Lost!

Yesterday, four other co-workers and I went down to Busan, which is on the coast. First we went up to a Buddhist Temple.










I took these videos mainly for the sound. You can clearly hear ceremonial chants in the background. The second video also gives you some idea of what the area is like.



This is all on top of a mountain in Busan.


These next few photos are of a wall that once surrounded a mountaintop fortress. The walls were only 2 meters high. The fortress was called Geumjeongsanseong. Below is the North Gate.








Busan from the mountain. (West side of the city)



East side of Busan


Now to explain the title of this post. We got lost on top of this ridge trying to get down. At night. We decided to go see another temple. After climbing up a rather steep grade (they're all steep in Korea), we found that we were just in time to see the temple...close down for the night. It was seven o'clock. Then we decided to take the cable car down. So we hiked back down that slope and then up another one. Followed the signs, and got there at quarter to eight. The cable car stops at seven o'clock too. Keep in mind, there is no daylight savings time here in Korea, so the sun sets at about 7:30pm. At this point it's getting quite dark, and you could see the lights of Busan below (a really cool sight if I say so). Therefore, we had to backtrack again, but we eventually found our way to the East Gate. There were three roads to take: left, center, and right. We took the left road. That's the way we came to the East Gate.

Wrong. It took us about a half-hour, in diminishing light, to figure out that we went the wrong way. It was now nearly dark. The signposts were solar-powered, so they were alight, but otherwise I was using my cell phone to see. We found our way to pavement, and fortunately the buses were still running (it was about nine o'clock now). If they hadn't, it was about another five kilometers of walking to get to the bottom. We got on the train and got home at about midnight. We had been on our feet for nearly nine hours straight. I seriously thought we would have to camp out up there on the mountainside. I knew coming to Korea would be an adventure...