Taejongdae [visited on 03.10.2007]

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At the invite of Sheng Kiat, we went to Taejongdae during this public holiday [03.10.2007], which is a park by the sea.

I saw 1 of the sign board is written like this:

"Taejongdae is a representative park of Busan, with fantastic rocky cliffs, quiet places in thick forests of various evergreen and deciduous trees, and variety of recreational facilities. It is famous for the fact that the Tshushima island of Japan can be seen from here."

The park itself is beautiful - despite the season which left a good number of the trees bare - but unfortunately we went Taejongdae at a peak time because we had to fight our way through crowds of locals with the same idea. The tourist buses, disturbingly brightly coloured were still running around the park, although why anyone would choose to take a very noisy bus rather than appreciating the quiet serenity of the park's grounds is beyond me.

On the way to the park, we wanted to check out something nearby that looked like a war memorial of some kind. Well, it is a memorial to 'medical assistance units' from the U.N who served in the Korea way. Italian, Indian, Danish and Swedish flags were on it as well as a couple of others I cannot recall.

Along the way, there are Buddhist Temples off the path in the forest. At the far side, where the lighthouse is, we made our way down the cliffs on increasingly perilous sets of steps. As we descended further the route lost any pretence of being a proper path and just became a narrow level bit of cliff with like a two-rope barrier to avoid you from falling off the edge.

On the way down, completely unexpectedly, the path briefly enclosed and within that space was a wall where visitors were encouraged to neatly leave their love message. Perhaps this was to discourage them from writing their messages all over the other rocks on the cliff, but if it was it failed miserably.

We hanged out there about 3-4 hours. Eventually we took "bus" to the entrance of the park. Along the way, proving that Koreans can sell anything, anywhere, vendors hawked refreshment in increasingly precarious locations.

My 1 day girl friend