The trip was long, and due to a long spell of very good weather = lots of activity, we were tiring and ready for a break when we rolled into Danyang, South Korea at the beginning of April .
Sun-Ling booked us into the Daemyung Resort Danyang Hotel, an 800-room "monstrosity", for 3 nights. It was great! We had a 13th floor view to the river and mountains, a washing machine, plus a kitchenette and a very large Korean-style sleeping/living room with heated floors. Nice. The perfect place to rest up a bit and celebrate Sun-Ling's birthday.
We arrived mid-day by train from Andong. Danyang Station is 4 or 5 kms outside of town. Often when one arrives at a station like this outside of a small town, you get off with 10 to 20 other passengers who promptly disappear, especially if it's at night. However, at Danyang, we observed a handful of the disembarking passengers head right to a waiting bus. Yes! It's the local bus that meets the train, takes a T-money IC card, and after riding across the bridge we are soon walking the short distance from the bus stop to Daemung Resort. Perfect.
Our program for Danyang will be simple: visit Guinsa (a Buddhist Temple), have a wonderful day on Sun-Ling's birthday, and do some strolling around town.
Here are the 2 wings of the Daemung Resort as seen from the main road. The wing on the left has western rooms, the wing on the right were we stayed has Korean Rooms.
The view from our balcony towards the sunset.
And the view through the screen door to the river and mountains. Check out the water slide. It is a resort you know.
Our first full day in Danyang we rode the bus to Guinsa Buddhist Temple, explored the grounds, ate the free lunch, walked up to Nirvana Palace, and returned. The temple complex has an interesting history which you can read here and is noteworthy for its giant, colorful, flamboyant, architecture.
Video
Video link is here.
The 20-th century founder, Sangwol Wongak, is "memorialized" in the uppermost temple.
The free lunch comes with some basic, but tasty vegan food, no proselytizing, and we did not have to wash our dishes.
After lunch by chance we fell in with some adherents and walked with them up to Nirvana Palace, the founder's tomb.
Stepping off the bus back in Danyang we spot the elusive moto-postman.
Home for some relaxing on the balcony.
On Sun-Lings birthday we walked over to a park below the Danyang Skywalk on a boardwalk, part of which is built into the cliff on side of the river.
Here you can see a big bend in the river, the railroad bridge, the Skywalk platform at the top of the hill.
We approach the section of the boardwalk that "hangs" from the cliff.
And there is about 1.5 kms of this hanging walkway which dumps you out at the foot if the Skywalk.
The Skywalk complex also has zip lines and a luge track, both visible but hard to spot in these two photos.
Walking back. Check out the train on thte bridge.
A tour group.
Another train.
Soju! I had my first taste of soju, the alcoholic beverage of choice in Korea that is like a vodka, in Danyang as the local supermarkets carried a poor selection of beers. Not knowing one brand or flavor from the other, and all labels are in Korean, I picked this bottle because it had "since 1924" on the label. Good choice! Turns out to be the the Jinro brand, whose Chamisul Classic Soju is the most popular spirit in Korea. ...I drank this brand of soju for the rest of our time in Korea.
Never in too much o a hurry, are you? Or a vodka-like soda.
ReplyDeleteCrash commented: Or a vodka-like soda.
ReplyDeleteExactly. And you buy it in the cold case at the 7-11 for about $1, just like you buy a 12-oz soda in the USA, except that this one is 40 proof. ;-)