Daedunsan

Although there are still hundreds of posts which should be written to fill in the gaps of the last year or so, the events of the last week are much clearer in my memory, therefore much easier to write about! After the months and months of seemingly endless winter lead us to drink our weekends away, we decided it'd be nice to wake up on a Sunday and not be hungover. So, accompanied by Nick and Nat (surprise!), we made our way to Daedunsan, a mountain standing at 890-ish feet which is only about 40 minutes from us. The day started out a little grey and unwelcoming, but cleared up quite nicely and made for good hiking weather. We started out after lunch and tried to take it easy, seeing as we are a little less fit than we'd like at the moment!

The start of the hike was a little taxing, as there were somewhat irregular steps made from rocks for quite some way up, but we managed to keep going, despite the constant distractions of chipmunks scampering about and gym equipment to play on. The main reason we decided to hike Daedunsan was the fact that there are two suspension bridges to cross which looked quite fun. The first was a standard bridge between two small peaks which swayed and bounced satisfyingly as we jumped up and down on it. The second was a little higher up, and was more of a suspension staircase than a bridge. It was very narrow, very steep and very wobbly. And quite unnerving. All good fun though!

Oddly, both bridges seemed to have been added after the path was made and the hike could be done without crossing either of them, although it would've been a lot less entertaining. From the top of the second bridge it was only a short hike to the top of the mountain, which gave amazing views and a place to rest. Then, because we're lazy and going down mountains is rubbish, we got in the cable car and made a speedy descent.

Back home in Buyeo, Becky cooked us a curry and we sat around drinking wine, playing Articulate, listening to music and prank calling Nat's sister Christina on Skype until 2am. Somehow this didn't lead us into hangovers the next day, so we'd managed to keep our pledge for the weekend. Yay! Nick and Nat cooked us the best fried breakfast we've had since the Philippines when we dragged ourselves out of bed in the morning, before we headed out to Muryungsa, a temple outside Buyeo.

It's quite secluded and not overly upkept (is that a word? I'm not sure it is. Hm. I mean it's nicely run down), giving it a somewhat more authentic feel than many temples in Korea. We're also drawing very close to Buddha's birthday (I'm not sure how old he is this year. Must be knocking on a fair bit though), so there are brightly coloured lanterns on display everywhere we go, which make everything seem very cheery and nice.
We followed up the walk around the temple buildings by crossing some extremely unsafe stepping stones across a tiny tiny river and jumping around off rocks and benches as part of our current favourite pastime.This week should be another good one as we get Friday off and are going for camping fun. As long as the volcano doesn't send it's ash any further towards the Uk, we should be joined by Nat's little brother on Thursday night, and a big group of other later on, so many good times shall follow.