A President's Day hike

Today was a U.S. Federal holiday. Rie and I took advantage of it by going for a hike. We left the house at a bit before 11 and started walking. We cut through the local university and kept going towards the nearest hills. After about an hour, we started going up and quickly left the city behind. After about a minute of walking amongst the trees, we came to the first out-door exercise area. The residents of Busan have done a great job of preserving all of their hill tops for hikers and antennas. Usually, somewhere along the trails, they put some benches and some exercise equipment. It is great for people who want to walk for a little while and then do some pull-ups or hula-hooping.

Shortly after the exercise area, we stopped to watch a very busy woodpecker, hard at work making noise and breaking wood. From the next vantage point, we had a view down towards the indoor ski area. It is closed and bankrupt now, but a few years ago you could enjoy downhill indoor skiing there. The top of the mountain was only about 1500 feet high and not too chilly. There was a big antenna up there. The road dipped down a bit and then we took a path up to the next peak, also about 1500 feet high. There was a bit of construction on the second peak. It looks like they are building a nice public view point of the city. We could see just about everywhere in Busan from up there - Haeundae Beach, our apartment area, the ports, some islands, the soccer stadium, down town, the old U.S. Army Base, the cable car that we took up another mountain, the first mountain we climbed near our hotel in November.

In the picture below, our apartment is in the center and the ocean is on the horizon. We walked up the hills on the left side of the picture and went down the hills on the right side. The chain of hills is shaped like a horse-shoe. We ended up back by the university - just 20 minutes from home. The whole walk took a bit over 5 hours and was very enjoyable.