BigHominid's Hairy Chasms: Yeosu: January 17, 2015

I took a ton of pictures—some good, some bad—on the night of January 17 while I was out and about in Yeosu. I strolled from my yeogwan across the Dolsan Bridge and tromped up Dolsan itself—the very small but very famous local mountain whose summit is crowned with a monument that sits in what has to be one of the tackiest parks I've ever seen in Korea. It's eternally Christmas up there: all the plants have been covered in electric Christmas lights, and there are sculptures and weird tableaux whose meaning completely escapes me. While I was at the top, I bought some cotton candy from one of the several friendly cotton-candy vendors; my swirl cost me only W3,000 and was larger than my head. I polished it off in no time, of course. The summit was crowded with tourists; in that way, it was a lot like Namsan in Seoul.

Also at the top of the mountain was a building that houses several restaurants, a restroom, a shop or two, and a cable-car rig. I couldn't understand the need for a cable car: the mountain was easily scalable in just a couple minutes—too low, too short, to merit a cable car.

The series of pics below begins with a couple fuzzy snaps of my yeogwan before moving on to some scenes of Dolsan Bridge, Dolsan itself, the path up the mountain, the monument and tacky park, and eventually a couple shots of some of the sashimi restaurants, one of which served me my dinner (hwaedeop-bap). The sashimi itself was great, but the side dishes at that restaurant left much to be desired.

What should really stand out to you, Dear Reader, is that Yeosu isn't some quiet little beach town, which is what I'd originally thought it was. It's actually quite built-up, and is apparently a popular vacation destination. There was a lot that I didn't have the chance to explore; I plan on going back, though, because Yeosu seems to have a lot to offer.

(Hover your cursor over the images for the captions.)

Why can't my current yeogwan be more like this? Neat, clean, and spacious.

Why can't my current yeogwan be more like this? Neat, clean, and spacious.

I could do without the vanity, though, and that stool (see previous pic) started to hurt my ass after a few minutes' sitting. It wasn't nearly as cushiony as it looks in the picture.

A view looking across the water: Dolsan Bridge dominates, but you can also see the island on which Dolsan is located, as well as another nameless island off to the left.

I started walking up the steps of Dolsan, then turned around and took this shot to give you an idea of how steep the steps were, and to show you one of the many sashimi restaurants in this neighborhood.

A shot of the Dolsan Bridge after having crossed it.

On the mountain path, looking uphill. More steps. Always more steps.

A beautiful shot of Yeosu's coast as seen from across the water, on the Dolsan side. I regret having shrunk this image down to 600 pixels. Seen full-size, it's magnificent.

Another shot of the bridge, whose colors were always changing. Yeosu seems fascinated with light shows.

This is a monument commemorating the completion of the Dolsan Bridge. I like how the figures seem to hail from Greek mythology. They don't look Korean at all.

You can see this ridiculous tree from all the way across the water. I knew it would be my mission in life to reach it and photograph it. It's awful, but you can't stop staring at it.

Dolphin mother and child? With netting? What is this sculpture trying to say?

Another memorial of unknown purpose. Given how the figures seems to be tugging mightily on something, I mentally titled this sculpture 'Super Wedgie.'

At the foot of the Super Wedgie sculpture was this other sculpture. What is it? A giant dispenser of chrism for anointing Hebrew kings? An artfully sculpted toilet? No idea.

I saw this and immediately thought: Tunnel of Love.

Let it go. Do you wanna build a snowman? I'm sure the tree is screaming, 'Kill me!'

This sure looks like something out of an alien-attack movie. I expected the guy to get burned to a crisp by weird radiation.

Had to take a pic of these 'stars' glittering on the ground.

The multipurpose building at the summit. With cable-car station.

I like this whale. I like its stressed-out expression, its human teeth, and its weird monocle, almost as if it were a character from a Lewis Carroll story—late for dinner with the March Hare or something.

Once again, a final shot of the sashimi place at the foot of the mountain—the same restaurant that I'd first photographed while on my way up to the summit.

I have pictures from my walk along Route 17, through Yeosu's downtown, and all the way up to Chonnam National University campus, but I'll save those for another post.

_

3 comments:

CharlesJanuary 28, 2015 at 1:48:00 PM GMT+9
Looks like an interesting place--never been there myself. I like your looming statue in that one photo of the "stars" on the ground. Gives the scene a rather ominous feel.

(Also, question: Why the hyphen between "hwaedeop" and "bap"? 덮밥 is the basic dish here, with 회 being the modifier, so if anything it should be "hwae-deopbap," no?)
Kevin KimJanuary 29, 2015 at 2:19:00 AM GMT+9
Charles,

I had no idea how to divide the word. My instinct was to hyphenate before "-bap" because there are so many "-bap" dishes: kimbap, ssambap, boribap, jumokbap, bibimbap, etc. So it seemed only natural to write "hwaedeop-bap." But if "hwaedeop" isn't its own thing, then I stand corrected.
CharlesJanuary 29, 2015 at 10:01:00 AM GMT+9
Yeah, "hwaedeop" is not a thing. It's the "deopbap" that's a thing, literally meaning "covered rice," or "rice covered with something." (예: 회덮밥, 불고기덮밥, 오징어덮밥 등)

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Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Yeosu: January 17, 2015

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