d-Wizz Hankuk Travel Diary [2005]
Day 16 (2005-08-11) / Day 17 (2005-08-12) / Day 18 (2005-08-13) 
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Day 17: 2005-08-12 (Friday)
I woke naturally at about 0530, and went to rouse Spike, who was sleeping like a stone on the living room floor. This took quite a bit of effort, but I eventually got him into action. He said he was too tired to come with me to the bus station, but he would help me to get a taxi and tell the driver where I wanted to go. So we walked to the main road and flagged down a passing cab. I arrived at the bus station at about 0620 and paid the W4,000 fare for the taxi. The first bus to Daegu was leaving at 0640, with a scheduled arrival time of 1000 – just about perfect for me. I was able to buy a ticket for W15,700 and get on the bus without any trouble. When the bus had left, I called Spike to tell him I was on my way.
The bus was right on schedule, and arrived at Dong-daegu on the stroke of 1000. I walked the short distance to the fountain near Dong-daegu subway station, where I had arranged to meet 조보영 (Cho Bo-Young) at 1030. The sun was out quite strongly and it was a very warm day (similar to a late spring day in Brisbane), so I was looking for a shady place to wait, but all the good seats were already taken. Adjacent to the fountain were directional markers with names of cities on them and their distance from that point. I took photographs of the ones with "시드니 8,520 km" (Sydney) and "광주 220 km" (Gwangju) inscribed on them.
Not long afterwards, Young arrived, and we sat down together and had a chat while we brought each other up to date with our lives. We had last seen each other only eight months previously, when I drove Young to the airport as he was leaving Australia. He had just returned from a trip to Europe with a few of his friends from university, and he shared about the good and interesting time he had over there. He told the story of how one of his friends lost had his passport and the difficulties they had experienced in getting another one.
I remembered Spike’s invitation and told Young about it. The idea was attractive to him, but he said he would have to think about the logistics of it, because he was not sure of his schedule at that time. I said that I would call him on Saturday night and ask for his decision, so he had some time to think about it and organise his plans. If he decided to go, then I would stay in Daegu on Sunday night and catch the first bus on Monday morning to Gwangju with him, but if not, I would save myself paying for an extra night’s accommodation by leaving on Sunday evening instead. I was OK either way, so I left the decision with him.
I had also arranged to meet James (정원재: Jang Won-Jae) at Jungangno at 1200, so I suggested to Young that we all have lunch together and plan something for the afternoon while we ate. Before we left Dong-daegu however, I had to find a place to stay for two nights. Young was confident that we could find somewhere nearby. His instinct was correct, as he found a hotel almost right next to the bus station. I asked him to check the price for me so he went inside and came back a few minutes later to inform me that it was W20,000 per night. That seemed like good value to me, so I checked my luggage in there, and paid W40,000 for Friday and Saturday nights. Then we took the subway to Jungangno to meet James.
James and Young had not met previously, so after I had introduced them to each other, we went to a nearby restaurant for lunch. As usual, I left my culinary fate totally in the hands of my Korean hosts, and we shared 고추잡채 (ko chu jab che) together.
During lunch, James and Young discussed possibilities for the afternoon’s activities, conducting most of the conversation between themselves in Korean (switching to English when they needed a response from me). They suggested that we go to a mountain called Mt. Palgongsan and look at 갓바위 (Gatbawi), a Korean sacred site where a 1,000-year-old statue of Buddha is located. To get there, we would have to ride a bus for about 50 minutes, then walk about 2km up the mountain, which they estimated would take about 90 minutes. I had not experienced an adventure such as this before in Korea, and feeling like a challenge, I accepted their proposal.
So, after we had finished lunch, Young led the way to the appropriate bus stop and we waited for a ‘104’ bus which would take us to the foot of the mountain. The bus soon left the “urbanality” of Daegu’s metropolis and headed out into the country. I tried to follow the journey with my map book, but the locations of roads was not very detailed outside of Seoul and the map of Daegu in the book only covered a small area.
The bus arrived at its terminus and we all disembarked. I followed my Korean friends up the inclined paving, which soon changed to not-very-smooth concrete and then fine gravel. James and Young both said they had been here before a few times, but not for a number of years. So it was a good experience for them also to visit a familiar landmark right in their backyard.
The incline became steps made of medium and large stones as we continued our climb up the mountain. After we had been climbing for about 15 minutes, we arrived at a place where there was a fresh water fountain. We stopped for a rest and refilled our water bottles with the pure, cool water. We continued on; James was definitely starting to tire from the physical activity. The weather was a lot warmer and more humid than I had experienced in other parts of Korea so far, and we were all drenched in our sweat. Young was soaked, and he told me that it was his first Korean summer for three years, having spent the summer of 2004 in Australia, and the summer before that in the U.S. I was OK, having climbed mountains before in Australia, but this was to be my biggest - Young had told me it was 1192m above sea level at the summit (although we only climbed to Gwanbong Peak, which is only 850m elevation). Although the humidity was taking its toll on my stamina as well, I kept going, and we managed to get to the top together, despite James joking we would have to carry him back down.
There were many people on the summit, most of them were praying to Buddha. We had to walk around the back of the prayer tent. There was religious chanting and soft music playing also. The view was spectacular. We were a long way up, but there were other mountains of similar elevation surrounding us, so the city of Daegu was not visible, despite it being only about 40km away. We stayed at the summit for about 20 minutes before making our way down.
On the bus back to Daegu, James slept while I tried to chat with Young, but they were both exhausted from the mountain climb.
I invited them both into my hotel room, where I presented them with a packet of Tim-Tams and a Fav Trax CD each. James left to go home for a sleep, but Young stayed a little longer.
I was hoping to share my next scatological event at this time. My scatological engineering was perfect, but Young said he was just too tired for a buddy dump. I was disappointed about that, but I understood, so I let him go home also after we talked about some more things.
It was time to find something to eat for myself. I found a grocery store and bought 2 cups of ramyun (W1,700); one was Shin Ramyun, the other was something else. I went back to the hotel and had the Shin Ramyun for dinner.
After dinner, I began preparing to enjoy scatology again in a very different way. I needed to buy a torch, so I again went out to find one. This was a little more difficult than the ramyun, but I eventually found one in a little shop. I wrote the words “torch, flashlight” on my notebook, but the shopkeeper did not understand, so I tried to draw one. He took the notebook and wrote “W4,000” next to my drawing. I paid for it and went back to the hotel, anticipating a good time of scatological enjoyment.
I spent a long time trying to get a suitable camera position so that I could make a scatological video. During the testing, I accidentally got my camera wet, and although I quickly pulled it out of the water and dried it off, it would not work, so I was worried that I had ruined it. I decided to wait and see if it would work again after the water inside had evaporated. The hotel room was air-conditioned, so I turned it on to high and left the camera near the vent to remove the humidity quickly. After about 30 minutes, the camera would turn on, but there was nothing on the screen. I waited about 30 minutes more and managed to get the screen to display, but after taking a picture, it changed to fully white and would not take any further pictures.
I decided I would have to leave it until the morning, to give the water time to fully dry out. Also, there would probably be better recording conditions with natural light anyway. So I went to bed.
Day 16 (2005-08-10) / Day 17 (2005-08-11) / Day 18 (2005-08-13)
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