Let’s talk about the weather.

 We woke up to another glorious day of picture perfect weather.  Wearing sweatshirts and a jacket or shorts and a tshirt, anything goes here in Daegu now in their picture perfect early summer weather.  In the low 70’s by the afternoon, we haven’t given a single thought about the weather and how we were dressed. But today we shattered that daydream…

Backing up to this morning. First, I promised no more video of the car, but this morning the friendly car guy gave us a treat and let us go down the secret stairs to see the car storage machine. It was more magical than I even expected. And no, they would not have been able to use that space at all without the machine. Two stories of perfectly stacked cars in a basement. 

Spinning on the car turntable, we headed out for Palgongsan National Park, to take the cable car up the mountain. We planned o riding to the top and hiking down. For a couple of hours. We arrived the minute it was open, arriving at an entirely empty parking lot. 

Joel was wearing his convertible hiking pants and a tshirt. I had athletic leggings and a tshirt, with a long sleeve top. Jane had shirts, a tshirt, and a thin jacket. It was chilly when we got out of the car, but not cold. I calculated that a little walking would warm us up. I failed to notice the actual temperature or calculate the effect of the even higher elevation. 

The enclosed cable car afforded a majestic view of Daegu and the mountain. 

We stepped off into a forest fantasy wonderland but were immediately attacked by a cold wind. We read it was 10 deg Celsius colder than Daegu. Ignoring the wind chill, it was likely in the low 50s. We decided to brave hiking anyway, and see if we warmed up. It would get warmer as we walked down the mountain and the trees would break up the wind. 

Purchasing hot chocolate and coffee to warm us up, we started climbing (first up then down).

Jane was getting pale and pink simultaneously from the chill. 

We came upon the sign warning us about swine flu risk and encountering wild boars. Between that and the dropping temperature and brutal wind chill, we called to order a family meeting to discuss the pros and cons of hiking the rest of the way down this mountain. We decided the risks outweighed the rewards considering how we were dressed. Plus swine flu is unappealing. We headed back up to the cable car and rode back down to the relative warmth of the low 60’s. 

Back at the base of the cable car, we drove to a nearby temple in the national park that’s on the list of must-see sights in Daegu. We agreed it was a big win. We hiked up to it and were rewarded with gorgeous architecture. 

We encountered a funeral while we were there. 

The temperature had risen to a more pleasant 62 at the lower altitude, and we didn’t give the weather any thought again for the rest of the day. 

After an adventurous morning, despite the truncated mountain hike, we happily drove back to the hotel for naps and snacks. Jane loved a shrine and temple, and this hit her sweet spot. 

About mid-afternoon we headed out for an open air market that makes every must-do list for Daegu. We were well-rewarded for the 15 minute walk. What we found is hard to categorize, so let’s start out with size. I would estimate the market had hundreds of vendors, a few hundred in the outer markets and a few hundred in a multistory tower in the center. Dawgu is a textile production and design center in Korea, and people are producing many textile goods here. I had read that, but this brought us face to face with it. Everything you could imagine to produce textiles of any sort were available in any degree of completion, from notions and fabrics to completed pieces.  The central tower has vanishing points of stalls; we never figured out how big it was. 

Folks were sewing, mending, embroidering, and tailoring items in stalls interspersed throughout. Most of the goods were cotton clothes, aprons, pajamas, handbags, bedding, and men’s shirts, but there was a wider variety. Everything that could be made was also being sold. Jane chose a locally made backpack. I chose a small locally made cooler bag. Joel chose some socks with the Nike logo backwards. Those socks are potentially not allowed to leave the country (they’re strict about counterfeits), but buried in a dirty laundry bag they’ll likely go unnoticed. They were approximately $0.80, so we will take our chances. They really don’t want large counterfeit handbags to leave, but boy could you buy them. They had all of the lining fabrics and bag fabrics in every manufacturer’s print. Pop and YZ told us the stories of being able to buy anything in Korea back in the 80s and earlier, but I didn’t expect that to still be true.  What a fun surprise!

Prices of everything on this trip have been a bargain. The dollar is strong in Asia, but this market was just a treasure trove of bargains beyond expectations. Clothing weren’t the only cheap items. People were eating homemade foods, particularly the foods that were famous from the area. As Jane put it, “the transition from textiles to seafood was often too abrupt.”

One moment will haunt my American dreams for years. A woman was eating cooked intestines right next to the bowl of raw intestines and organ meats. Just right there. I want to be a culturally sensitive traveler, but this was too far from my culinary context to understand. And you can buy handbags there too. 

This smoked octopus in gift wrap puzzled us. 

Lots of raw seafood on ice, most isolated to one area of the market away from textiles. 

We particularly loved the crochet district of the market. Colorful bins of tempting specialty yarn was for sale. Much of the yarn has a special texture for locally made scrubbing products.  Folks filled rooms of crocheters making this yarn into adorable kitchen scrubbers which were also for sale around the market. These scrubbers are ubiquitous around here, apparently. Even our hotel room has one at the sink.  We did buy our favorite types and colors for Abby, our favorite crocheter. We thought she might have liked to join in with them. 

Many rooms were filled with women crocheting and talking. Looked like fun times. Nobody was crocheting alone. 

 Cheap treasures in hand, we walked back to the hotel.  We haven’t mentioned our room much yet. It’s a two bedroom affair but it comes with private access to a pool. This room is the only one with this direct access, and everyone else in the hotel has to pay for pool time in maximum of 2-hour chunks. We have a private cabana too (although the bedding for the cabana went missing today as they clean it I think.)

Here is our pool:

The pool was nicely heated and we soaked for awhile before dinner. Now we are off to bed. Tomorrow we leave for a new city, only 1.5 hours away. That means saying goodbye to our beloved parking garage elevator and garage attendants.