Guemo-San Mountain

This tuesday was a national holiday in S. Korea. In Canada it's called Earth Day but here it's Arbor Day. This day is apparently due to the devestation and deforestation caused by the Korean War. So all Koreans are supposed to go out and plant trees on this day. We didn't plant any trees, but we did climb a mountain. Along with half of the people in Gumi it seemed! It's so funny, we took a cab to the base of the mountain, where we encountered GEUMOLAND!! It's an amusement park, I dunno, for those who want to say they went to Geumosan, but didn't actually want to do any climbing, they can just pretend. It was packed, which is our fault for going on a holiday. We had decided to take a cable car up and the walk back down. It was a really nice day, but it's getting muggy and the humidities rising here in a hurry. Walking up a mountain didn't seem so appealing. It's weird, because I recall just under a month ago freezing my ASS off touring around Gyungju. The temperature on average here now is about 24C. Humidity is resting around 40-50%. A month ago I'm quite certain that bare skin exposed for an extended length of time would turn black. I didn't post any pictures of me in Gyungju for that reason. My smiles are so stressed because, and I'm not even exaggerating, the skin on my face was so cold that my smiles were all crooked and weird. A month ago...weird.
Anyways, we got off the cable car and had to hike up a little ways to a temple and the waterfall. We meandered around crowds, and actually WAITED IN LINE on a mountain to walk up a path to see the waterfall. Once there, ya, it was nice, it was a waterfall. I've been to Niagara, this didn't really measure up, but ya, it was nice. It's starting to get prettier here. Trees and bushes are starting to bloom...I may head back to Geumosan once that has happened more, maybe I'll appreciate the water trickle more when there's some flowers backing it up. After the water fall we, I'm not joking, waited in another line to climb up this steep rock path to a cave where some guy reached enlightenment or something in the 1400's. We got a really good view of Gumi (through the haze) from up there. It was worth the climb. We rested for a little while up there, and met a Baptist church group from Daegu, some of whom had been to San Fransisco. They talked to us for awhile....actually, one guy followed us for awhile. They took our pictures, we smiled, and then waited in line to go back down the mountain.
On our way back down we stopped at the Geumosan Mountain Fortress. It was built in the 13th century. It's like a mini Great Wall of China...a really mini one. At one time it surrounded the whole mountain. It was destroyed during Japanese and Chinese invasions during the 16th and 17th centuries and was since re-built, but not to it's orgional spanse.