Korean Job Discussion Forums

[samd]

What's the best way to get there from Seoul?

A friend and I plan to do a long hike starting from either Hwaeomsa or Daewonsa.

Any tips would be much appreciated, cheers.

[Rae]

There's a direct express bus from Seoul to Gurye that takes 3.5 hours. Take the Nambu Bus Terminal straight into Gurye. You can then take a bus or taxi to Hwaeomsa. The ride from the bus terminal to Hwaeomsa should take less than 10 minutes (5,000 taxi ride, 1,000 bus ride).

Alternatively, there's also a train station but it takes a little longer.

[Rae]

Last time I was there, I took a pic of the schedule:

http://img165.imageshack.us/img165/1951/img6500va6.jpg

Cheers

[I-am-me]

Are you sure only 3.5 hours by bus? Seems like it took me about that long to come back by train. Jirisan is a nice place to visit. Pretty quiet last year. I think most people went to the coast.

[samd]

Thanks for the helpful info!

[Rae]

[5600]

I ve made it to Jiri in about 2hr 45 min. I forget where we started but that was from a bus from Nambu. It droped us off in the middle of nowhere and had to take a 20,000 won cab ride to the park entrance. The ride back was a bee-line straight to Gangbeyon terminal. Bout 3 hrs. I'm going again Monday but I'm going to head over towards the Gyure/ Namwon side.

[samd]

Thanks for the info everybody. We went yesterday but cut it down to a day-trip due to bad weather.

The bus from Nambu took about 3 hours and 50 minutes including the stopover, and the taxi ride to Hwaeomsa cost 10,000 won.

On the way back we got in a cab from near the campground at about 5:30 and the driver told us that the last bus had left at 5:15. I didn't believe him 100%, but let him take us to the train station where we got a train for 32,000won which left at 7:20 and arrived at Yongsan at 11:40. Not sure why it took so long, but there was a dining car and they sold beer. We could have taken a 6:20 train which was older and therefore only 21,000won, but we were starving and got some food by the station instead.

[5600]

When did u go there? I took the 3:30 bus to Gurye Monday afternoon and got there around 7:15 or so. I took the 1:15 bus back to Seoul Tuesday afternoon. What course/ route did you take? I stayed on the mountain all night, that was my first time on the W/SW side of the park.

[samd]

We got the 9:30 bus from Nambu and arrived in Gurye at around 1pm, had some food, bought some supplies and got a cab to Hwaeomsa.

We made it about 3.5 kilometres or so up towards Nogodan and since it looked like rain we turned back at about 4:30ish to make it back before dark.

The downpour started just as we made it back to Hwaeomsa, and I'm glad we decided not to stay on the mountain. We also didn't have shelter reservations.

Which shelter did you stay at? Was it packed? Did you make reservations? Was there food for sale?