I like as much variety as possible in my life generally, and the same thing runs true on my travels - I feel like that is the best way to get the most out of each and every day.
I'm pretty sure that so far I haven't frequented the same restaurant twice (partly due to the fact I move on so often) and I've tried to make each day's activities unique, never going to the same place, and when my mum and I were in Vietnam we made as much effort as possible to cover every street within out little area making sure that if we'd gone out a certain way that we'd come back a different one.
These small touches keep you on your toes so you never know what to expect from moment to moment, and that is a philosophy I hope to carry throughout the rest of my travels.
It's hard to consider what has been my favourite city so far; I really enjoyed the experience of Bangkok partly as it went over and above my expectations, however that somewhere like Kuala Lumpur which met my expectations perfectly shouldn't be discounted it turned out to be how incredible I thought it was going to be.
Even selecting my favourite country so far is difficult - I guess it's hard to compare when in some I stayed longer in some than others, and because of the variety of different locations I went to in somewhere like Indonesia I got to see a bit more of the country and feel like I feel like I had a much fuller experience than in Brunei for example.
I might have to disqualify Korea from the rankings though because I can't help but feel like the nostalgia I get from being here and seeing things which are familiar to me might just taint the way I view my experience.
Busan has been wonderful so far, and today is just another fine example of why Korea is under-rated as a travel destination.
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Part of the reason I chose to do Haeundae yesterday is because that was the best day of the week weather-wise as it was supposed to deteriorate from last night. I've also seen how busy things in Korea can get at the weekend and figured that despite the fact it was not in any way 'beach weather' it would probably still be packed on Saturday and Sunday.
It wasn't supposed to be too awful today, just not as sunny as the days since I arrived so I figured something in the outdoors would still be a good plan for today.
I looked on the map to search for possible options and also checked Trip Advisor and saw that Bemosa Temple which is to the north of the city was quite highly recommended. It's up in the mountains, and it mentioned that it was quite a good place to walk as there were some trails and also the walls of Geumjeongseong Fortess which you can walk around.
When I got on the subway on Thursday I was immediately reminded that hiking / walking is very popular here, and there are so many stores in the underground markets and also on the high streets where they sell 'outdoor' type clothes so I figured this would probably be quite a busy spot, but probably quite a good way to spend my Saturday afternoon.
The map advised me to to get a bus up to the temple, but immediately out of the station there was a sign saying that Bemosa was 2.6kms away. I was quite glad that there was a sign as I thought it might be quite nice to walk up there, but wasn't sure how easy it would be to find. In the northern part of Busan there are quite a lot of hills so it's not like it would be obvious where to go, and I certainly wouldn't start climbing up a random hill hoping for the best.
The signs continued to point me in the right way, although thinking about it I probably could have just seen which direction the bus went in as on my way to the main path up to the temple I saw at least three or four buses go past me. I figure even though it's a public bus, instead of running on a schedule they just go once they are full as there was a terminal full of buses which seemed to be doing a continuous loop between the top and the bottom of the hill.
A bit like when I went to Haedong yesterday I had to follow the road up and around. It was quite a long walk, but the number or cars going past me helped reassure me that I was at least heading in the right direction.
The view was getting pretty good as I left the city behind, but annoyingly there weren't really any gaps in the tress to be able to take pictures through - the background was good, but the foreground was very obstructive!
I must have walked for about 30 or so minutes before I eventually came to what looked to be the entrance to the temple:
There was still some climbing to be done, but rather than walking on the road at least there was a wooden area with some steps which also gave me a good chance to get a view through the trees.
Another ten minutes or so walking and I came to the bottom of the hill that the temple sits on. There were various signs pointing to different parts of Bemosa itself, and I'd seen an aerial picture this morning that showed that there were a number of courtyards, but they all seemed to link together which was good.
I followed the stream of people and arrived at the entrance to the complex:
I went to a couple of temple's in Seoul back in 2009 and I have always loved the decoration which is applied to entrance gates and temple roofs in Korea. I think it's all the colours that do it for me, and these buildings were no different as they were spectacularly decorated.
There were what seemed like many different levels to the temple as you walked through the main gate to the next one....
....and then another one.....
....before you finally reached this one:
The Third gate that I reached was the entrance to the main courtyard which had many temples inside:
The main one sat in the middle and is believed to have been restored in around the 17th century. It was decorated in the same fantastic way that the entrance gate had been, and there were some people inside who were praying to a golden statue of Buddha.
A couple of the buildings were closed, and there were some signs up saying 'Meditation in Progress'. There were also a couple of monks walking around, and I spotted that instead of the familiar orange I'd seen them wearing in Thailand and Laos, here all of them appeared to be dressed in grey robes.
The juxtaposition of the temple in the mountains itself was fantastic....
.....and it was hard not to be amazed by what was around. I kept walking to the left where there were another couple of buildings....
Before you eventually got to the gated exit of the temple itself:
Generally there wasn't that much to see there, although I did some reading on the sight and I understand what it had great historical significance which runs back over 1,300 years.
The grounds of the temple were generally well kept, and just on the outside of the main temple are as something which was known as the 'Field of Rocks':
It was artificially created to enhance the temple's surroundings and there were quite a few people sitting eating lunch on them or just enjoying the small stream that was running through it.
I'd read online that to get from Bemosa Temple to the fortress walls was quite confusing, but I saw a huge amount of people walking down from what looked to be a path, and figured that this might be the correct direction to go in - or possibly the wrong one as they were all coming back towards me.
The path was quite steep, and it seemed to go on forever. Walking across the rocks was an interesting task as they got larger and larger as you got to what you thought was the top, before being treated to some stairs, and then having to take to the rocks again.
I must have walked for about thirty to forty minutes wondering if I was ever actually going to get anywhere before seeing a big sign pointing towards the north gate of the walls.
The gate itself was decorated similarly to the temple:
It looked like I had the option to walk left or right, and after looking at some signs I decided that going to the right would be best as it pointed to Geumjeongsan Peak.
The terrain was still quite tough going heading up this way, although at least there were no more rocks, just man-made paths with the occasional stairs thrown in where it had obviously become clear that it was difficult to walk up.
I appeared to be walking up what seemed to be a temporary path, the actual path was under going some reconstruction but I only really noticed this for sure when I was walking down:
Eventually some stairs arrived and I could see what some fantastic views awaited me. The temperature started to drop as I got a little bit closer to the top, and where I'd been feeling quite warm earlier I was now starting to get a little chilly, and thinking it might have been a mistake not to bring my coat with me.
I started to walk up some brown wooden steps and behind me I was able to see out back over the south coast of Busan:
As I started to climb higher the view got better and better as it opened up a little more with each five or six steps, and it was intriguing to take a picture, then climb up a bit further, and see what else had been revealed with some more elevation:
As it turned out I had actually climbed to the top of Mount Geumjeongsan and after stepping up a few more flights of stairs I was at what appeared to be a little observation deck:
There were some people sitting on some rocks above so I climbed my way up there to the peak.....
......and then was able to get a fantastic panoramic view of everything that was around:
It was truly spectacular from up there, and looking back towards the area where I'd been last night near Diamond Bridge was pretty surreal:
Since coming to Asia I have been fortunate enough to see some fantastic views and this was amongst the best I had been witness to. Somehow it seemed different to being able to see out from the top of Busan Tower, perhaps because I'd worked all the way to get up here by walking, and therefore it felt extremely rewarding that after starting off from the subway station, two hours later I'd managed to find my way to perhaps the highest point in Busan and was reaping the rewards for my efforts.
I stayed up there for a while soaking everything in, and was joined by quite a few people who made their way to the top of the mountain also. I ate a snack to give myself some energy whilst I was up there, and after a little while I decided to walk back down as it was starting to get a little bit dark and could feel the breeze starting to blow in slightly.
The walk back down the bottom seemed to take longer than walking up for some reason, although unlike when I was going up there are absolutely nobody around other than the few people who left at the same time as me and also headed down.
On my way home I stopped off a station early so that I could grab some dinner from the food court of the mall, and I think I got back just in time as about five minutes after I walked through the door the heavens opened and it started throwing it down with rain outside. Looks like I'd better get planning for some indoor activities tomorrow!
Back On Top
Van Morrison (1999)
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