Category: Korea
Two Temples
Habitual critter that I am, I enjoyed these Korean Buddhist temples first and only later came to appreciate their history. Both straddle Expressway #1 running through the southeastern city of Yangsan and can be explored in a day. The larger, Tongdosa, is a member of the Three Jewels Temples club, the gems being the dharma…
Gamcheon
About as vibrant a place as you’ll find in Korea before the sun drops and the neon’s plugged in. Gamcheon Cultural Village sits in the hills beyond Nampo-dong in the Saha district. Cramped, boxy and playful, its cafes and artisan shops add commercial color to hundreds of homes on the hillside, the real attraction here…
Seoraksan, Day 1
I’ve seen two moods of Seoraksan, grey and sun-drenched. The first of my three-day visit to this northeastern national park had coolish hiking air and mist in the peaks while the second and final were blue-skied and bright. It’s hard not to be awed, from well before the front gate where your car or bus…
Seoraksan, Day 2
I caught up with two Busan friends and their mother/mother-in-law on Day Two, where the cable car climbs 670 meters up Seorak Mountain. Once you exit, it’s a simple walk to Gwongeumseong Fortress. Website after website mentions “fortress ruins,” which must cause confusion. If there are ruins of the 13th century Onggeumsan Castle, they must…
Seoraksan, Day 3
Day Three should have been more strenuous than it was. First I ambled through Sinheungsa, a Buddhist temple of the Jogye Order. The layout will be familiar to visitors of other Korean temples: the brilliantly fierce Four Heavenly Kings, the square inner courtyard and living quarters that flank it and the elevated main shrine hall….
Gijang
I’ve been nurturing a new habit, nursing it, even closer to forcing it. I’ve spent too many weekends in cafes and movie houses and not enough time seeing the country. On this day, I took a half-hour subway ride to Gijang, a county just north of the better known Haeundae. I’d been here before, a…
Igidae, Busan
With the big C bearing down on us, I’m learning to reappreciate the outdoors, above all those patches with social distancing built in. Several days back, a friend invited me to hike Igidae, a coastal mountain trail running from Dongseangmal Observatory to Oryukdo, north to south. We flipped it, meeting in Kyungsung and bussing it…
The Oncheoncheon, Busan
Busan is a bustling port city where certain times and places remind you just how many bodies call it home. Word on the street though often remarks on a kind of looseness in the air. The ocean helps. Escapes like the Oncheoncheon too. Not quite from beginning to end, but as far as I could…
Busan
I’ve grown lazy in the heat. The photos show some of the city’s offerings but I’ve been sticking to my Dongnae district streets. The effect of familiarity maybe, not a lack of options. Busan’s self-governing rat race is more an amble. A major port city of three and a half million, she feels more a…
Colin Moore 