A Spiritual Retreat in Busan
(Photo by yeweni)
(Update: Sorry, it’s still worth it, but I forgot to mention that it’s quite a hike up a hill to get to, especially if you’re coming from the Ferry Terminal or the 중앙동/Joongang-dong direction. I don’t mean the hill in the photos, I mean to get to the hill in the photos! There is a bus up, but I don’t know the number sorry)
I’m about to head off to my wife’s hometown of Jinju for the 3-day holiday. I’ll be spending 3 hours on the train there and back; much longer than the 1.5 hours it normally takes on the bus, but infinitely preferable to the 12 hours that the trip once took me for 설날 3 years ago. I’ll reply to your emails and comments and resume posting once I’m back on the weekend.
In the meantime, if you’re stuck in Busan for the holiday then I highly recommend visiting the Daecheong Park Monument, close to Nampo-dong (in the top left-hand corner of this map). The “Democracy Resistance Memorial Hall” (which might more accurately be called the “Korean Democratization Museum”) next door is also worth visiting but will probably be closed, but if you walk up the hill to the monument (see these photos) then you can great views of Busan, and more importantly if you go behind it then all of the noise of Busan suddenly disappears.
You don’t realise how stressful the noise is, but how used to it you are, until it suddenly stops like that; as I type this, I realise I’ve been wearing earplugs to go to sleep every night ever since I moved to Busan 4 years ago. If you go alone and when you’re unlikely to be disturbed by anyone else visiting, then it’s a very tranquil and serene place to spend some time, and there’s not many of those in a Korean city! Personally, I used to visit every other week or so in the afternoons when I worked in Nampo-dong in 2004, and managed whole hours there without seeing anyone else.
It’s easily my favorite part of Busan, but now that I don’t work in the area I haven’t visited in quite a while, so it would be unfair to keep it to myself. Note that I don’t mean inside the shrine in the photo at the base of the monument but behind it. Naturally the shrine is quite a spiritual and serene place itself…but there’s nowhere to sit, it’s cold, and there’s lots of tourists visiting. But very few think to go behind it, where you’ll be sheltered from the wind and have the sun and a scenic forest in front of you.
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I’ve been meaning to go to that place for ages but as yet haven’t gotten around to it. BTW I had no luck with the link to the photos - the page never succeeded in fully loading. Maybe my shitty uni connection?
If you like BHo’s photos, Dave is from the same Ulsan 2003 Team. Less artsy but still a lot of cool shots http://www.daveharvey.ca/galleries/index.htm
Have a good time in Jinju. I’m off to Vietnam this Saturday until the 23rd or so. We’ll definitely have to hang out when I get back ~~
Hi Anne, thanks for the link to Bho’s photos, and for telling me about the map, but I’ve tried it on 2 computers with no problems so it must be your connection.
I was meaning to catch up too once I was back from New Zealand, but with my…ahem…5 hours work a week until March I’ve been losing track of time. Lest anyone read that and think I’ve been a smelly, lazy, unshowered, and unshaven bum during my 5 day “weekends,” well, you wouldn’t be all that wrong, but I have been looking after my daughter all morning every morning too. She doesn’t seem to mind the smell.
By the way Anne, all this time I had no idea you had a blog! I’ve got some reading to do while you’re in Vietnam.