Geumgang Park

This guide to Geumgang Park in Busan opens by asking whether you'd trust a cable car that has hauled passengers up this mountain since nineteen sixty-six. It traces the hillside's earlier life as a Japanese merchant's private garden, fenced off before Korea's liberation, and its renaming after Geumgangsan, the country's most celebrated mountain, once the city reclaimed and opened it. You'll hear about the rope line that opened in September nineteen sixty-six, turning a sweaty hour-long climb into a glide over the treetops for grandmothers and toddlers alike. At the top, the cabin door opens almost directly onto a trail leading toward the old fortress walls ringing the peak.