75-Degree Roofs and Hillside Alleys: Layers of Time from Sinheung-dong to Wolmyeongsan Mountain

Step inside the walls at 17 Guyeong 1-gil, and an L-shaped 2-story wooden house appears beyond carefully trimmed garden trees and a stone lantern. Under Japanese rule, wealthy residents who ran fabric shops and small farms lived together in Sinheung-dong. Even there, the mansion of the Japanese landowner Hirotsu was by far the largest: the Japanese-style House in Sinheung-dong, Gunsan.

Inside the building are floor-heated rooms, tatami rooms and two Japanese-style gardens, showing the upper-class housing of the time as it was. The house is also widely known as a filming location for the films The General's Son and Tazza: The High Rollers. Entry to the interior is now restricted, and it opens mainly its outer garden and exterior. That suits a slow look at the grain of the wooden eaves along the quiet garden path.

Climb a little from the flat alleys of Sinheung-dong toward the slopes of Wolmyeongsan Mountain, and the density of the scene changes at once. This is Mallaengi Village, named after 'mallaengi', a Jeolla-do dialect word for a hillside or the lower part of a peak.

Under Japanese rule, Korean workers pushed out by the Japanese residential areas on the flat land, such as the Hirotsu House, settled on the hillside. After the Korean War, refugees gathered here, and winding alleys and narrow stairs took shape. Today Mallaengi Village keeps the outer form of its old houses and lives on as a quiet village art museum, with a bookshop, studios for resident artists and a memories exhibition hall.

Leave the alleys of Mallaengi Village and turn onto Dongguksa Temple Road, and a straight roofline, quite unlike the curved eaves of traditional Korean temples, appears before you. This is Dongguksa Temple, founded in 1909 by the monk Uchida of the Japanese Soto Zen school and built on its current site in 1913.

The Daeungjeon Hall of Dongguksa Temple, Gunsan, designated a National Registered Heritage, has a roof pitched as steeply as 75 degrees. It faithfully follows Edo-period building techniques, with long windows set at regular intervals on the outer walls. Even the timber and roof tiles of this temple were brought from Japan. Its grounds hold a girl statue and a Statement of Repentance. Behind the main hall, a giant bamboo grove wraps around like a folding screen and rustles in the wind, creating a deep silence.

The high point of the greenery around Sinheung-dong and Dongguksa Temple is Wolmyeong Park. The park spans Haemang-dong, Sinheung-dong and Seonyang-dong. Cherry blossoms and camellias bloom in spring, and a walking trail of about 3 km runs gently along the ridge.

Climb to Susi Tower and the observatory on the ridge. The tiled roofs of Sinheung-dong you just walked through and the woods of Dongguksa Temple spread out at a glance, along with the Geumgang River estuary and the West Sea far off. Pass through Haemanggul Tunnel and climb the park trails, or leave your car in the Dongguksa Temple parking lot and combine the alleys with the mountain paths, and you have a solid half-day walking course.