DAY 1 OF 4-DAY Geoje ROAD TRIP
I began the day with a KTX ride to Busan, masked up, braving the covonavirus. I had a seat to myself for most the journey, then someone sat next to me! Others joined the carriage later and I heard some coughing… I decided to get my bag and move to another carriage. On the way I noticed that there were mots of empty seats, so you have to marvel at the algorithms that needlessly put lots of passengers in one carriage…
Here’s a thorough guide to using KTX ticketing app. This was good at the time of writing this post (in 2020).
When I got to Busan, the weather was getting hot. It was an easy walk up to the Lotte Rentacar centre and easy to pick up the car. It was a Kia Ray, one of those boxy cars you may have seen around, so I was quite excited to try it. I set the navigation for my hostel and off I went for a somewhat stressful drive through Busan, then an slightly more stressful motorway trip sharing the road with massive container trucks on their way to Busan Port! Once past all that though, the drive was pleasant and I went over and through the Geoje suspension bridge and sea-tunnel system, which was very impressive. Once travelling through it, I got my first glimpse of what to expect from Geoje; lush green mountains and hills. Just what I wanted!
On Geoje proper, I could see that they had an extremely modern system of raised roads weaving through the mountains. I could see towns and villages below, plus the sea in the distance. I also passed one of the huge ship-building complexes they have here, either Samsung or Daewoo. These are places I’d like to check out someday…not this trip though. Off the main road, I got to more standard Korean town roads and was surprised at the level of traffic; this was no sleepy island! However, it certainly looked promising, surrounded as it was with lush green hills. My hostel was located at the edge of Geoje city and was up a narrow road: Geoje Ton Ton Guesthouse (거제통통게스트하우스). The property housed a restaurant with another building used for the hostel. The mother ran the restaurant and her son managed the guesthouse.
After checking in and chatting with the host, I took a quick drive to see if the monorail to the top of Gyeryongsan was running; it was closed for maintenance but that was fine as I was also looking for some food. I settled for some icy buck wheat noodle soup. Very nice.
Back at the hostel, I took a walk to Mundong waterfalls, about ten or twenty minutes away. It was a very nice walk and I got to see some nice buildings, hills and a reservoir. It seems the people here take pride in their surroundings and property compared to other parts of the Korean countryside. There were a few restaurants by the entrance to the waterfall trail. It was a woodland trail and went gently up along a stream. The falls weren’t really a big set of falls, more like an extremely rocky stream which would be great to hang out by in the hot weather. I loved the sound of the water and the how peaceful the woods and stream was; so relaxing!
I headed back to the trail head and took a different route back to the hostel, which took me along the other side of the reservoir. The sun was beginning to set and the water was smooth like a mirror. There were a few nice houses next to the water, some residential, some for food or coffee, though these were closed at this time of day. I wonder if this was open for swimming?
Also in the video above is a shot of the reservoir and some kind of fish-ladder(?) I saw on the walk back to the hostel. Back at the hostel, I went to a chicken and beer place with the host, although we didn’t stay long due to me being tired. All in all, a good start to my Geoje trip.