#geumosan

[kimtokorea]

Just a short walk away from downtown Gumi is the stunningly beautiful hike up to Mount Gumo (Geumosan). 

You can take a cable car to the top, where there is a Buddhist temple, or you can hike up the mountain and see waterfalls and old structures along the way! It’s probably my favorite part about Gumi right now!

[antoniusthegr8]

Labour (Workers') Day in Gumi

Step 1 - Get a haircut, my first in Korea. The hairdresser was even more nervous than I was, but we managed to communicate with gestures, pictures, and a few basic keywords like "short-short". The poor woman gingerly approached my hair as if she was defusing a bomb. It wasn't quite what I wanted, but not bad at all. Definitely the most hipster hairstyle I've ever had.

  Step 2 - Look for shoes. I wandered through the market looking at shoe shops and failed to find anything that I could squeeze my UK size 11 (Korean size 290) feet into. Anything. The one owner insisted that one pair of size 8s would fit me and that I should try them on. I insisted they would not and we agreed to disagree.The covered market is typical in Korea, consisting of a network of intersecting streets stuffed with tiny shops crammed with goods spilling out into the pedestrian street. Shoes and clothes predominate, but there are many food stalls too.

I sat in the temple grounds near the train station for about half an hour. It was peaceful there. I listened to the birds and breezes shifting the new leaves above me. The urban hum was softened, temporarily.

  Step 3 - Walk up Mount "ridiculously beautiful" Geumosan. We wandered around the lake first. How amazing to see the area in all its spring splendour. So much better than the wintry brown wasteland of two months ago, when we walked around it as novice waygooks. Everywhere was rich chlorophyll to sooth one's eyes.The place was packed with hikers out for the day. The Buddhist temples in the area are festooned with lanterns in preparation for Buddha's Birthday in two weeks' time. We scrambled up past a waterfall and along a narrow ledge on the slippery rockface to reach a cave where a monk once lived. Before the guardrail was installed, the final stage of the climb must have been a true test of any monk's attainment of a zen state of mind. The view from the Daehyul (big hole) in the wall was glorious. Photographs don't really do the place justice, but I tried anyway. We wafted down the mountain aboard the cable car, passing through the tree canopy and back to everyday life.

[beezaybee-blog]