Miss America!

South Korea is 70% mountain range and a very common weekend activity for Koreans is hiking. So, we decided to hike up Mt. Palgongsan and then a hot spring. Our adventure began around 10 am when we missed the Daegu city bus tour (it literally drove off in front of us), we had the option of taking the next bus at 11 20 or the city bus. We chose the latter, city bus it was! Too bad all of Daegu was riding this bus, one hour standing on what seemed like a stick shift bus.

We hiked for about 30 minutes until we reached a buddha statue (photo op/ rest) then a little further up the mountain we reached the first temple, well a cluster of temples (pictured below). After going inside a few temple buildings and taking a few pictures, we continued to work our way up the mountain. Another 30ish minutes go by and we start to see the sky and assume we are at the top.

To the right about 50 yards was another temple or we could hike for another hour or more. We chose the second temple then we would head back down the mountain after. This temple was pretty sweet, it was a lot bigger than the first. There were statues and little buddhas everywhere. We walked around and went into the different buildings, took pictures and took in the scenery. We met a Korean lady who worked at the temple and she told us we were allowed to go get food and just pay a donation. We accepted and all donated a dollar or two (she said that was enough). After eating we had to wash our dishes, squatting using two large bowls of water. It wasn’t so bad but the water was FREEZING!

We made our way back down the mountain, to the bus stop to go to the hot springs. While in line an elderly (at least 70 year old man) came up to me and kept saying, “number 1” “number 1” he then pointed to my friend Mari and said “number 2” then Maggie and said “number 3.” We were rated by an old Korean man.

He walked away to a store then came back bearing gifts of candy. He opened up the pack and gave me a handful of candy (individually wrapped), then Mari and then Maggie. He gave Monica the rest of the bag. He left then came back with more candy for me and called me “miss America.” Haha. We then boarded the bus towards the hot spring.

The hot spring is supposed to be Korea’s largest open air hot spring. We buy our tickets. Well come to find out Korean hot springs are not the same type of hot springs we are accustomed to. The bathing suit and flip flops where not necessary there. A Korean hot spring on the other hand is more of a bath house with a bunch of naked women scrubbing each other (maybe between 40-50); the first room after the locker room is a huge whirl pool with smaller pools around it.

Then showers and sinks on every other wall, as well as steam rooms and saunas. Outside there is a waterfall, a large outdoor whirl pool, grotto/cave thing with a pool inside and a hut. The hut was another sauna. I guess when in Rome minus the scrubbing of each other…It was very intersting, and experience to say the least. 

We all passed out on the bus back to downtown Daegu, went home changed then met up for dinner and some bars…overall it was a pretty adventurous day.


These are my girls! Since there are only two boys in the group, they get stuck with taking a girls shot, everywhere. 

There is Monica (next to me) and on the otherside, Mari, then Maggie and finally Courtney. The boys are John and Andy (not pictured Jeff).