Palgongsan...OWNED

Like I said before, I took it rather easy this weekend. As such, I woke up fairly refreshed and ready for a full day on Sunday. The decision was to meet some folks and go to Palgongsan, the tallest mountain in the area. I had been wanting to hike Palgongsan since the weather started getting nice. This weekend was spectacular (weather-wise) so it seemed a good a week as any to hike around a mountain.
I'm not gonna lie. We took the cable car up to the top. It was so easy, and the name was too alluring:
I believe the 700 is a reference to how many times you will be happy if you ride the Happy 700 happy car. I feel ripped off because I only counted being happy 694 times. But, as a consolation prize we hiked down. Hey, at least we did that! We could have just as easily gone back down the cable car. Oh, there were protests. There were. Some wanted to take the easy way out. But not this kid. I wanted to hike all over that mountain. This was no easy feat. Treacherous and rocky. Sweaty and hot. The top half of the mountain was rife with all sorts of cool rock formations to climb all over and almost fall to your death on.Yes, this is the actual trail. One part even had a rope that you had to grab onto to progress on the trail. At points, I felt like I was part of a parkour troupe going down that mountain. Everyone would take the route that most suited them, trail be damned. It was often safer to take a progression of rocks instead of the slippery pepples all over the trail. And, as with any mountain hiking area in Korea, there are so many options for the intrepid Korean hiker. You can take a hike, like a pathetic loser, or you can take a hike and get your gym on with the outdoor gym equipment, picnic on a rock face, go golfing:Drink your ass off on soju at the local stores, have your kids play on the swings, climb a fake rock wall, or pick your choice of any of the roosters or chickens at the local chicken...place dump factory thing...My goal was to visit one of the two temples on the mount, but being a treacherous, tree filled, rocky mountain face made it difficult to get our bearings and find how to get to said temples. I will be here for 9 more months (wow, how the time flies) so I have plenty of time to find those damn temples. I couldn't help but think of how Alissa would have a field day with all the nature photography opportunities on the top half of that mountain. Birds and bees (not the sex talk) and all sorts of little critters running around in the Spring heat. I'm including the Korean hikers all decked out in hiking gear, carrying their backpacks and walking sticks in that "critter" statement. Ajummas hiking faster than 20 year olds, children who are probably too small to be hiking up a mountain with no safety barriers. Dogs, cats, mimes. Ok, I'm lying about the cats and the mimes, but wouldn't that be sweet to see a cat carrying mime climbing a mountain like there's no tomorrow?

Anyway, Palgongsan is a village of family activity and wholesome fun. I still need to get up to the top of Apsan (the #2 mountain in Daegu. Remember how I went and started to climb it with Mr. Lee and then the rain came in like the Dickens?). I hear it has better views than Palgongsan. At least of Daegu city. I ate a ton of Korean food today and now I'm at home drinking a bit of Korean alcohol. It just falls in line with me being called a "Korean man" last night. Apparently I'm not like other Americans. I'm hoping it was meant as a compliment.