Busan: Cable car, horse racing, and more

Phillip and I are wrapping up our three full days in Busan, South Korea's second largest city. We have been so tired after our first few days that it was all I could do to transfer my pictures to the computer... then I just wanted to put my feet up and rest my legs. Today (Friday) was less taxing on our feet, so I am catching up on my blog.

Wednesday morning, we woke to a fairly steady rain. With umbrellas in hand, and a forecast from the hotel desk clerk that the rain would stop by 3 pm, we rode the subway to Centum City, a northern portion of Busan that is home to the Busan Cinema Center. This huge center hosts an annual international film festival and is an architectural masterpiece with swooping walkways (covered!) and film-related sculptures. While taking abreak from walking through the Center, we stopped at a cafe inside and I had a sweet potato latte. It was a fluid version of the best baked sweet potato with butter and cinnamon that I've ever had. Another recipe to find.

On our way back to the subway, we decided to find an ATM and get some more won. According to my phone, Citibank had two ATMs in the Shinsegae Department Store, which we had walked thru to get to the Cinema Center. Great! We would be dry in the store and could take care of a chore. We did not know when we started our quest that the Shinsegae Department Store in Centum City holds the Guiness world record as the largest department store in the world. A really nice young man, a student who knew a little English, asked if he could help us. I really wish I'd gotten his picture or name. This kid tried for almost 30 minutes, being told by clerks it was in one place, then another on a separate floor or side. He finally found us an ATM, but it wouldn't take our foreign card. He kept trying until we felt so bad for him and told him we apparently must go to a bank (we were tired and need a break!). Phillip and I finally got out of Shinsegae and found a bank about a block away that did take our card.

Our next stop was the United Nations Cemetary. This is the only UN cemetary in the world and is the final resting place for thousands of Korean War soldiers from 11 nations. We had been to the Korean War Memorial in Seoul, so this seemed to be a natural stop for us. We found the cemetary to be one of the best we have seen. The landscaping really created the proper respectful tone with the structure of the trees and shrubbery.

All the markers were granite and the graves were arranged by country with each country's flag flown above them. 

The cemetary also had a wall of remembrance where the names of every UN soldier, grouped by home country, who died in the war were listed. This granite etched wall circled around a reflecting pool with a fountain and flame.

As you can tell by Phillip's lack of umbrella, it did stop raining as the clerk had said, although there was still a slight drizzle as we walked all thru this cemetary and the 2 km back to the nearest subway stop.

Fortunately for us, the rain and clouds totally left the area Wednesday night so Thursday was nice for our cable car ride up Geumjeong Mountain. 

Notice how rugged the terrain looks under the cable car as we rode it up the mountain. I can't say we rode it to the top. as it does not go to the top. Four gates in a stone wall ring the top of the mountain. Our goal was to see the South Gate, the one nearest to the cable car arrival point. However, the signage was almost all in Korean. We wandered around on trails at the top until we saw a German couple who had been to the South Gate and told us how to get there. We had passed the trail cut-off twice but couldn't read the Korean sign. 

My Lonely Planet said it was a 10 minute walk from the cable car to the South Gate. We made it in about 30 minutes.

The four gates and stone walls were first erected during the three kingdoms period of Korean history, sometime between 57 AD and 668. The fortress, as it is called, went into disrepair but was rebuilt in 1707 to thwart invadors from Japan. These days, it is a popular hiking spot, although the hiking, like all hiking in Korea, is more akin to mountain climbing!

I posted the view of the terrain of the mountainside from the cable car. Here's a view of the terrain under the cable car at ground level. Yes, Phillip and I took an unmarked trail down the mountain. This picture is of one of the few spots where we weren't holding on to trees to keep from sliding on the pine needles. My thought was that the correct direction was down the incline, so as long as we didn't fall into a ravine, we were doing fine. And we did fine, although our knees and toes took a beating. I estimate that it took us about 90 minutes to work our way, zig-zagging, down the mountain, a journey that took 10 minutes up in the cable car. It was an adventure, making sure we were on some type of path and retracing when needed to avoid the big boulders and drop-offs. 

Back at the entrance to the fortress park, we had seen a sign for a hot spring, pointing to the north along the lower ring road. That seemed like a wonderful idea, so we started walking (uphill) with the thought of soaking our feet. We walked, but never found the hot spring. We did find a natural history museum that covered sea critters. We rested on the bench out front and decided to see what this free museum held. We skipped the fossil/rock exhibits as the Stone Park in Jeu had educated us. This museum had excellent displays of all manner of fish found in the waters around Korea. The most beautiful section was of the products from the sea, like the above mother of pearl inlayed chest on display.

The museum also had tanks of fish and live snake exhibits. The above fish is a piranha, but a type that looks as if someone sprinkled it with glitter.

Still hoping the hot springs were around the next corner, we kept walking and found a small botanic garden. The garden lured us in with a glimpse of colorful flowers. So, into this area, another beautiful landscape, terraced on the side of the mountain. Tulip beds and all manner of flowers awaited us, as well as a stream flowing over rocks with small bridges from which to admire the views. We ambled thru the lower portion of this park, but when we realized it extended even further up the mountain, our knees told us we had seen enough of the flowers. We gave up on finding the hot springs and headed back for the subway and our hotel.

During our final full day in Jeju, we decided to give our feet a relative rest and go to the horse races. (Our feet are never fully rested, as we walk to the subway and go up and down flights of stairs to get in and out of the subway - no escalators here). South Korea has three racing tracks, Seoul, Jeju, and Busan. We missed race day in Jeju (where they race Mongolian ponies) so we went to race day at Busan. A free shuttle bus took us from a subway stop to the race track outside the city. We were surprised by the number of small children in groups there, until we saw the children's amusement park that is a part of the track complex. Horse racing and preschool outings... not a mix we'd see at Lone Star Park!

The racing itself and the track were very similar to US horse racing set-ups. Most of the races were 1200 meters and the finish line was right in front of the grandstand. Between the actual Busan races, the facility simulcast the Jeju races on the big infield screens, so we were able to see the Mongolian ponies race, just not in person. The above picture is from one of the Busan races. 

Foreigners can wager on the races, so we picked one horse each for the five races we watched and bet the equivalent of about $2 on each our picks. Don't be fooled by the picture of our 2,400 won winnings. Remember that $1 = 1,100 Korean won. We bet about $20 and won about $2.50. OK, so we can't pick winning horses! We consider the $17.50 an investment in entertainment and our adventures. Phillip liked watching some of the Koreans bet big money on the horses and we enjoyed the crowd reactions as the races were actually being run. They match or exceed American race excitement and noise.

After watching 5 of the 10 races, we decided to head back to town. Unfortunately, the Busan racetrack website was a little incorrect. The free shuttles do not run all day. They stop when the racing starts and pick back up at 5:30 pm. It was 3:30 pm, so we took a taxi back to the nearest subway stop. No problem, but I did use the services of the free tourist information hotline to have someone call the racetrack and relay to me the actual shuttle schedule. 

I haven't been mentioning that every day, after all the walking we did, we'd walk from the hotel to the market and wander thru the market to find dinner at a restaurant or from street vendors. We actually wandered even farther from the hotel after our horse track day, to the seafood market. Acres and acres of vendors. It was similar to the Jeju fish market, only larger. It also had water running thru the tanks and into a drain track on the floor. I think this kept everything fresher - and alive longer - than the static tanks on Jeju. Phillip took video during our wanderings thru the market, so I'll put the picture I took of the docked fishing boats, bigger boats than those we saw at Jeju.

Although we were offered seafood for sale and one vendor told us in English that the restaurants upstairs would cook it for us, we didn't buy any today.

Our next adventure will be a train ride to Daegu, a city to the northwest of Busan, a four night stop on our way back to Seoul. Daegu has sights to see and a subway! We love subways. On to Daegu....