Chunyun. Work days are altered in order for people to make it home in time for the Eve, and many of the local attractions close early. We didn't know any of this when we woke up early to continue our exploration of Beijing.

The first stop was Tiananmen Square, a 'short' walk from our hostel. The square had been closed for the past few days so we were able to look around for the first time. The reports are true, it's really big. We were hoping to see the Chairman Mao Memorial Hall (as the Aussies had recommended it over Christmas) but we were in for our first disappointment of the day. It was closed, and it wouldn't be reopened until after the 15-day holiday period was over.

Still full of tourists.

Disappointed but not defeated, we crossed the road to give the Forbidden City a go. The entrance was teeming with people - one of them was helping his kid pee on the gate - and following the advice of the Lonely Planet we walked through the first two gates until we reached the proper entrance to the city itself. There were a few men standing outside the gate, preventing people from entering much to the befuddlement of Chinese and Western tourists alike. After failing to find an open ticket booth or any answers, we flagged down a German tourist and he suggested we give the north gate a go. 

The Forbidden City is HUGE, so instead of walking around we caught a cab to the far end and tried to get in again. After deciphering a sign written in Chinese, we realised that the City was closing for the day and we wouldn't be able to get in. Damn.

A little defeated, we consulted our list of attractions-to-see and got on the subway towards Lama Temple and Ditan Park. The park has a festival over the New Year period which sounded awesome, and it's a little harder to close a park.

Are you picking up a theme? The festival was a bit of a disappointment. Aside from some cool food stalls and lantern displays, it was more like a carnival. There were shooting galleries and clown games and hoop games, it just seemed cheesy and Western. Here are a few pictures of the good bits:

After spending a few yuan on some food at the stalls, we walked towards Lama Temple. The temple is one of the largest and most important Buddhist temples in the world, and guess what? It was closed too. The incense stalls which lined the street outside were open though, and this is where Beijing started to become more awesome.

According to Chinese mythology, the New Year period began with a fight against a beast called the Nian. The Nian would attack and devour crops, livestock, villagers and delicious juicy children. To protect themselves, villagers would wear red and make heaps of noise. The solution: red fireworks! Chinese people roll out metres and metres of firecrackers and set them off throughout the day outside their stores and apartment blocks. We wandered away from the temple feeling dejected and entered a bit of a warzone - gunpowder filled the air, all we could hear were loud explosions and the ground was covered in burn marks and red paper. 

Incense lined up for sale.

This little Chub was sooo cute!

In the interests of keeping my blog posts short(er), the awesome part will be continued in the next blog entry.

Yeah Beijing! - Part 4

To continue the theme of excessive walking which permeated our visit to Beijing, on the Tuesday after we arrived we visited the Summer Palace, haven for Empress Dowager Cixi of the Qing Dynasty. The palace started out as the Garden of Clear Ripples and was first built in 1750, and it covers 290 hectares. The grounds are three-quarters water - in the form of the manmade Kunming Lake. The lake covers just over two square kilometres and is about a metre and a half deep, the excavated earth was used to build the palace's other major feature - Longevity Hill.

And now that I've bored you with facts cribbed from the internet, on to the actual palace. Entry is about Y30 ($6) and we paid an extra Y30 for a through ticket, which let us in to a few extra areas, like galleries and gardens. Like everything else in China, the Summer Palace is HUGE and we spent about 6 hours walking the grounds. It was a walk just to get to the palace in the first place, the entrance is located about a kilometre from the subway exit and we ended up just following the crowds as there weren't any decent signs and the Lonely Planet sucks (see the previous entry for more details about how much.) 

About here I have a confession. I found the Summer Palace to be a little boring. In part, it's because it's the Summer Palace. As we were in Beijing during the bleakest part of winter, the lake was completely frozen and the trees were leafless and the gardens were fairly blah. A lot of the cool activites you can do at the palace - like paddle boat across the lake! - were closed because it's winter. I was also suffering from what I call 'temple temple temple,' everything started to look the same and I couldn't appreciate the interesting bits because I was all templed out. In Europe this phenomenon is called 'church church church' or 'museum museum museum'. The third (and probably biggest) factor was that this was my fourth day of just walking around and looking at stuff. I'm lazy as hell and going from deskwarming to walking for 10 hours a day was a bit of a shock to the system. 

The highlight of our day here was the frozen lake. On one side of the island in the middle, you could rent some sled-type contraptions for Y25 ($5) and slide around the lake, which kept the four of us entertained for half an hour. Somehow I forgot to take pictures, probably because I was busy shrieking like a 6 year old after some raspberry fizzy. Below are a few pictures of stuff I liked.

The beautiful Seventeen-Arch Bridge leading to Nanhu Island.

View from Nanhu Island to Longevity Hill, across the frozen Kunming Lake.

Ignoring the 'Don't walk on the ice' signs everywhere, we walked on the ice.

Photo taken mid ice-walk, looking at the Jade Bridge.

Looking back over the lake. The cluster of black specks near the island are people on sleds.

The Marble Boat

The Long Corridor, it stretches for over 700 metres and has 14,000 individual paintings.

This guy. Look at those PANTS!

The steep ascent to the Tower of Buddhist Incense

To summarise: the Summer Palace would probably be magnificent in summer. It was pretty good in winter but I wasn't in the mood for it. I'm quite keen to head back to Beijing in summer so I can see it in the right conditions.