Being in the throws of Waterfall Summer, we took a trip to Daewonsa Valley Falls, on Jirisan Mountain. Since it is a national park, Chuey was not able to tag along on this one.
I had a pin for the address from a friend. As we got near, the road became very Korean, aka very tiny. We came upon some on-coming cars and I kind of freaked out. Since I recently got a little too close on one of those said tiny Korean roads, I was very apprehensive of getting too close again. I made a couple cars back up because I didn't think two cars could pass on such a skinny road. We had 2 kilometers to go; I made us get out to walk the rest of the way. Turned out we saw a small Winnebago go up that tiny road. So I said ok, let's try it again.
It was very stressful when we met a few cars, but we made it without side-swiping anything. The Lord was listening when I prayed before the drive back; when I passed three different cars each time it was at a double wide lane instead of a single lane. ๐
After a short hike from the parking lot we came to the river.
As you can see, many others thought the cool river on a hot day was a good choice, too.
We kept walking up to where there were no other people.
We spotted a good swimming hole. There was not a path, but we forged our own.
Zekers climbed on up.
As always, he was the first in the water.
The little stone pyramids always catch my eye, but never photograph well. You can see a few little pyramids poking up on the big rocks.
The boulders in the river are so big.
The water was cold and refreshing!
Lunch time!
After eating, Daisy and I walked upstream,
while the boys stayed there.
The Daewonsagyegok Valley stream originates at the top of Jiri Mountain and stretches for 12km.
Look at the cute little heart shape in the gray rock.
Notice that interesting rock composition that is so different than all the surrounding areas.
As we were climbing over one of these rocks, Daisy slipped and kind of straddled the rock. It was a compromising position, and as she was stuck there with a leg on each side, she looked down and saw something on the rock. "IT'S MOVING!" she screamed. As she was freaking out I came to help, to discover it was just a locust. I got a good belly laugh, though.
This waterfall trip was more of a swimming hole trip, but there were a few small falls.
About this time Daisy and I thought we heard something, but the rushing water was loud and we couldn't really tell what it was. It was when I thought I heard a dog bark that my attention was turned to the man on the side of the road yelling into a bullhorn. I did not know the words, but I could tell he wanted us to leave.
I indicated we needed to get our stuff and our boys. He stayed up by the road until we climbed back out. Then he followed us down the road until we got to the parking lot. Along the way we could see that the rest of the swimmers had been cleared out, too. I don't know why we could not get in the water upstream from the parking lot area, but we did!
๋์์ฌ Daewonsa Temple happens to be located where we parked. I stopped by on the way to the car. All three children walked to the car and waited for me. I am trying to get kids immersed in culture, but they are fighting me on it.
This is the site of the original temple first built in 548. Of course it was burned to the ground by Japanese invaders a couple times and consequently rebuilt a couple times.
Daewonsa Temple is a bhikkuni center. A bhikkuni is a fully ordained Buddhist nun, so only women live here.
The trees that surround the temple and the river are called ๊ธ๊ฐ geumgang trees. They are sometimes called diamond trees due to the hardness of the wood. At one time in history their pine was used to make coffins for royalty. These trees are said to 'offer a gift of health to visitors' with their straight branches and red trunks.
A humid, yet calm and refreshing summer day.
[Aug 3]
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