After several weeks of delay and rescheduling. The trip to with Mery to Daedunsan finally happened. And it went off without a hitch...except for a slight sunburn. I forgot my sunscreen, but I won't again. Neither Cory, nor Beth came with us. Both of them had been considering it, and if either had we probably would have taken the cable car up instead of walking, but Cory was sick, and Beth just didn't feel up for it in the end. We took it at a decent pace, although Mery was worried that she was going slow, and was slowing me down. Slow is good...it gives me lots of time to rest. But, if we hadn't taken our extra long breaks for lunch and at the top, we would have easily done it in the Lonely Planet average time. But it was a very good day. And I finally got to see what had been hiding behind all the cloud when I came here back in November. Most people probably assumed the two of us were married, or at least dating. It happens a lot. If I go out with Beth or anyone, two foreigners together of the opposite sex are married or at least dating in most people's eyes. It's not common here to have a lot of friends of the opposite sex.
Most of Daedunsan is rock face. There are cliffs and drop off everywhere. Very pretty, but it makes you glad there are railings around.
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I'd guess a bit past 1/3 of the way up...maybe more. You can see the bridge up above. One hell of a drop from it.
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And we jump to a close view. There are small restaurants are various levels of the mountain. You can see one ahead. I can't imagine working half way up a mountain. And not just at the cable car station. There were restaurant type places half way between the cable car station and the bottom, and half way between the station and the top. That would be horrible on one of those half sick, don't feel so go days. Plus carrying up the product.
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Me walking across the bridge. People can always spot me by the Canadian flag on my back. Cory and Meredith spotted at Costco as I was leaving once by it, and so have other people. I can walk over the bridge, I just don't like stopping, and I don't like people making it bounce more than it needs to.
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The two of us posing just after the bridge. The picture was taken by a professional. Or at least a guy there taking pictures for people who wanted one which his camera. He was kind enough to take one of the two of us.
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A quick peak back down at the bridge.
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Us again, just before the staircase.
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The staircase. A lot worse for those afraid of heights than the bridge. It's longer, bounces more in the middle, and you are always looking down, or at least through the steps, whereas the bridge you can just look across.
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Just after the stairs. The white thing in the left, is the top anchor for them.
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This is where the last picture is taken from. I hopped the rail just to take the picture, then Mery joined me to take a picture of her own. One thing lead to another, I sat down, and found it so comfortable, we took a long lunch break here. It was so nice, we didn't want to get up after. The rock was like a natural couch. There was a breeze, a beautiful view, and relaxation.
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The top, after finally prying ourselves up from our lunch spot.
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Me sitting at the top. 878m....looks like I'm at 878.35 or so.
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Down into the valley of the shadow....oh wait. There were no shadows that day. It was hot, and sunny. Hence the sun burn. But it was good.
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On the way back down. The bridge and staircase are only one way. You take them up, but not down.
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This, and a gym type area a bit higher up confused us a lot. Neither of us noticed it on the way up, and couldn't figure out how we had taken the wrong route down. Turns out we were just blind for the first. Probably starting to black out for breathing so hard from the openning road. The worst part of the whole climb is the openning paved road up for the parking lot a bar beyond the gate. Serious, it's hard, and very vertical. The kind of road you don't try to drive up.
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This was also the week that cherry blossom festivals were being held all over Korea, and Asia for that matter I think. The trees flower quite quickly, and lose all of the petals a couple days later, creating spring snow fall.
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Back at the bottom, waiting for the bus.
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