Late rise as a response to the Ice Bar from the night before, then a walk to the subway station in Seomyeon before heading up to the north of the city with the intention of doing a good walk around the famed temple of Beomeo-sa, originally contructed a really long time ago (652 rings a bell).
Unlike the approach to the Japanese temples it is not necessary to navigate endless stalls of souvenirs and vending machines. In fact, quite to the contrary. During the approach from Beomil-sa you walk past small 5-10 seat restaurants tucked away into the trees, most unobtrusive and serving all kinds of delights dreamt up by folks who were making the most of very little. The local favourite seemed to be a pancake with spring onion in it, some with cheese, some without. The area also abounded with small one person market stalls selling the fruits and vegetables they had harvested from the local allotments. Very fresh looking and inexpensive. In all, no sounvenirs to be had and not a vending machine in sight.
The temple itself was remarkable. A series of stone and wooden buildings, many resembling pagodas and all ornately carved and painted with colours we later found out to be for the exclusive use of religious and government indication. We had to smile at one point as one of the monks was sitting in his building, crossed legged on the floor with a small group of students surrounding him. Where one would expect ceremony and solemness, we sighted him passing his mobile phone from hand to hand and then rotating it between his fingers. No doubt a stalwart of focus and not at all hoping for a text message asking him to meet at the Angel Hotel later. In fact, one thing you cannot fail to notice about Korea is that absolute dedication they have to their mobile phones. I've never seen anything like it. You have to have sleight of foot when walking in order to move among them as they trance about in a zombie like fashion glued to the screen, completely oblivious to the world around them. They don't even look up when crossing the road, just walking out in front of cars. It amazes me that they don't bump into anything. It actually goes beyond the amusing and personally I felt a little sorry for them, missing, or perhaps living, life in exchange for a 2"x3" screen.
After the temple we continued up into the mountains. None of the mountains in Korea are particularly high, but there are an awful lot of them and they tend to be steep sided, not hilly, but cutting up into the air at 45 degree angles and always wearing a cloak of green foliage. It is not common to see buildings on them, but you have to ask, where will they build next as even on the train rides, if it is flat it is built upon, and if it is built upon it is built high and usually out of drab concrete. 90% of Koreans live in high rise accommodation - if Tokyo is an example of the cities of the future, then Korea is an example of how an overpopulated earth will look, like a hive of worker bees filling every space with vertical growth.
The hike up was mainly through a well cut path, the jungle like foliage pressing in from the sides. There was not much to see until the top and the North Gate of the fortress, which was not a fortress at all but rather a continuous wall about 10 feet high, vertical on one side and slopped on the other. It has been rebuilt on occasion and around it sat 4 gates, each about 5km apart. It was built to as a defensive position against the Japanese. It never held. These days it is kept in good repair and opportunes the outdoor mob to have a jolly good hike and although we could see nothing through the low cloud cover, we were assured the views from the top were spectacular.
It was while at the North Gate and squinting at a map that we chanced upon a man we were later to call Kim. Kim was taking some time out of his day to go for a hike. He was in great shape and moved well on the ups. He accommpanied Corinne and I to Geumjeongsan, at 801 metres, the highset peak around Busan. We learned many things from him and his English was fantastic. He was passionate about Korea, and although having travelled far and wide, thought Korea to be the best location. He had no time for the Japanese and any sortie through Korean history you understand why. Koreans have in their history a lack of aggression to anyone but themselves, while the Japanese of the past have been aggressive mainly to their neighbours. Koreans have felt the brutal past too many times and in conversation you feel that lingering distrust towards Japan. Despite the attocities, Korea has not lost it's smile and a greeting towards westerners is often heard to be "happy day". You always get the sense they mean it too.
The hike up was fun and we gleened where to eat and where to hang out for the evening from our friend. The night was to be spent at Gwangan beach, but not before trying out fresh Korean style sushi at Millak. I was famished by this point, Rin was beyond famished and her body had given up on the hunger pangs. The Korean style, or should I say the Busan style sushi was quite different to the Japan style. In Busan you would walk into the fish market and look among the many tanks of live fish swimming about. You would pick your unfortunate scaled friend and be escorted upstairs to sit at a low table. Once seated your host would come and take your drink order while simultaneously bringing a variety of different foods in little dishes. We were accustomed to this from the BBQ joint the night before, but in this case there was more variety and stranger looking edibles. Not a word would be understood as our host describes the way in which each dish was to be consumed but a tell show do format meant we got the hang of it, at least most of it.
I am a dab hand with chopsticks, but the ones available at this place had me foiled. Much thinner than wooden sticks, and made from a polished Stainless Steel, they were virtually impossible to hold and when you did get them properly balanced, I found them virtually impossible to manipulate in a way that moved food from the plate, to my mouth. I resorted to fingers, Rin performed admirably. As we would progress through the initial dishes our host would disappear and then return time and again with new dishes. These included (I think) octopus, white fish (I am sure it had a name but we chickened out from picking just one unfortunate fellow, watching Finding Nemo before we left had a lasting effect), another fish, then another fish....all in small sashimi style pieces. The best was saved to last as the final two fish were presented. One was presented whole and lookeed like a large sardine with a dark meat and oily taste, the last was a white meat but instead of being presented whole, it was presented cooked and kind of chopped up into little pieces. My guess here is that the sashimi we had been eating had been removed from said fish, then the remainder that was not sashimiable was presented in cooked form, head tail and fins and all. It was a masterclass of chopstick maniplulation to get the delicious meat from it and in the end I looked forlornly at Rin until she fed me. Quite romantic really in a Hotel Angel kind of way.
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