A temple with a view

We had stayed up late last night (past midnight!) with Tom and Elicia. Great conversation, and a few laughs too. They're a fun young couple with a fantastic future ahead of them. Anyhow, 8:00am came around pretty fast, and they still had to go to work. We were up pretty much just in time to say goodbye to them, but thankfully we didn't have to rush off anywhere.

We've been going pretty much nonstop since we arrived here just under two weeks ago, but of course we're only here for 28 days and we don't want to waste any of our time.

Despite that, this morning we stayed in the apartment and relaxed. Actually, we were doing further internet research and figuring out how we're going to get from here to Busan on Saturday morning. And, trying to contact some couchsurfing hosts for our future travels both here in Korea and for when we arrive back in the United States.

It's been a little frustrating though. Couchsurfing is a fantastic resource to meet people around the world and have somewhere to stay, but many people in this part of the world simply don't have the space in their home to supply sleeping space for visitors. And, sometimes people don't respond to requests as quickly as they should. Anyhow, we've met some great people through the program, so we'll obviously continue to use it.

It was almost noon when we left the apartment. We decided to go to the Hyangiram Hermitage, a Buddhist temple that's built into the side of a mountain overlooking the sea. It's a bit of a hike to get up there, and a 45 minute bus ride (#111, 113, or 116) just to get to the base.

Ruth, with one of the turtles at the entrance.

We've learned that there are usually lots of stairs at a temple.

Some of the trail goes through crevices in the rocks!

This is the exit of the crevice. Good thing I'm a skinny guy!

Starting to get a view. Uphill, every step of the way.

It was tough to get a photo of the temple buildings that also showed how high up on the side of the mountain we were.

Again, wonderful decoration.

I wanted to ring the temple bell! Pretty sure that it would have been frowned upon.

I spotted this dolphin way down below.

No idea if these are 5 years old, or 500 years!

This temple has a turtle theme.

Again, very cool how it's all built into the huge boulders on the side of the mountain.

Duck!

There weren't many people there, and that was a good thing. But of those people who were there, many of them were praying so I didn't feel right taking pictures of the main temple. We only had to pay 2,000 won ($2.20) to enter, so it wasn't a big deal, but really there wasn't a lot to see. You kind of wander around for 10 minutes, and we found a bench to sit on overlooking the ocean where we had a snack. But other than that, we felt like there was something missing.

Then, we found the trail...we were only half way up!

Yep, another 410 meters (1/4 mile) to go! All of it uphill.

Wow...what a beautiful area.

And a beautiful day!

We almost hiked to the next mountain in the background!

Yeosu is surrounded by 317 islands. 49 are inhabited, and  268 are uninhabited.

Relaxing at the top.

We came to a three way intersection where we could have continued and hiked up the next mountain as well. But it was already getting on towards 4:00pm and we didn't want to be late. So we took the detour back down to the parking lot to catch the bus back to town. The bus cost 1,200 won ($1.30) each for the 45 minute drive.

Dried squid anyone?

These stands are all selling Kimchi.

We took the bus all the way into town and went to a huge grocery store. Frustrating thing is not knowing what stuff is, and not having anybody to ask. We're surviving, but the food issue is a bit of a challenge! We bought some chicken breast and potatoes and Ruth is making some kind of stir fry thing for us all tonight. Quite a change from Korean food!