After leaving the Temple Stay at Beomeosa in northern Busan, we headed off to find a place to stay close to our ferry for the next day. We didn’t have any suggestions, so just wandered. The options were thin, and we ended up with a pretty dingy place. Thankfully we didn’t spend much time there!

CABLE CAR

After we ditched the big bag, we subwayed back almost all the way back north to find a “wow-inspiring” temple on a mountain right in town. There was a cable car up the side of the mountain through a public park. We took the car for a few thousand Won (a few dollars) and took in a breath-taking view of SO many buildings.

Views from the cable car as we rode up the mountain park in Busan.

Busan is home to more than 4 million people in quite a small space. It’s very vertical – tons of really tall buildings, and then patches of green on the steep slopes of the mountains running right through town. Beautiful urban jungle.

STONE TEMPLE

The temple was supposed to be a short hike from the cable car, but I guess I read wrong. There were very few signs and tons of people walking everywhere. Down very steep rocky trail, then up an unbelievable road – washboard paved concrete up a 30+ degree grade. We got to the top and saw nice little cars parked like it was nothing.

One of the temple buildings had shelves and shelves of ~6″ Buddha statues. Mesmerizing.

Through the gate, we walked back into the Temple complex past a couple buildings into the rock walls up on either side of us. They walls were at least 60 feet high, and carved with three massive Buddhist figures on each side, looking down on the open space in the middle with altars, candles, and a few smaller statues. Wow.

Panoramic shot of the deep cave-like walls. The table in the front is about chest-high, for perspective. The walls and carvings were huge!

Some of the stone carvings on the walls of the temple. Each of these dudes is about 60 feet high.

After the not-so-pleasant hike there, we decided to try a different way home, ended up getting a bit lost, and spent almost 2 hours walking downhill until we ran into a major road, which we followed to the first subway station we could hitch from. Thank goodness for transit cards!

SPA LAND

There was only reasonable next stop: Spa Land. We had been planning on it anyway, but after 3am wake-up call, 108 prostrations, and hours of steep walking, we were both into pretty awful pain. Spa Land happens to be the largest public path in Asia (and probably the world). The bottom floor was gender-specific hot tubs and baths, then two more floors of massage rooms, dvd viewing areas, and about two dozen small themed saunas like “pyramid room” with qi-enhancing angled walls, the himalayan salt room, an oriental cedar room (smelled wonderful). It was interesting watching the women’s room where everyone was scrubbing and bathing together, but the strangest part in my book was the “relaxation room” where about 50 plush leather armchairs were each occupied by a person absorbed by a personal screen – watching tv, movies or playing video games. A group of teenagers walked by and summed up my thoughts by saying, “It looks just like Wall-e.” So true.

We spent about 3 hours there soaking, sweating and decompressing. I really liked the “Body Sound Room” where you laid on platforms and the music pounded gently through the platforms to massage your body. But at the end of the night, my favorite spot was the Finnish sauna – just like in Ely with a cold bath right outside! It was so relaxing and reminiscent of home.

FISH MARKET

The next morning we got up early to visit the harbor area and the huge renowned fish market. We got there a bit early? or late? because there were only about 3 other customers around, but we got to watch all the sellers set up their tanks and “wares” – more types of shellfish and squirming sea creatures than I’ve ever seen in one room. I don’t know how it works, because it looked like every one of the hundred or so stalls had the same things in their tanks. Lots of halibut, clams, abalone. But my favorite was the eels. All those tanks were filled all the way to the brim, and the eels appeared to be sociable and squirmed right over their tanks to others, then right onto the floor. The owners didn’t seem to care much. When they noticed, they bashed the eel back into the tank like it was an annoying pet that kept doing something silly.

We walked through the building part of the market, then through the “low rent district” where people sold the same things under tents. Some had grills out in the tent and we bought a few super hot and fresh fish fillets. I have no idea what we were eating, but it was delicious!

COSTCO

Our last important stop in the big city of Busan was the Costco on the east side of town. We don’t have any Costcos on Jeju, and it’s one of the only places you can find affordable cheese, tortillas, salsa and chocolate chips. We stocked up on those, and some other hard-to-find comforts like diced tomatoes, clam chowder, and raisins. We were sad that the oats were still amazingly expensive, and all of the “big bags” were much smaller than what you’d find in the states. Go figure. We walked out with at least 200 pounds of food that we actually managed to lug from taxi down two subway lines and a couple blocks back to the ferry terminal. Whew. The only downside was that in the taxi on the way there, I’m pretty sure my camera slipped out of my pocket, never to be seen again. Tons of amazing memories lost with that one moment, so thanks for putting up with such a wordy account of the trip since I didn’t have my people-center pics!

Guess what we found at Costco! In South Korea! Boulder Canyon potato chips, but of course, they don’t sell “sea salt and cracked pepper” or “malt vinegar” or even “natural”, but only one flavor: spinach and artichoke. Ew. And they were about $8/bag. We didn’t buy any.

FERRY

The last leg of our week-long adventure was a 12-hour ferry ride from Busan back to Jeju. We got a tiny cabin with bunked beds and an en suite toilet/shower space. The ship was 7 decks tall with space at the bottom to ferry cars, a restaurant on the top, and lots of sleeping rooms. We spent most of the trip sleeping very comfortably – much more so than the other sleeping option. For about $10 less, we could have slept in one of the 10-20 person floor spaces – big common spaces with floor mats squeezed together and a big TV blaring. So relaxing.

One of the big sleeping rooms on the ferry. Not very relaxing. Everyone got a little “nook” and some blankets to make a bed. I hear at peak times they pack 20+ people in each side!

We’re pretty sure we took the long route, because we definitely saw some big island, which must have been part of Japan. We walked out on the decks to take in the almost-full moon and the lights from the cities in the islands. We made it in safe at 7am the next morning. The end of a great and intensely exhausting trip.

Patrick in our ferry room. The top bunk folded, which was nice for the little time we were awake and wanting to sit up straight. 🙂 Pretty much all we needed for a night at sea!

Thanks for making it through with me! Please let comments – they take a day to show up, but it’s really nice to know that people are reading!