Gatbawi Rock

Gatbawi

The beautiful fall scenery

From Wikipedia: "Gatbawi (or Gwanbong Seokjoyeoraejwasang) is a Buddhist statue in Daehan-ri, Wachon-myeon, Gyeongsan, Gyeongsangbuk-do, the Republic of Korea. It was made in the Unified Silla Kingdom era and is well known with the name of Gatbawi Buddha (Stone Hat Buddha). It sits 4m tall, and the hat is a 15cm thick flat stone on his head,

This single granite sculpture was made up by Uihyeon, at the top of the 850 meters high rough Palgongsan and is surrounded by a screen-like rockwall as its background. It is said that Uihyeon made it in order to appease his mother's soul in the 7th ruling year of Queen Seondeok of Silla Kingdom. The legend says that a big crane flew in to guard him every night while he was making this Gatbawi Buddha. It is reputed to be a miraculous Buddha stone, which makes a response to prayers if the prayer prays for it with his or her whole heart."

Today, I made the trek with Autumn. I had kinda self invited myself when Autumn told me that she was going to go up for her birthday, but it turned out to be a good thing as her friend that was supposed to go up with her felt ill this morning. It was an early morning catching the bus to take the forty minutes ride up to the bottom of Palgonsan. You may remember, Palgonsan is the same mountain that has Asia's largest standing Buddha and Dongwhasa Temple. Gatbawi is on another part of the mountian.

Lucas kept saying to me last night, "it's going to be haaard". I knew it was a tough climb, but I was determined to do it. This is something that I wanted to see since coming to Korea, and this may be my last opportunity to see it.

The bus ride itself was an adventure, I do not know how many people were on it, but there was no way that more people could fit on it. I was wrong. The bus driver kept stopping to pick up people. I was having people flat up on me, pressing against me, with their horrible garlic kimchi breath. It wasn't too pleasant, and Autumn began to feel sick from it. We made it to the bottom of the mountain forty minutes later and it was a relief to get off the bus. There were a serious amount of people there. It is Saturday, and the Koreans are avid hikers. They are fully decked out in their North Face and Lafuma hikin gear, complete with backpacks and walking sticks. Don't mess.

The first second off the bus is a hike, and I was a little worried. I was using hiking as a physiotheraphy thing, and it was pretty steep. But there were old old old ladies booking it up the mountain, I couldn't just flake out. The first part was a steep road that led up to a small temple. It was a good point to take a break, and enjoy the scenery. The temple was about one quarter or the way up. It was beautiful, the leaves were changing, the sun was out, but it was a little too chilly for my tastes - but it was only to get chillier as we made our way up.

After the temple, the rest of the way was stairs, and it made me reminice about the millions of stairs I climbed on the Great Wall of China. These stairs were awkward sized rocks of varying shapes. Sometimes there would be a bit of a traffic jam as the stairs narrowed. Eventually we did make it all the way up.

The place was packed. Considering the amount of people we saw going up and down, we were expecting the place to be busy. But there was hardly any room to move. So many people were praying. This is a popular place for mothers to go durning test time, praying for their child to get a good score.

The time came for the climb down, and it was difficult too. Many of the stairs at the top of the mountain are as wide as half my foot, and some people were trying to get down as fast as the could, one guy almost bailed because of it. Autumn's and my legs were very shaky by the time we reached the bottom. We then caught a bus back to the city, both of us so tired. We dreamed of our warm beds and a hot shower, in that order. And that's exactly what I did when I got home.

Tonight we're going for Autumn's birthday dinner at Maya - the same place where I had the most intense food poisoning of my life. I'm sticking with the Naan bread. No vegetables for me tonight (as they were most likely the cause according to another person who got sick's doctor).