Hiking in Suncheon, And Other Fine Tales (Warning: Includes Zero Additional Tales)

So this was a while back, but it was a solid hike. I went to Suncheon and myself and a pal took to the local temple/mountain area and spent a day there. The day included such highlights as free cherry tomatoes from fellow hikers, a beer atop a mountain, a bowl of makgeolli on the way down, and the distant tune of Korean yodelers through the trees on the way up. Here're the pictures:

If I'd been thinking I would have bought something for the hike. But I wasn't, so I didn't.

 

Stacking rocks on other rocks is like making a little wish or something, each person adding one when they pass in hopes that it won't fall down, like a public game of Jenga. 

View from the top, a spot you had to climb up a rock face with a rope to get to. 

Tie a tag on a tree to prove you were there, or publicly post that someone is a dumb asshole where they can't be bothered to do anything about it. 

A plaque that says something about something, likely a formal insult

It was on okay view

There was this cool shack in the middle of the woods along the trail where you could stop and sit on a dilapidated platform for a meal before continuing on your way. We got a sample of some pine needle soju, which very accurately mimicked the smell and probable flavour of a cup of turpentine. Instead we opted for this bowl of makgeolli.

Less of a poisonous aftertaste

Another temple on the way back, featuring bright red maple trees

A Much Delayed Fireworks Festival Posting

So, the Busan fireworks festival was a while ago, but editing photos takes a long time sometimes, especially when you never bother to do it. Then it takes ages.
So Busan is by far the biggest city I've ever been in, being spread out over a vast amount of space and keeping everything you're ever trying to see on opposites sides of the city from one another. This was my second visit. Luckily their transportation is amazing, with subways and high speed trains that can take you from one side to the other in no real time at all. It's also super cheap, like most public transport in Korea. Anyways, I took some pictures, had some beers, and bought some socks with bears wearing hoodies on them. Every requirement for success was met and surpassed in that regard. I'll start with the hostel first, because after that the flashing lights will surely prove too distracting.
So the hostel we stayed in was really just some guy's apartment who had put in a bunch of bunk beds, but it was homey and the living room and balcony were pretty awesome.

Apparently one guest did this over the course of three days, and was drunk for a couple of them

Bob Marley via Sharpie

The guy who owned the place was pretty cool, very relaxed and open about talking about whatever we wanted to know. Obviously the abundance of Bob Marley paraphernalia prompted the natural question of how he felt about Korean drug laws, to which he was very clearly a bit uneasy about answering. Having a little bit of weed can land you in very serious trouble here, with prison time not being at all unlikely and more so on the side of probable. He's going to Canada this coming April though, for our annual 420 celebration on Parliament Hill, since Canada's stance on marijuana use is by comparison infinitely more relaxed, as well it should be. Korea is a bit funny that way, as are most Asian countries it would seem. Smoke one plant and pay for it for life, but wake up each day and snort some powdered endangered tiger penis for longevity and it's all kosher. Anyway, onto the fireworks. 

So the festival was insanely crowded. It got to the point where they would no longer allow people onto the streets or beach front where the festival was, and every square inch was covered for a couple hours before the event. We grabbed some beers and had a sit down, and here's some of what happened, though I got tired of looking at the festivities through a viewfinder and decided to just enjoy it in the moment for the rest of the night. 

So the subway system was packed, lineups going right up through the streetway entrances, and traffic was so tightly packed that hiring a cab was pointless since you could walk faster than they'd ever be able to go. The next day was a trip to the biggest mall in Asia, but we weren't feeling so hot for some reason (actually not booze related at all) so we proceeded to live out a folly of trying to find the correct bus terminal in a massive city, fucking it up completely. Here's the mall: 

Indoor ice rink

There were more floors than this even, it was a very confusing place in that you never got one full view of how big it was

Sit down and grab what you want off the conveyor belt

Dr. Bong Kikang (it's a funny name)

Gurye Maple Festival & Koreans Chasing Down Some Fish

So a maple festival seemed like an intriguing bit of local culture that may have yielded me a reminder or two of things back home, maple things here and there and whatnot. What it turned out to be rather, was a super Korean event that in no way reminded me of anything remotely Canadian. I expected maple flavoured things (makgeolli for one), but found that if there was any connection to maple trees in this festival, I have yet to discover what it might be. I did however get some good pictures, and if you've ever desired to see a swimming pool simultaneously full of both Korean people and live fish, well then brother, I've got you well taken care of.

So the Gurye mini-town of Piagol hosted the festival, and it was a 40 minute or so bus ride out of town to a particularly scenic part of the region. We began with a relaxed hike up a well-populated trail, just checking out the colours and not intending to put a whole lot of effort into this particular hiking day.

Koreans match the season quite well colour-wise

We came to a stop along the path where they served free bibimbap and makgeolli, which was quite kind of them to do

The lighting of a fire for some reason

Luckily this guy was there to make sure it all went according to plan, and to bring high fashion to the table

No matter what kind of hike it is, Koreans are prepared with enough expensive gear to make it seem as though they're setting off on their final journey toward hiking Valhalla 

Oh hey, what's up?

So that was the hiking end of things, which didn't go on for all that long before we decided to head back down into town and see what the main part of the festival was all about. On the way we stopped into a temple by the side of the road, and while I won't linger long on that, here're a few photos that captured that pretty well. 

An art display at a temple, surely full of profoundly spiritual works of Buddhist philosophies

Oh, nope.

Too cute to pass up on a picture

His focus is that of a warrior. His pants are those of a flood victim. 

So as for the festival, all in all, not a lot was going on. Mostly people were sitting around at tables eating lunch and conversing, while a man in a red blazer and painted on eyebrows danced with old women on the stage. Then we found this:

Someone lost a contact lense

Yea, they're in there catching fish with their bare hands for shits and giggles

This kid was pretty proud

Fish in a bag, for now, but it got out and an old lady grabbed it and took it for her own, to which the child responded by crying, which I also have pictures of, but it's sort of sad. Old women in Korea are ruthless. 

Cook them up poolside for added fun

The most serious mortar and pestle I've ever seen. She was peddling a medicine made from the powdered skulls of her foes, I think. 

We ended up having a seat by the stage, and noticed a stand set up where people were going up intermittently to collect some sort of prize, which I think was a draw of sorts they had all bought tickets for. Anyways, the prize was a bag of persimmons, which looked awful nice. We hadn't signed up for jack all, but after a while of a table of foreigners looking over in a not so subtle way they decided that we must be so intently focused on those persimmons that they may as well give us a free bag, lest we burn the place to the ground or something. I hadn't even brought a lighter, so that was never really an option to begin with, but I guess they didn't know that. What I learned was that if you're an obvious foreigner and you want something, the best course of action is to stare at it for a while and hope that someone will just sort of give it to you.