Jirisan National Park and Hwaeomsa Temple

I'm writing this while sitting on an express bus from Gurye to Busan. It's Sunday morning (May 3rd) and we've just don't two days in Jirisan National Park. We weren't really sure what to expect from this place, other than it's popular for hiking and is the biggest and oldest national park in Korea. It lived up to every expectation.

After researching our options for getting from Buyeo to Gurye, we decided to take a taxi. A very expensive taxi. It ended up being about 200,000 WON ($210 CAD) and was about 1:45 in duration. If we bussed or took a combination of buses and taxis, it would have easily taken 6 hours or so and would have been pretty pricey also. In hindsight we should have fired out how to rent a car. Our current commute is not too bad though. It was an $8 taxi ride to the bus terminal and then $16 each for the bus. 

As soon as we got to our motel (it's called a pension, but I don't quite understand it, so I'll just call it a motel) we dropped our stuff off and headed for the national park and the mountains. We were situated quite close, only about a 5 minute walk to get to the National Park, which had an entrance fee of 3500 won. We walked up along a River and past a resort and eventually hit the temple. It's a pretty big temple with many building and is actually quite touristy, but monks still live there and go about their business. After some time wandering around we found the trail that led up the mountain. We took this for about an hour. It's quite steep hiking and the trail is mostly made up of rocks and boulders that you scramble along. We eventually came across a random cafe and stopped for iced Americanos, as you do. Leaving the cafe, the trail gets quite steep and it's 5km to the top. We made it a little over half way and decided to turn back. It was just taking too long and we had started too late in the day to make it worthwhile. We hung out beside the River for a short snack break and to cool down and then started making our way down. We were in shorts and t-shirts and sweating like mad, while Korean hikers were ALL wearing long sleeved shirts and pants, so had gloves and some had warm hats. It just doesn't add up!!

We made our way back to the temple and then down and out of the park to some nearby restaurants. We had a meal at a restaurant and went back to our motel to clean up. We decided to head into Gurye and check it out. We caught a cab along the road while walking as we wouldn't be able to walk on some of the roads that take you into town. The kind taxi driver dropped us off in the middle of the town and refused to take our money! He called it 'service'. We wandered around the town, looking for another restaurant to eventually have dinner at. While walking, we saw a couple foreigners step out of a building and so we approached them. Turns out she lives in Gurye and was able to make some suggestions. We eventually found a good little place and had yet another bibimbap dinner (I also had kimbap). After dinner we caught a taxi back to our motel and passed out pretty easily!

Yesterday was a much more relaxing day. We got up and made our way back up to the national park and back to the cafe along the trail. Again we had Americanos and enjoyed the views. After this we wandered all along a dirt road back down (3.5k) to the temple where we hung out and watched the goings on. We eventually went to the resort that is in the national park and got some traditional Korean adult beverages that we enjoyed outside. While in the resort, we noticed some massage chairs. They looked good so we went back to test them out. $1 got us 10 minutes of glorious deep tissue massage, just what we needed to stay relaxed. The rest of the day was pretty laid back, another meal and then eventually back to our motel around 7:30 where we hung out outside until 9:00 or so and then off to bed...

And so now we are on our way to Busan and the second leg of this trip!