South Korea Day 6: The Bus And The Mountain

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Daegu boasted a hop-on hop-offf bus which tourists could use to explore the city. We determined that this was the best way to see the things that couldn't easily be reached by subway.

The rain had gone away during the night, leaving a cold wind behind. 

The streets around us were still deserted, apart from a very busy marathon where rivers of people ran to the accompaniment of a steady drum beat.

We walked in circles at the Daegu Railway Station, eventually finding the City Tour bus with the aid of the Tourist Information staff, a couple of bystanders, and a bus driver who excelled in pantomime. This brought us, in due course, to Apsan Mountain where we caught another ropeway to the top. "Why do I do this to myself?" Muttered Roger, as he resolutely faced the mountain all the way up.

Walking to the ropeway: still a few trees in blossom.

What Roger was resolutely not looking at. And it got better.

A fierce wind blew at the top of the mountain and patches of snow huddled in shady places. Sinewy Korean geriatrics loitered at the observatories, having walked up from the bottom. Some of them had done it barefoot. Good for them.

The view was stunning. Daegu, ostensibly South Korea's 4th largest city, in reality joined with the province of Gyeongbuk to create the 3nd largest urban agglomerate, outstripping (to give us a relateable comparison) Sydney in population. The cafe rooftop boasted 360 deg views and full exposure to the wind which pushed me around and threatened to snatch my phone from my (very cold) fingers as I took photos.





There's a rabbit theme going on on South Korean mountain tops. I don't understand it.

We gobbled down lunch with a view, enjoying the warmth while we waited for the gondola.

Thankfully the ropeway was sheltered from the wind and our ride down was smooth enough to make any height-averse engineer happy.

The next stop was Lake Susong-ji, originally a reservoir and now a recreational lake around which one could do laps in company with the elderly South Koreans who dominate exercise circuits throughout the country and hadn't walked up Mt Apsan already.



White Knob geese, begging for handouts.

There was the inevitable theme park catering to small children, and the quixotic surprise of a L1011 (that's a plane for dummies like me) repurposed as a restaurant.


We bought something with vegetables in it for dinner and took it home to our hotel room which turns out to have a heated floor: a very nice thing to have when it is cold outside. 

To finish: some Spring foliage from the walk up to the Apsan Mountain ropeway.






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