When I first arrived in Daegu, I was keen to try a city bus tour. Various things got in the way in the first month or two and then I discovered a blog post saying that the tour was all in Korean, further decreasing my motivation to try it. One thing led to another and the city bus tour never happened. It turns out I wasn’t the only one who liked the idea but never quite got around to it. A friend contacted me on Friday evening and asked if I’d be interested in spending Saturday doing this. I immediately jumped at the idea – brushing aside all plans to spend a quiet Saturday cleaning my house. I feel like I’d been on the go non-stop for absolute ages but this would be so much more fun with friends and the chance to do it was now.

We met at 10:30 on Saturday morning outside S-Mart, a little supermarket/corner store down the road from me and central to all of our houses. There were four of us, each from different countries: Australia, Ireland, USA and South Africa. Without further ado, our little international band hopped in a cab to Dongdaegu station, where we bought our tickets (5000 won each) and got the 11:20 City Tour Bus. This route works on a hop-on, hop-off system. The tour bus stops at each stop on the route 6 times a day, at different times, so all you need to do is get off at the sight you want to see and be back at the bus-stop the hour or so later to catch the next bus to pass by. There are several other Daegu City Bus tours that work differently – we were on the Circular Course. There are 10 stops along this route: Bullo-dong Tomb Park, Bongmu Leisure & Sports Park, Guam Farm Stay, Gatbawi, Bangjja Yugi Museum, Donghwasa Temple, Donghwasa Restaurant District, Deagu Safety Theme Park (only in Korea!) and Palgong Spa Hotel. It isn’t really possible to see all of those places in one day unless you leave with the first bus and rush through each stop. Actually, it still wouldn’t be possible to time that right. We picked two. Well, three because the Donghwasa Temple and Donghwasa Restaurant District share the same bus stop. Some people wanted to try Gatbawi, but by all accounts it really is a day, or at least a half-day experience. Even the info pamphlet claims that it’s a 2-hour round-trip hike and that may be optimistic. I do still feel as though I should do Gatbawi but I think it is one of the Korea experiences that may have to be sacrificed to getting home in time for Fest.

Our first stop on Saturday was the Bullo-dong Tomb Park. I’ve been there before but the others hadn’t. The park isn’t spectacular to look at, particularly if you have already seen the huge tombs in Gyeongju, but I love it. It is peaceful and beautiful and special. This time of year, it is also green. Now that spring has arrived, the grass everywhere has turned from the dull grey of winter to bright new green. So the burial mounds were green hills. We wandered between them happily. I think one of the things I like about this tomb park and that makes me almost prefer it to the one in Gyeongju, is that this isn’t an awe-inspiring, scary place. While there is a sense of the passing of time, particularly because those buried in these mounds are so far back (5th and 6th century) that they no longer exist even in oral history, the place doesn’t feel imposing or intimidating; it just feels peaceful. A lot like some of my favourite graveyards outside old settler churches in South Africa. At some points, this peace is disturbed by the noise from a highway nearby but once you move away from the road, everything is quiet and peaceful. Trees sway in the gentle breeze. Wild flowers bloom in the well-trimmed grass of the burial mounds. Someone is growing vegetables.

After a wander around the tomb park, we headed back to the bus-stop and waited for the next bus to come along. While we waited, a Korean man came over and asked where we were from. I think he was a bit surprised to discovered that no two of us was from the same place. In fact, between us we covered four continents. I was gratified to discover that he knew something about South Africa – “Oh, World Cup!”. The joy of being flavour of the month. Back on the bus, the tour guide also seemed to figure out that I was South African. I was surprised. The only way he could have known was either from my accent (which would be a definite first) or because I was wearing a Springbok rugby top. He didn’t however, know my national anthem – this only because he not only knew but proceeded to hum the whole of the American anthem.

Our next stop was Donghwasa but before that the bus passed Gatbawi and we got into long conversations about it. Christina has done it twice. I have to be honest that it sounds like a more difficult climb than I would manage. After a while of enjoying the scenery – this area, just outside of Daegu to the North, is part of Palgong park so is mostly natural forest between mountains, except for a few farms – we arrived at Donghwasa, which includes the temple, a restaurant area and the base-station of a cable-car.

Our first stop was food. We found a lovely rustic-looking second-floor balcony to sit on and ordered bibimbap all round. In the time I’ve been in Korea, I’ve eaten many different Korean dishes but I actually haven’t had bibimbap in ages. This dish is basically rice with all sorts of different vegetables plus an egg on top. A friend of mine once pointed out that this meal seems a lot like what you’d expect to eat if you were having dinner with people whose main source of food was foraging – grains plus lots of wild-tasting vegetables. It is a very healthy meal. At least, it tastes very healthy. I imagine that it can probably be made less healthy depending on how many of the side-dishes are things like the tiny, little spring-rolls we were served. The rest of our sides were the fairly standard kimchi, spinach, glass noodles in various forms and a few other things designed to set your mouth on fire. All in all, it makes for a good, healthy, filling lunch.

Refreshed, we headed off to the temple. Temples are another thing I haven’t done all that much of since getting here, surprisingly, given that they form a major part of Korea’s standard tourist experience. Donghwasa temple is, according to the information board, “an authentic Buddhist temple situated in Mt. palgongsan in northern Daegu. It symbolises the power of Bonghwang, that is, the legendary mythological bird, the phoenix, that rises from the ashes of its long life cycle, and is reborn anew again” (complete with fascinating grammar, punctuation and tautology).

The temple complex is set in forests on the lower slopes of the mountain. To get there, we walked through the huge gate (2500 won entry fee) and along a gently sloping road lined with paper-lanterns. On our left was a large pool of perfectly still water reflecting the green of the forest. Down another path, we came out into the clearing where the temple sits. There were more paper lanterns strung in row upon row across the paved areas between the buildings, their shadows polka-dots on the paving under the many bright colours. So many paper lanterns. Not just at this temple – they’re all over Korea as the country prepares to celebrate Buddha’s birthday next week – an added reason to visit temples just now.

We meandered through the complex. There were four huge statues in one building, each holding different things – weapons, musical instruments, a small dragon. Some people were sitting at a table outside, collecting donations or selling something. Down some stone steps, we saw a waterfall. The waterfall flowed into a pool that sparkled with coins gathered on the bottom – a wishing well, perhaps. Across a stone bridge, we took another path, down the hill and along another lantern-lined way. We reached an area with a huge temple/hall and some multi-storey statues. Unfortunately we couldn’t get near to the statues as they were doing some renovations (with the most amazing timing imaginable!) but we did stop at the souvenir shop and looked around at the building and more rows of lanterns.

We stopped into the coffee shop to have something to drink. After placing our orders at the counter, we walked through the shop to the balcony area on the other side. An unusual place to sit down and have a cup of coffee (or in my case a lemonade) on a secluded balcony on the second floor of a temple-like building. Around us were huge, thick pillars. Above, we could look up into the elaborate designs and colours of a traditional roof. From the edge, we looked out at another row of lanterns on the edge of the stone walkway, and then forests and mountains stretching away into the distance. It was peaceful there. A gentle breeze stopped the heat from being oppressive. We sat and chatted for ages.

Eventually, we rose to leave. After a look around the rest of the building, we headed back up the steps and the paths to the main gate. The bus wasn’t due for a while, so we decided to try and find the cable car. We walked back down past the restaurants and followed a path that, at least according to the signs, seemed like it should take us in the right direction. After a while of walking up a fairly steep path, we asked some Korean hikers if we were on the right track. They said, or seemed to say, that we should keep following the path. We really were going to try but it kept going on and on and none of us particularly felt like a hike. Most people weren’t even dressed for it. So, we changed our minds and came back down. We were momentarily detained along the way by a family party: the grandfather of the group decided that his very shy teenage grandson should show off his English skills – clearly gained at great expense to the family – by speaking to the foreigners. The boy was too shy to say a word but the grandfather was delightful – so determined and so proud of his family.

The afternoon was wearing away so we walked up to the bus stop. We sat and chatted in the lovely sunshine until the bus arrived and took us back to Dongdaegu, from where we took the subway back to our area, stopping for a quick dinner on the way home. All in all a lovely, peaceful day out in the fresh air and the forests, with some good walking and some even better company.