Plus, I've had to renew my contract (yep, looks like I'm in Korea until at least March 2013), find a new apartment (twice! The first one was given to me then taken away!), fight for my vacation time, and a bunch of other stuff...I'm hoping that life will slow down a little bit at school, so I can get back to writing these things with a little more regularity.
Anyways...the weekend adventures, thankfully, haven't stopped! I'm a little fuzzy as to which weekend played host to which adventure, so these may not be in chronological order (also, to keep you guys from falling asleep and drooling on your keyboards, I'm only going to write about the more interesting ones).
A few weeks ago, Andy invited me to join him and Steve (a cool dude from Gimhae) on a beautiful hike in Busan. It was easily the best, hardest, most scenic hike I've done in Korea, and I can't wait to do it again once all the plants come to life and the grey-brown dullness of the hillsides is replaced by acres upon acres of greenery!
The first hour of the more than six hour hike was pretty much straight uphill, which was a nice challenge, but lead to some killer leg aches the next two days...worth it!
At one point, we reached an elevation of 687 metres...and were presented with a gorgeous view of Busan:
The absolute highlight of the hike, however, was an amazing temple hidden in the mountains. I've been to countless temples in Korea and, to be perfectly honest, I'm getting a little bored of them. It's not that they're not beautiful, but after dozens and dozens of them, a lot of them start to look very much alike. Not this one.
This one was hidden in the rocks, and the usual statues of Buddha and other figures were carved right out of the stone walls surrounding the temple. It was like something out of a fiction book!
This monk was absolutely awesome. Rather than being angry at us taking pictures (we always try to be as unobtrusive and respectful as possible), he welcomed us with open arms, offered to take our picture, etc.
It being spring in Korea, this is also the time of various flower/blossom festivals, including the famous Jinhae Cherry Blossom Festival. Dutifully, my friends and I made the trek on the opening weekend. The festival was great, the street food and entertainment were awesome and they even had fireworks. The only thing missing - owing to a longer and colder than usual winter - were the cherry blossoms. No big deal, we still got some good entertainment and managed to grab some decent shots...including this:
I'm a huge fan of zoom ultrawide lenses, so shooting with a medium telephoto prime (that was the 100 f2 USM above) is a whole new experience for me, but one I'm really starting to like. Also grabbed a few more pictures at the festival:
I'm trying to get into street photography a little more...the long lens is definitely helping with that. Though this was taken at 35mm on a subway in Busan:
Busan, by the way, is still my favourite place around here...I hit it up shortly after getting the 100 f2 and bummed around a bit...
Haeundae Beach with the Zenith Towers skyscrapers behind it:
Love locks at Yongdusan Park near Nampo-dong in Busan:
On the same weekend, craving some natural beauty and some peace and solitude, I mounted my borrowed steed (big ups to my mate Andy for being so awesome!) and headed for Goseong...The ride itself was great (except for on the way back...Koreans will think nothing of driving 2 feet off your rear tire, even though you're in the slow lane doing 100 km/h in an 80 zone), and I found some truly beautiful places.
A little fishing village near Goseong:
Not far from this was a pretty awesome place...in fact, the ONLY quiet place I've been to in Korea in 13 months!!!
Last week I also bought another motorbike...a Daelim Magma cruiser...very happy with it, it's super comfortable, a little slow, but that's okay...it's a blast to ride...
And...
I hit up the coast with it, and it's amazing the freedom and fun you have once you move beyond the bus system!
Couple of things from the ride (I'm trying to do more videos!). Dinosaur footprints on a random beach near Goseong!
And a random beautiful place just north of where I live:
All right, I'm going to wrap this up, and I'll try to update things more often...this weekend, if it doesn't rain, I'm going to go to the Haman Watermelon Festival (yeahhhhh you read that right!!!) with a bunch of cool people haha. It's kind of cool that even my second year here I can find local things to do that I've never done before!
Okay...I'm out...I'll leave you with a picture from Jinhae...was hoping to go for a dreamy spring effect...
Cheerio!
T
