Moseying through Korea--in the rainy season

Well I've been on vacation since Thursday, which means that I took to the bus-filled streets and went to some really weird, remote places.

On Thursday, as I said last time, I embarked on the Scanner Adventure. On Friday, I took off for Jeonju, where I met up with Stephanie, wandered the streets of the hanok village, and got lots of mosquito bites. The city of Jeonju, despite its traditional buildings, heavy slate roofs, and whitewashed walls, has the distinct feeling of Northern Minnesota--or Wisconsin, or the UP. It's chalk full of artsy shops that are fun to wander through, but remind you that you are no where near rich. Jeonju is home to the Joseon Dynasty, and Hanji, an ancient art of making paper. Tons of paper related delicacies are on sale there, and they're really cool, but doubly expensive. Last time I was there, I bought a pair of paper-made earrings--which I promptly lost in the shuffle between work and Taekwondo.

On Saturday, Stephanie and I took a bus from Jeonju to Tapsa--definitely the most exciting and exhilerating temples I have seen in Korea. The temple is wedged into the middle of a cleft in the rock. It is all volcanic rock, too, the kind that we refered to as "Pudding Stone" when we encountered it beside Lake Superior. Pudding Stone is made up of lava rock and older, stronger rocks that are caught up in the downpour. In this case, some kind of madness created an gash in the rock, and this is where some monks decided to build their temple. Surrounding the temple are hundreds of little stone towers--some of them constructed and some of them balanced, precariously, on any flat surface available.

Little towers of rock are made while making prayers. The devotee makes a prayer and puts a rock on the tower. I made a prayer and then proceded to wander around the temple, photographing everything I could, and enjoying the glorious scenery. In front of one of the Buddhas, someone left a bag of Butterscotch candy, and little drips from the vines above--daredevil plants that clung to the side of the cavern--plopped on the thing and ran down its sides.

On Sunday, Stephanie and I took off from Seoul and went to Incheon, where I wandered the only Chinatown in Korea, and took a dirty old ferry to a dirty old island that belonged in the Carribean. (By the name of Jakyakdo 작약도.) I really enjoyed it, despite the fact that it was a meager speck of land that had seen better days. That was why I loved it so much. Despite the fact that Incheon is the host of the enormous international airport--the only airport that most people in Korea will ever see--there was no airplane noise, no hint of city on this tiny little jungle. Industrial equiptment, construction cranes, and the hustle and bustle of daily life in Korea could be seen from the shores of this island, but they were far away, lost in the fray of the ocean, which had made sure that this little rock had been completely forgotten by everything.

The night was topped off by the Heritage Ministry Gospel Choir Concert, which once a month has the impervious ability to make me both sob and love my life (and any man with a bit of charisma and a singing voice.) The next morning, I went into Seoul very early and borded a bus for Sokcho, where I am now. It's been another intreguing adventure, which I will write up after its completed.

Gyeongju

Trip was mostly a bust because it rained the whole time, but Kristen and I did have some excellent rain adventures on Saturday. Friday was gorgeous, but we spent most of the time in transit--until we rented our bicycles and took off into the setting sun and rice patties galore.

Sunday was cold and wet and things just working out for us, but one thing I really wanted to write down was that I saw an old couple spreading ashes into the sea. We went to the underwater tomb of King Munmu, which wasn't impressive or spectacular, really, but the ocean was amazing to see. I love the ocean. It was furious. The waves were huge and crashing and rolling and I just love that sound. Wherever I settle in life, there needs to be an ocean--or a lake (hehe, Superior.) An old woman simply dumped a jar of yellow colored ash into the ocean, and then her and her husband took a deep bow. It was serene. Quiet. I was drenched and getting more drenched, but for a moment I forgot about that and watched this couple, all alone, send off their loved one.

Magoksa Temple Stay Festival

Well my exciting Magoksa Temple Stay Festival turned out to be somewhat iffy. It seemed as though things were really poorly planned, especially since my tour group showed up with 2 buses instead of the 1 that they apparently said they were bringing. They were also an hour and a half late, so I sat around with this guy outside the traditional Buddhist Center just chatting for a while. He had decent English, which was nice.

After my group finally arrived, we registered in an enormously complicated (yet it shouldn't have been) process, and then went to eat lunch, which was delicious. Then we headed off to the temple, where the monks were doing a drumming competition. That was pretty fantastic. The monks were dressed in gorgeous clothes and just flew these sticks across this enormous drum, making beautiful, flowing--deep--sounds like the ocean. I loved it.

This guy won the competition and was asked to do an encore. He was great--got me moving, though nobody else was dancing. There were a few ladies next to me that had cute little "go go!" signs for their temple. They didn't win, but their spirit was adorable.

After the competition, there was a demonstration of how to make a relief pressing of some of the beautiful bronze work done on the bell. (You can see it in the back on the right of the photo.) There were news cameras everywhere--documenting the interested foreigners and templestay activities--and then they got just about everybody to help make this relief. He used water and a brush to slap wet paper over the carving, and when it was finished, it should stand up alone.

I helped! Anyway it was pretty neat but I got bored after a little while, and wandered over to the other festivities, like making pancakes and other things. As a group, we went on a hike up to the crest of a mountain to see a place where people were buried--apparently because if you buried your parents there, your children would become kings and queens. I had a fascinating talk with a student from Mexico, getting all into the topics of religion and that. Felt great to dust the cobwebs off of that part of my brain.

Then we had some weird things happen... after dinner we had a show, which I was expecting to be monk martial arts and all that, but as it turned out it was only one performance of monk martial arts, and a lot of other performances. There was an amazing taekwondo demonstration crew, and a group who played seriously loud and raucous traditional music. Then it turned into this weird talent show.... and it was really boring, and frustrating, because the announcer wouldn't let the interpreter speak. Fail.

Anyway the next day was full of nice stuff... we had a meditation practice and a talk with an English speaking monk, who actually lives close to me. He was from either the USA or Canada... not sure. Then there was a Lithuanian monk who was also really cool. It's nice to see foreigners integrated into the society here.

After lunch, the Seoul group took off, and I just wandered around the temple complex for a while. I was having a real... frustrated with Korea day. I didn't blog about this for a long time because I was really excited for it, and it got really... frustrating.  That was just a real bummer.

People told me that Month Seven is really difficult because you just get tired of all the crap that you brushed off for the previous six months. And I totally agree. They say it was the hardest... I don't really agree with that, because I thought Month Three was much harder, but I am definitely just TIRED of this crap.

But I had a really excellent lunch with some people I know are going to be good friends, so I am looking forward to continuing those relationships. And I'm still drawing my story... one little piece at a time.

Sunday: Jeonju, Traditional Buildings, Music, and Food

Jeonju (전주) is a small city just south of me, about an hour's bus ride from the Yuseong terminal. On Sunday, I went down to explore the traditional building district, or Hanok district, of this small, delightful city.

I spent a lot of time walking. It was comforting to wander around, and this city had some definite charm to it. The buildings are almost all squat hovels, and even outside the official 'traditional' district, the city has a lot of charm and comforting, homey feel. The day was sunny--in fact, I was unprepared for the sun--I got a sunburn on my face, which is now peeling in a terribly ugly way. It's been so rainy here that I almost forgot what the sun could do.

The goal of my trip was mostly just to take pictures. I was wandering around the narrow roads, photographing the whitewashed houses with their heavy, decorated roofs. I got a few good pictures and a lot of really mediocre ones. What the real joy of the trip was what I accidentally walked into--a Korean traditional music festival. I heard some amazing drumming, saw some dancing, and all around enjoyed some authentically Korean music that wasn't the dreaded K-Pop. I also watched a line of plastic-chair sitting grandpas, and had a good laugh over how sincere they all seemed.

Jeonju is also famous for Jeonju Bibimbab, which is apparently better than all other bibimbab everywhere in Korea. I had some--it was pretty good, but it was also double the price of regular bibimbab. Though I do have to say, it was quite delicious, which extra pieces of beef and some seriously serious side dishes.

Anyway it was a good trip, and I'd recommend visiting the city. My picture application isn't working today so next time I'll send pics.

It's been a slow week.

I haven't been doing much here. I've been trying to save money. Mostly because I got the idea that I could go to India for a month after finishing my contract. On top of all my other plans. That means that I really need to start putting away money. But I think I can do it. I'm writing down all the money I spend, and I'm being more careful.

On Saturday I went to the Daejeon Art Museum again with some ladies that my recruiter introduced me to. It was good fun, and we saw some interesting stuff and some not so interesting stuff, and then had a good chat in a random Buy-the-Way with tables and pizza.

On Sunday I visited Suwon with Stephanie. It was a good time, except for the part where my CAMERA DIED because I'm not intelligent enough to charge it before a trip, haha. It was a low key trip. We met in Suwon and walked along the ancient fortress there.

Suwon is a really interesting place. It's close to Seoul, and it is basically part of the sprawl that Seoul has become. There isn't really a break in the "city". You can take Seoul city buses in Suwon, and use your Seoul bus card. But there is something different about Suwon, and that's the fortress. It surrounds the inner city--a cluster of small buildings and homes that are fully functional. Pavilions and an earth wall keep the inner city separate from the high rises and the development on the outside of the wall. It used to be a fortress against invaders, but now it seems like a fortress against modernity. From the top pavilions, you can see the inner city and the outer city--pillars of concrete perfectly placed, rising up from the ground.

Oddly, I was reminded of the Japanese gravesites that I saw when visiting in 2005. Japanese gravestones are stone pillars, and they are collected like little forests of perfect stone, since they are always attempting to save space. They are all the same shape and same color, but they are placed not exactly in rows--just in the place where they will conserve the most space. Looking out from the Suwon fortress, that was the only thing I could think of to compare all these buildings too. An endless sky of those little clusters of pillars.

The fortress had some good construction and a wonderful walk. It was good to visit Stephanie and see what there was to see. I really enjoyed Suwon because of it's duality--the inside and the outside of the fortress--then again, I really like just about everywhere when the sun is out.

Tomorrow I'm planning a day trip to Jeonju, and today I'm staying in to write an article for the newsletter than my recruiter's company is starting. I'm excited to be writing for it, and I'll pass it all on to you once it's published.

Oh, and one last note--on Tuesday I went to drop off my sad one-ear-only ipod at the repair person. He said he could fix it, if the sensor was still live, for free. When I went to get it on Friday, it was clean, wrapped in a little plastic protector, and it looked like a brand new ipod. In fact, he also reformatted it--so it could have been a new ipod and I would have no idea. And you know what? It was completely free. These are the things I LOVE about Korea.

This Weekend: Chungju, Danyang, and Gosu Cave

[In this episode, we wander aimlessly until an ajumma hand-feeds us, get on a boat, and spelunk.]

This weekend, Kristen, Tom, and Lee, and I headed out to Chungju, a town (or tiny city), northeast of Daejeon. Chungju is the proud owner of the Chungju Dam, a hydro electric extravaganza that has created one of the most beautiful lakes in the country. There are regular ferries on this lake, too, so it's an excellent opportunity to see the Korean countryside at its (mostly) unspoiled best. The lake stretches through to Danyang, a tiny little town that is best known for the surrounding caves.

Now caving is not my usual bag, so I was pretty excited when this opportunity popped up. (We went through Adventure Korea--I wanted to introduce the 'new kids' to the wonders of weekend-tour programs, and also it seemed like the easier thing to do.) I vaguely remember tromping around in Tennessee's Cumberland Caves when I was a wee one, and I remember enjoying it immensely, but I also remember it not being nearly as cool as this.

In order to be ready for the bus in Chungju at 9:10, we decided to head into the city on Saturday night and stay in a cheap room. We didn't get out of Daejeon until about 4:00, so we didn't really have anything to do in Chungju except wander and eat. We made our way through the market, which is always intriguing. As always, I took market pictures... (I think my fascination with market pictures comes from a deep guilt of never taking market pictures in Ghana.)

Here are some various kimchi dishes for sale--I don't think it's regular kimchi because I believe that there are fish inside it.

And here are some pajamas and various Ajumma clothes for sale. I was pretty happy with the way that these pictures turned out. They are quite delightful. Anyway, after leaving the market, we wandered through a more hip district, where it seemed like all the young people were, and then we stopped in a random SamGyeopSal restaurant--which turned out to be the best decision of the trip.

SamGyeopSal is meat that you cook on your own little barbecue plate, and they bring it to you raw. Or--in this case, you retrieve the meat that you want from a buffet in the center of the restaurant, and you pay a flat price. (This one was less than eight dollars.) Here is Kristen stirring up our first batch of meat.

 However, it soon became clear that the owner of our restaurant, a wonderful enthusiastic middle aged woman [or, ajumma] , didn't see many foreigners. She decided to come talk to us, to which I sort of responded--but she had NO English, and I had only very limited Korean. (As in, I answer yes or no to what I THINK the question is.) But she was so happy to see us that she just wanted to help us understand how to eat SamGyeopSal. The whole time she insisted that the men at our table needed more garlic--to become strong men. "Maneul, MANEUUUL!" As with  all Korean dishes, there is a proper way to consume SamGyeopSal. The meat should be eaten with a tasty red sauce, with a piece of garlic and wrapped in a lettuce leaf. The wrap should be eaten in one bite, so as to avoid lettuce-wrap explosion. Anyway, Lee didn't really get it, so she did it for him--and then PUT IT IN HIS MOUTH. We were laughing hysterically as we watched him just sit there with lettuce poking out of his mouth, a look of utter horror on his face.

From there the night descended into uncontrollable laughter (it actually bordered a little on hysteria), too much food, and one seriously amazing good time. She even took a picture with us.

(from Left to Right, we have the woman, Lee, Kristen, me, and Tom.) She insisted that she was fifty five but I didn't believe her. By the end of the night, we were calling her Ommah, or mom in Korean, and she gave us delicious glass-bottle pepsi, apples, and literally fed us until we were insane. Kristen and I were laughing so hard we were crying, and it was really over absolutely nothing. We decided we'd have to get out of there before someone offered us alcohol, because we were already so far gone that that was the LAST thing we needed.

After leaving the restaurant, we walked all the way across town, back through the market, along the river, and towards the bus station so we could find a place to stay near our departure point. We ended up staying in the Love Motel district, at a neon-lit, blinking cluster of buildings that cater to Korean couples. These buildings attract patrons through sheer gaudiness, and decorate the buildings with neon lights that make them look more like a cake than a hotel. Ours was named Titanic. Quite excited about the potential sinking that we were going to do, we booked two rooms at the unbelievable price of 35,000 a night. For this 35,000, we got a working computer, a huge tv, an amazingly clean room, a bathtub with JETS, and all of this fancy madness....

Anyway these types of hotels, if you don't already know, are designed so that couples who either a. both live at home, or b. have spouses, can spend some time away from it all for cheap. These are extremely discrete places. The hallways are dark. Cars license plates are covered with blue wooden planks, in case anyone is looking for them. Keys are left in a corner in the elevator, not with the desk woman when the deed has been finished. But for travelers, these things are the best thing in the world--because they really are paradise for half the price.

Our night was uneventful. We watched a plethora of English tv, like Scrubs, and then we crashed out early. We woke early and headed back to the bus terminal, met our Adventure Korea bus, and then headed to the Chungju Dam, where I aggressively played a broken "Wack a Mole" until our ferry was ready to depart.

On the lake it was frigid, because we were traveling so fast, but it was beautiful. The water was very low, and so layers of rock were exposed, with the most intriguing coloration from years of water rising and falling.

The mountains in this part of the country are jagged, with exposed rock. They look fuzzy in the winter, because there are no leaves on the trees. The cloudy day made things seem awfully sinister, and the freezing wind on the deck added to the feeling. It was invigorating.

As we got closer to our destination, the water became greener and greener, and there was more and more rock standing there, strong, still, and perfectly straight. Like I said in my last post, there is something inherently 'Asian' in my head when I see those kinds of rock formations. It just doesn't seem to happen elsewhere, not like this.

Our final destination was a ferry terminus some ways away from Danyang, situated inside this gorgeous valley. It is a part of Korea's "Eight Famous Sceneries", or things in this area that Koreans have uniformly decided are beautiful. That includes stone pillars, climbing mountains, and an all around glorious display of rock, mountain, and water.

From the ferry terminus we left these mountains and moved onto new ones--this time mountains that we could go inside. We visited Gosu Cave, or Gosudonggul. I was really unprepared for how beautiful it was inside--I had no idea how much the earth could do in its spare time.

The cave had been developed with rather precarious looking metal stairs, but they didn't move or teeter, so I was happy. There was a course which we should take--as there always is in a Korean tourist destination--but it was not a disappointing one. Stalactites and stalagmites were everywhere, forming in groups, forming in patterns, forming in enormous organ-pipe shapes that took my breath away.

The cave walls were one thing, but the ceilings were the most impressive. Looking up, row after row after row of dripping stone could be seen, stretching up into black forever. It amazes me how long this took, and how long it went on doing this without any eyes to watch it. There are so many things under the surface of the earth that we don't know about... so many beautiful things that we won't see until we look under the barriers.

I was also extremely pleased with how my camera behaved. I switched it over into Manual and actually felt like I had some grip on the controls for the first time since I've had it... and I didn't use flash for ANY of these pictures. Props to my awesome Canon. Switching cameras before coming here was a 100% good decision. Now if only I could get up the courage to do more people shots....

Anyway, more about the cave... inside the cave there were certain points where men with digital cameras and huge flash umbrellas waited to take pictures of couples and travelers tromping the cave course. They stood in front of some of the more famous stalactite formations, and it was kind of intreguing--these older men (adjoushis--the male version of ajummas), just sitting in these boxes with cameras, attached to the metal framework of our course. It must be an odd underground job. Despite the fact that they were doing tourist things, their little booths looked industrial to me, and I got a rather cyberpunky feeling from the whole thing.

The course was wild--curving through the cave, spiral staircases, wet with water that dripped from the top of the cave--at one point my friends were twenty feet above me. Tom said he thought that the cave was overly 'sensitized' and 'touristy', but I rather liked the course and the lights that lit up the different formations. It helped me get pictures, and it helped me appreciate everything.

Anyway Gosu Cave is a must see. It's not really a day trip from Daejeon, as it took us 2 buses and about 3-4 hours to get home, but if you made a weekend out of it, you could hit up some of the other caves in the area as well. (Gosu is extremely popular for tourists, and so in the summer months may be more crowded. There are others.) Also in that area, which I plan on seeing soon, is the famous Guinsa Temple.

Mokpo! (And Daejeon loses something feirce to FC Seoul.)

Last weekend was Korea's independence day (March 1, 1945--from the Japanese), and it's a national holiday--which means that I had a very exciting day off.

To pass the time, I went to a soccer game with Tom, Kristen, and Kristen's friend from Suwon. Daejeon was playing FC Seoul, and we lost terribly--a whopping 5/2. But the first goal of the game was scored by a Weiguk, so I was a little bit excited about that.

Soccer fans are pretty nutty, which is good for some quality entertainment. I think maybe the reason Daejeon lost is because our side didn't look like THIS. (This is FC Seoul.) They were dancing and throwing these banners around the entire game. And there were Weiguks in their traveling crowd! Whaaat? Our team's supporters looked a little dismal. Sad.

The next day, I headed out to Mokpo, feeling a little frazzled by the idea of traveling alone. So far I haven't actually done it--I went to Seoul alone a couple times, but Mokpo is DEFINITELY not Seoul. It's a whole different world, and for that I was quite grateful--when I finally arrived.

When I got to the Daejeon Station, I was promptly told that I was at the wrong place, as the Daejeon Station does not sit on the Mokpo line, and thus I needed to go to the SeoDaejeon Station. (Which prior to this day I did not even know existed--but a quick check in the guidebook could have fixed that.) On the way to SeoDaejeon station, my cabbie almost got in an accident, but I wasn't paying attention (because I was NOW reading the aforementioned guidebook.)

I arrived at around 1:30, which was quite late for a day trip, so I had already decided that I was staying the night, regardless of whether or not there would be anything to do in Mokpo, which was described as having "coastal grimy charm". (Just my kind of city.) However upon arrival at the station, I misinterpreted the posted times and thought that the 'arrival' time for the train was actually the 'departure' time from Daejeon, so I thought that the next train to Mokpo ran at 4:30. So instead of waiting around for three hours, I bought a ticket to Gwangju, which seemed interesting.

And then I sat down to wait for the train, and I was flipping through the guidebook, and realized that there was nothing to see in Gwangju, and at that time I also realized that I had read the sign wrong, and so I waited in line AGAIN behind this adorable baby so that I could switch out the tickets. The whole time I kept thinking "everybody is watching me be an idiot right now."

But I exchanged my ticket and ended up getting on the MOKPO train as planned (at 2:10, not 4:30, which was actually sooner than the Gwangju train. Haha.)

The train ride was fantastic. Once we passed a certain point, the Korean countryside just changed. It became something else. Square rice fields lay flat and then mountains just exploded out of the earth for miles and miles--they piled up on each other forever. And the farther south we went, the farther away from Seoul we got, and I felt like I was farther away from whatever it is that makes this place look all the same.

Once in Mokpo, I was also in love with the difference that seemed to be prevalent in the city. Mokpo was at one time the seat of the main opposition party in Korea. Development funding was deliberately cut to stifle the political activity here--but the result was that Mokpo looks distinct from other Korean cities. It has 'grimy coastal charm' and a kind of liveliness that other cities didn't have. I smiled at people, and they smiled back.

Actually, within five minutes of my arriving at the Mokpo train station, I was invited to drink with the best native-Korean English speaker I have ever met. And although I didn't take him up on the offer, I was pretty excited, and I felt welcomed.

Other than being an intriguing place, Mokpo is on the ocean, and it is on the mainland overlooking a spectacular cluster of islands. I was planning on taking a cruise around some of them, but the rain on Monday prevented me. How sad. However, Sunday evening was sunny and I headed straight from the train station to Yudalsan, a park in the middle of the city, from which there are spectacular views.

(Note the lack of identical high rise apartments in this photograph.) Yudal park was spectacular, and I climbed higher and higher, even as the sun was getting lower and lower. (Though I took note of the street lamps, placed even on the most precarious of stone steps.)

Pavilions like these stood at the various ledge points so that the ajummas and ajoshis could rest. Or drink--whichever was more logical, but these men decided to drink not on a pavilion, but on a big rock that was sticking out of the mountain.

(Also possibly someone's grave.) Anyway as I climbed higher up the mountain, the path began to snake up around the large rocks that sat at the top of the mountain--a kind of rock formation that seems to me to be quite Asian--bare, white slabs with almost no features. Like enormous boulders that just happened to fall from the sky.

I sneakily took a picture of two young gentlemen sitting on one such outcropping, but this is not the one at the top of the mountain. As I moved farther up the mountain, the stairs became more precarious, and the path more like a real trail, and below me I kept seeing more and more of Mokpo--and farther out into the ocean. It was simply a photography paradise, so I took all the pictures I could.

As you see, just because Mokpo was once undercut for development funding, it is not so now. A number of large projects are under works, like this strange diamond shaped land bridge. Who knows what it is designed for. One of the 'nicer' sides of town is built on 'reclaimed' land (who decided "building" land where there was ocean before should be termed "reclaiming"--that makes it sound like it was ours to begin with!). It is an odd metaphor for how I see most of Korea these days. The 'nice' things, the new Korean 'good life' is built on a fake foundation. A man made, tangible--earthy, real, yet fake foundation. The grimy, swarthy, saline world is the undesirable world, but it is the world that is built on real soil.

Anyway I reached the very peak of the mountain, a perch on top of some enormous bald boulders, and sat with about twenty Koreans who were just minding their own business. The sun ducked behind a cloud and refused to give a good sunset, but I was content with being at the top of the world for a little while.

On my way down I captured this spectacular shot of the city lights starting to come on. I am not sure who the statue is of, but I am assuming that it is Admiral Yi, man of the naval hour, who saved the Koreans from the Japanese with Turtle Ships.

Heading back around the city, I got something to eat, and then I sat in a coffee shop and drew for a couple of hours--something that felt good to do, even if I could do it at home. It felt nice to do it somewhere else. Then I searched for a super cheap motel and found one. I paid 15,000 for a room--with it's own bathroom facilities, which is something like 12/13$. However, when you pay that little for a room, you should expect facilities of about the same quality.  Please, examine the photographs....

The room seemed alright--not too dirty, not too clean, with a working television (and CNN in English!) and a heated bed (since the ondol didn't appear to function.) However it was the bathroom that really did a number on me. Something had melted the bathtub. Like actually corroded the plastic enough to melt it. The shower barely worked and I was actually afraid to flush the toilet because of plumbing reparations. But it wasn't a problem at all. Everything worked out. Until I woke up in the middle of the night to a sound that sounded quite like someone attempting to force my door.

Now this is probably one of the reasons that I know I have been in Korea for WAY TOO LONG. Instead of assuming that someone was breaking into my room in order to steal things from me, I was convinced that the landlady had seen that I had left my bathroom light on, and was attempting to break into my (indoor locking only) room so that she could turn off the light and thus not waste her precious electric bill.

After a few moments of horrible fear passed, I realized that in fact no one was attempting to break into my room, and that the sound was coming from the opposite end of the room, and above me, so the only logical conclusion was that someone was having a VERY good time in the room above mine.

I woke up the next morning, departed the yeogwon (guesthouse, not even a motel) and went on my way--only to find that there wasn't much to do, because it was raining. So I explored, took pictures, ate some delicious bibimbap, and then went on my way. It was a wonderfully relaxing trip, and I got some great photographs and some great stories, and even better, I spent some quality time with my pens and markers.

Sunday's Excursion: Magoksa Temple near Gongju

[In which we ride the oldest bus in Korea on the twistiest roads in Korea, and are forced to eat temple food by an enthusiastic monk.] 

Lately Gongju has simply been the best place to start for intriguing day trips. People in search of some interesting destinations around Daejeon would do well to start there. On Sunday, we decided to enjoy the warmer weather and take the day to do something cultural. Kristen has a new coworker at her school, so we were treating him to the 'life in Daejeon' skit, but since we hadn't done anything other than eating and partying, we figured it was time to do something 'cultural'. (Though eating and drinking is basically a cultural experience here.)

We set out around noon to Gongju, and got our bus at the Yuseong bus station. The Yuseong station is a crowd of bus madness, pulling in and out through the traffic of a regular street. I don't know how these drivers manage to do this without killing anyone--or hitting the other buses--but somehow it all works out. People wait in the corner of the small lot patiently, and then when the bus arrives (destination written only in Korean), you make sure that you make eye contact with the driver so that he knows that you are actually getting on the bus.

The bus ride to Gongju is also quite beautiful, since you are passing around Gyeryongsan National Park. While in Gongju we walked across the city (not knowing we could pick up the Magoksa bus at the big terminal!) and took some silly tourist pictures.

The local bus station in Gongju is right by the market. Now when Stephanie and I went to Gongju in September, it was a big holiday, and so the market was closed as closed could be. However, on Sunday, it was a big old markety mess, and I was instantly in love. The buses pulled into little "ports" when they were about to leave, which meant that there was a covered platform where the destinations were listed. On the market side of the platform, some old people were playing "Yoot", a game that we played at the Traditional New Year's Party last week. At first I didn't know what they were doing, because they were doing it with such enthusiasm--and at first, in my direction--that I thought they were attempting to exorcise me or something. This ancient woman in a pink felt zip up tossed those sticks like a fortune teller, speaking in the harsh Korean dialect that the older people tend to use. (Which to me sounds SO much better than the whining tone that the younger city kids seem to have.)

Sneaky as I am, I took a video.

Anyway, we meandered around the market, looking at the fish, meat, various feet products, and, of course, RED PEPPERS!

These bags come up to my waste. Looks like Kimchi dipping season is soon.... One of my students mentioned it to me, so I think it is coming up. These are the peppers that go into literally every Korean dish imaginable. In the fall they were all laying out to dry, now here they are in huge bags.

 Anyway we explored the market, saw our fare share of weird animal products, boots, buckets, and oddities, and then we hopped on the bus to Magoksa.

Sadly I don't have any pictures of this bus, but it was probably the oldest Korean bus I have ever been on. It was mostly open, with a few seats. We sat in the back, on the raised part above the engine, and we slowly jerked through Gongju, then we were released into the surrounding countryside. We were at first in a city, and then we went through a tunnel, and arrived in what seemed to be a completely different country. The countryside was empty except for farms, occasionally grave yards, and these little cement houses. The road became narrower and we jostled and flew down the road and increasingly more precarious speeds, and I was feeling delighted. The only people on the bus were these ancient ajummas, who all seemed to know each other. Just like in America, life in the country in Korea must be a completely different world.

We arrived at the temple feeling ready for an excellent time, and then we began our walk. Magoksa was established during the Baekje kingdom, but was also a principle temple during the Silla period. And then, during Joseon (when the Japanese invasion of the 1590s occurred) the temple was a place of refuge. So, in short--most of Magoksa is now entirely intact--which cannot be said about most other temples in Korea. Unlike all the things in Buyeo that Stephanie and I visited two weekends ago, the Magoksa buildings haven't been moved, rebuilt or even repainted in quite some time.

Yet there are new buildings among them, and we had a very pleasant time strolling through the complex. We heard chanting coming from a service inside one of the main halls. I paused to listen for some time. A few monks spoke to us--enthusiastically explaining things in Korean which I didn't understand.

When we were about to leave, I heard the bell being rung, so I skirted close so I could see it. This tiny little man with a sort of bucket hat on was ringing the bell (I assume for dinner), and then when he saw me standing there, he began to talk to me. I mostly had no idea what he was talking about, but when I inquired about their temple stay program, he lit up and dragged us back to their office. (We were a little bit worried about the last bus at this point, but we couldn't be rude.)

Then after a long discussion, and many, many brochures, he said "I am very hungry!" Oh, well we need to leave, so I figured now was a good time to escape... because I had definitely convinced him that I understood MUCH more Korean than I actually do. Now was the proper escape time. But no, no, "I am very hungry and you are very hungry!" He wouldn't take no for an answer. We kept saying "bus, bus!" but he kept saying "time many time!" So we really had no choice. Lee, the new guy, seemed a little concerned, but I was happy to finally feel like I was traveling, and I just put my hands up in the air and said, "It'll work out."

So we went downstairs to the monk's quarters--a new building--and feasted on some delicious vegetarian bibimbap style food. It was delicious! And the monk came up to Lee and made a huge round sign with his hands, and then put it to his stomach. Then he grinned with this absolutely uncontrollable joy and bounced off to speak to more people. Then the temple secretary gave us this weird piggy bank thing and we set off.

It was a really odd experience, but one that I absolutely loved!

New Year's Weekend Entry 3: Buyeo, Once-Capital of the Baekje Kingdom

Daejeon is conveniently located in what used to be the Baekje Kingdom. During the Three Kingdom's period of Korea--before Korea was a unified country--from roughly 55BC to 668AD. Baekje, Goguryeo and Silla fought and shifted borders, and at one time throughout the 700 year period, each one controlled a large portion of Korea. At that time, Daejeon was basically nothing but it was located in the Baekje territory. [Actually the Chinese characters for Daejeon mean 'big rice field', which is a testament to how rapidly this place has become urbanized.]

Baekje was said to have been founded by the sons of one of the Goguryeo kings, who fought in a succession dispute, and then established Baekje instead. (Supposedly near present day Seoul, much farther north than what became the stronghold capitals later.) After Goguryeo pushed the Baekje kingdom south, they established the capital at Gongju, where Stephanie and I visited on Chuseok.

However, the capital was pushed farther south in 538AD to Buyeo (then called Sabi), where Stephanie and I visited on Monday. The capital of Baekje was here from 538AD to 660AD, when Baekje was destroyed by Silla.

Buyeo has a lot of interesting things to see, but most of it was reconstructed after a series of Japanese invasions, and of course, the Korean war. Stephanie and I visited the Busosanseong Fortress and the Jeonglimsa Temple site. Most of the buildings in the fortress were either relocated or rebuilt in the 1960s or 70s. The reasons for the relocation are unclear, but what became apparent to Stephanie and I right away was that the ancient part of the fortress was not the buildings, but rather the mountain on which the fortress sat. Like the fortress at Gongju, it did not have surrounding walls, or a moat, or anything that would shout "Castle!" to you. In fact, it was just a mountain with a gate--and it provided some wonderful, invigorating walking. So you can imagine that if we were struggling to walk up the paths, the fortress did its duty in making it difficult to reach the main order of business. The mountain provided its own walls.

The walk around the forested area was pleasant, but what was really spectacular was this great view from one of the pagodas. Buyeo was a much more interesting city than some of the brand new urb-splosions that Korea has. This city has certainly got some character, and it was fun to look at it from the top of the hill. It was also horrifically muddy, and I landed myself flat in the yellow Korean slop.

At the very top of the fortress/steep hill, there is this pagoda. It was built in the 1920s to commemorate the some 3,000 women who flung themselves from the mountain when Baekje fell. They were escaping slavery (most likely sexual) by killing themselves, and so this rock is called "The Rock of the Falling Flowers", or Nakhwaam. Despite the fact that they were likely freeing themselves from horrible lives, the descriptive sign said that they were instead "saving their dutiful chastity."

Outside the fortress, Stephanie and I went to see the site of an ancient temple which had a few intreguing things of note--namely a five story stone pagoda, supposedly dating back from the Baekje period, and this ancient Buddha statue. The pagoda turned out to be kind of lame, but the statue was probably one of the more interesting things we saw over the weekend.

Unlike the other Buddha statues in temples, this statue was made of stone, and it was clearly ancient. Its body had been warped and melted by a thousand years of rain on soft rock, and it barely had any definition at all. It looked as if it could have melted back into a mountain if it wished. It was spectacular--quite eerie. The picture doesn't do it justice, but I do have one.

The head of the Buddha was reconstructed about a hundred or so years ago. Oddly enough this eerie, serene, yet barely human Buddha does not register as very important on the Korean tourism sites. Their main focus is the pagoda, which appears to be representative of the switch from wooden pagodas to stone ones. (Perhaps riveting for an architectural studies person, but to me it's kind of a blip on the radar.) This, on the other hand, seemed to have so much life in it--such a commanding, silencing presence. It invoked emotion.

So our lovely weekend ended with this surprising Buddha statue. We headed back to the Buyeo bus station, got bus tickets back to our respective cities, and then parted ways.

You may find the UNESCO World Heritage Registration information interesting. It describes Gongju and Buyeo, the Baekje Capitals, with meticulous historical accuracy.

New Year's Weekend Entry 2: Songnisan National Park

On Sunday, Stephanie and I headed out to Songnisan National Park.

Songnisan is a little ways north of Daejeon, and it is quite famous in the summer months. However, in the winter months, it is snowy and quaint. The little town outside the park entrance was sleepy, but full of orange tents that looked as though they would be trinket shops. Inside everyone was doing New Year's rituals. In fact, we wandered into a convenience store for chocolate, and the whole family was seated in front of a table in the back--set up exactly as our party table had been the night before. But the store owner graciously interrupted her discussion and came out into the store to sell us our Ghana bars. And I very poorly said "Happy New Year" in Korean. Haha.

Inside the park there is a famous temple called Beopjusa, 법주사, which, in the winter months, is the real reason why you would visit the park. Hiking is not exactly a possibility, since things are snowy and not exactly ideal. (Unless you're a serious hiker, which Stephanie and I are not.)

Beopjusa is famous for it's 33m bronze Buddha, which stands to the side of the complex, in front of a rising hill. It is quite impressive, and he has a serene--though quite massive--head. In theory, the temple was first established one thousand five hundred years ago, in 553, but since then the temple has changed a lot. However, the paint had aged on many of the buildings, and though it was less of a "pop", it also felt a little bit more realistic than some of the other temples that I've visited.

Around the Buddha there were a number of people praying. Stephanie and I walked in a circle around it, and then we entered the hall at the back of the complex. More people were praying inside, and a nun was preparing the New Year's offering. Since being in Korea, I don't feel as though I've had many authentic tourist experiences... (You know, where you feel like you're 'touring' something that isn't quite so constructed.) But being inside the hall at Beopjusa was definitely an authentic experience. I could feel the silence, and I could feel the solemnness and 'realness' of the people inside. The artwork was amazing, and I stood forever just staring at it. I don't have any photos of the inside, since I thought it would be kind of rude. There were three equally enormous seated Buddhas, all with different hand symbols. They represented the 'Threefold Body of the Buddha'. The center was the Dharma Buddha, that represented the Buddha's truth and teachings, then the one to his left was the 'Reward Buddha', or the representation of attaining enlightenment, and then the third one represented the historical Buddha, the one who actually lived so many years ago.  The English explanation said that the three Buddha's represent mind, virtue, and body. I am a great fan of triads, so... it intrigued me.

Anyway after that the nun offered us some New Year's sugar cookies, which we happily ate. She then broke the silence by dropping a very large candle, and we decided that maybe our gawking wasn't helping her concentrate, so we headed out of the hall. Wandering back through the snowy forest, I watched the black river and the beautifully decorated roofs on the other side. It was a very Asian seen--the kind you see in movies.

Then we ran into this family with an adorable child, an Austrailian brother, and a father who wanted us to come drinking excessive amounts of Makkoli with them, or Korean rice wine. Sadly our bus was leaving soon, so we couldn't do that, but the gesture was one of great hospitality. That seems to happen so much more frequently in the country, or outside the hustle and bustle of working life. When we step out of the position 'English teacher' and become an interesting person on the same road. It feels good to step out of that.

My mountain climbing adventure!

So on Friday night I left straight from work to hitch the train to Seoul. The last bullet train leaves around midnight. It always surprises me that things run so late here. I think it's a side-effect of a country that never stops working--except when they're drinking, and sometimes they're doing both. Anyway, I hit an earlier train, and even got to Seoul before the subways closed down. Using my trusty dusty, but very small, cell phone subway map (all written in Hangeul, I am proud to say), I navigated my way to Itaewon, the place where we were supposed to meet the next morning at 6:00am. There was no way that I was going to make it into the city at that time, so I decided to come the night before and spend the night in a jimjilbang.

Itaewon is an intriguing place--especially on a Friday night. All of a sudden, I am in a diverse city again, with people that speak English--military, Koreans, Africans, Middle Eastern people, Muslims, Americans. You even see some foreign kids in Itaewon. It's the place in Seoul for foreigners, sometimes seedily so. But I like it.

The Sauna I stayed in was nice, but I was surprised and a little disappointed by the price vrs. the facilities. That said, a sauna is a sauna and it's relaxing no matter how many different types of saunas there are. I just laid there and sweat out the week, and then went into the bath and scrubbed myself so clean you would have thought that I was a newborn baby. I ate some ramen noodles sitting on a bench in the dressing room (there seemed no other place to do so) and then I crashed out on a mat in the sauna area for a couple hours. There was a man in the room who was having night terrors, and he kept rolling around and hitting himself and making strange noises. It was a little odd, but I gave it a giggle.

Bright and early at 5:30am, I was out and about in Itaewon again. At 5:30, it kind of looks like a dump--there's advertisements all over the ground, and the tape has come up, and they look more like trash. People that could be servicemen, or just buff dudes, are wandering home--plastered--proclaiming how fantastic the night was. It's still dark, and the only establishments open are the bars (still--and they will probably remain open until 9am). Even the coffee shops haven't opened yet, and what is usually a street of market stalls and neon strangeness, now just looks like a deserted, boarded up trashy part of town--which Itaewon was, about twenty years ago.

Anyway I met up with my fellow travelers, a group of teachers and one student, and we got onto the bus. I passed out for the majority of the bus ride, and when I awoke it was time to eat lunch--at about 10am. We were at a tiny restaurant, nestled into a mountain for all that I could tell. It was quite traditional, and there was nothing else around, just road, mountain, and bare trees. The place was heated with a wood stove, and I deliberately sat right next to it, because I'll tell you--it was cold in there. We ate bibimbap, a delicious rice and vegetable and egg dish that I lovelovelove, and then sleepily climbed in our bus the rest of the way to the mountain base camp.

Climbing a mountain in Korea is a communal event. It is not all rustic and epic like one might imagine. The trail is wide and paved, and occasionally cars go on it. (Stephanie and I encountered taxis, even, in Gongju, likely delivering the elderly grandmother to the top of the mountain, because the Chuseok picnic simply couldn't happen with out her--but she certainly couldn't climb the difficult trails.) The point isn't necessarily to be a part of wilderness. The point is to get to the top with others. Of course the view is spectacular as well.

Though, don't imagine that because the way is a road that it is not hard to climb. The angles are quite deceiving on these trails, and what looks like a simple hike, actually turns out to be a 50 degree up hill climb for miles. But, even just a little way up the trail, the work pays off. This is the view from the first lookout point.

The hills simply went on forever, fading into the distance in the wintery haze. We continued up, and the higher we got, the warmer it got. Soon I was climbing with my coat in my arms, and then my sweatshirt in my arms, and greatly wishing that I had brought my backpack. Camera shoved into my back pocket, we practically raced each other up to the midpoint house. From there we could see the top--the final ridge, with tiny little silhouettes moving across it, and the cell phone station that accompanied the majestic skyline on the neighboring peak. (Only in Korea would our cell phones work perfectly at the top of one of the tallest, most rural mountains.)

The trail soon started to look something like this--stones shaping something like steps, but not in any uniform kind of way. That was more in my element, rock climbing style, I trudged up those 'stairs' with sincere resolve. At the top, the trail widened into the first peak, which had a tower of stones at the top--a tribute to the people who had been there, I believe, but now it looked a little too formulaic. We took a picture on top of this slightly random rock, and you can see the second peak in the background, with another one of the stone towers.

We finally managed to reach the top, and from the top, the view was even more spectacular. We were on one of the tallest mountains in Korea, and definitely the tallest mountain in Jeollanam-do, one of the south-western provinces of Korea. The name of the mountain was Jirisan, and together our group shared the peak with a pack of rather drunk ajumma's and ajoshi hikers. (The soju had been consumed at the first peak, on a blanket laid out on the ground, everyone drinking in the traditional Korean fashion--never pouring their own drink, but continuously filling the drink of others.)

Sometimes the pictures simply speak better than I can. There was a lot of mystery in these hills, but the communal nature of the mountain peak made me overlook it. We were all together, and the Koreans on the peak were all together, and the mystery in these mountains seemed slightly buried under the fun that was being had in the act of hiking. I didn't think much of it then, but as I was riding back in the bus, I remember the mystery hitting me with a bit more force.

Anyway, that's the mountain for now. I need to hurry up and get out of my house, because I need to transfer money for my next excursion--Jeju! Since this trip was a success, I decided to pay for a Jeju trip over Christmas, to keep myself social during that possibly difficult holiday. Jeju is like the Korean Hawaii, the ultimate honeymoon and vacation spot. In the winter, it's quite cold, but I think it will be an excellent experience--and one that not many tourists have had. Jeju in the winter!

You know, I write a journal more than a blog...

I guess that's okay, most of the time. But I am enjoying reading some of the other things that I run across--more bloggy things, and I wonder--how can I do that?

My mom sent me this article on the Matador, called: "The Expat Conundrum: The Longer You Stay, The More You Complain". It is kind of an interesting article. They are taking about Mexico, but I do feel like the people who have been here the longest complain a lot. I actually ran into a guy down by the river who had lived here for several years. He definitely had the "they" attitude that the author talks about. Harsh. Serious. Acted like he got stuck here. After I said I was new, his first idea was to give me the name and number of someone to call if I "got into any trouble."

Now the other article that I was reading on this website was this: "6 Ways To Not Be A Holier-Than-Thou Traveler." I am guilty of some of these things--especially here in Korea. I'm trying my hardest not to let Ghana spill over into my experience here, especially now that I am trying to make new friends... but I can't help it. I mean, everything there seemed so much more hard core. More difficult. So when this gentleman told me that if I "got into any trouble", I should call this guy... I thought: "What kind of trouble can I possibly get into that is worse than the trouble I could get into in Ghana?" So I am majorly guilty of the Holier than Thou attitude. Because your wallet can get stolen in any country. Your passport can get stolen in any country. You can be in a terrible car accident in any country--but I drop "Africa" like it is this magical place that makes me more hard core than the others here. And I know that if my African friends heard me say those things, they would be annoyed. But sometimes, that "this is easy because I've done something much harder" attitude gets me through the difficult days here. Because, really, it is hard here, too, and I need something to remind me that I can do it.

Anyway I am really enjoying these articles on Matador, and browsing through them. It feels good to be a traveler again, no matter where I am--and that brings me to my excellent weekend, which I promised I would report on.

Let me sum it up for you.
Saturday:

Sunday:

On Saturday, as I mentioned before, Stephanie and I visited Gyeongbokgung. This enormous palace was constructed for the Joseon dynasty, which ruled Korea from 1392 to August 1910. The picture above is from the retreat quarters of King Gojong. Inside there are quarters for the King and Queen, as well as a study--though it was most certainly blocked off from tourists. The area was restored in 2007, after having been dismantled in 1909, during Japanese occupation. An art museum was put on the location in 1939.

The palace had two main areas--the public and the private. The public areas were enormous, impressive, places where the king could strut, as it were. The roofs were two tiered, everything was tall and extravagant, and the painting was out of this world. Humans just looked insignificant next to and inside these enormous buildings.

 After going to this palace, Stephanie and I set out for a market, that turned out to be a shopping mall and not a market. But the journey to the market was one full of tiny street vendors. In Korea street vendors sell things out of these little retractable trailors. When they are finished selling, they close down the doors and drag the metal box away--like a dragable garage. Then they bring it home or just leave it in some alley somewhere. I saw one man packing up and I thought this was just brilliant, and quite hilarious to boot. Of course, there was another man along the road who was selling notebooks and paper supplies out of the back of a pick up. Stephanie stopped to grab a notebook, and I just stared in true-love fascination.

I picked up a bunch of little trinkets, which I adore, even though they may be kitchy and touristy. I like touristy stuff--no prob for me. Now I have some little glass kimchi peppers on my phone, haha.

After we discovered that the market was actually less interesting than the street-to-the-market, we departed for Itaewon, which is the foreigner section of Seoul. It used to be sleezy, because it was mostly military men, and there are a lot of American GIs still there, I guess, but now it is full of just about anyone. There is a big mosque on a hill, and there are Muslims everywhere. I was simply overjoyed about that one. There were lots of Africans, too, and Stephanie and I went to a restaurant owned by Ghanaians!! Not only Ghanaians, but people from the Ashanti region, which means that they spoke Twi! We made some nice new friends... and actually this one guy insists on calling me two or three times every day, which is something that I hated when I was in Africa, but now it's kind of nice. I get to talk to someone before work, and it isn't about work, and it isn't complicated and confusing. Just talk. It also helps that I don't live in Seoul, though, lol, because he doesn't constantly ask me to visit him. 

Anyway, our new African friends were definitely NOT Muslim because they decided that it would be an excellent idea to get us to try their 'healing' wood liquor that had been home made in Korea. (Of course, it's home made in Ghana, too, but seeing it in Korea is weird and confusing. Also because it definitely looked like it was in a juice jug.) That was an enlightening experience, lol... especially because they totally refused to let US refuse. I had a good laugh, but had Stephanie not been there I probably would have been awkward and upset about it. I do believe, though, that it was the same material that I had been drinking in the stilt village on my 21st birthday.


Anyway, on Sunday Stephanie and I visited a huge Buddhist temple called Bong Eungsa, or 보은사. This is a full time used temple, with monks and nuns and worshipers coming in and out. I loved the feeling of it. A quiet, sacred sense settles over you, and you feel like a tourist, but not like a worthless tourist. You feel like you've come to see something important. There is also an awkwardness about it, because there are people praying and worshiping around you. That is hard, but the tension makes you realize things. Tension always leads to realization, I think, anyway, and I enjoy it.


The painting on this temple was out of this world. I've seen good painting, especially at the palace that we visited on Saturday, but this temple had murals on the walls. Scenes from the Buddha's life, scenes from the lives of Bodhisattvas and probably kings as well. There was no one to explain it, so as the monk chanted in the main building, I simply stared at it, and attempted to take a few measly pictures. They don't do it justice.


The monk was chanting when we arrived, and the prayer hall in the front of the building was full to the brim of women. It was all women, not a single man. I don't know why. The chanting was as beautiful as the buildings. As the monk left, I came eye to eye with him, bowed my head in some kind of greeting, but I don't know if it was rude or just 'typical' for a foreigner to do something awkward like that. But I wanted to let him know that I appreciated his voice, and his temple, and his religion, and his purpose... so I looked him in the eye and greeted him. I hope he saw it that way, but I doubt it. Ah well.


The temple had several main halls in the front of the complex, but it was in front of a rising mountain, so smaller Bodhisattva complexes rose up into the forest above. The higher we climbed, the more of metropolitan Seoul spilled out from behind the temple roofs. The ancient, painstakingly maintained buildings with delicate painted halls stood in front of glass sky scrapers--the Seoul World Trade Center--the Co-Ex twin-tower shopping mall--roads of busy, honking traffic. It was ironic and rather superb that this temple, a relic of "old" Korea, but a reminder to "new" Korea, stood in the middle of this development and urban bustle.  

After the temple we went to a market, which is where the first picture is from. It was mostly closed, but I enjoyed it anyway, and since there was a lack of people, I didn't feel too pushed and shoved with my big backpack on my shoulders. (Then quite full of trinkets, clothing, and rinkydinks that I bought.)



It's time for me to get on my bike and tool down to work, so I'll leave you with this image, and a link to the others on Facebook. 

King Kevin Keeps a 2,000 Year Old Fortress in his Kitchen

Or rather, King Muryeongwang kept his capital in Gongju, in about 500AD.

This weekend is Chuseok weekend. I have two days off and it's been spectacular so far. Stephanie came down from Yongin to visit, and we've been doing plenty of things. On Friday we discovered that there is an enormous market across the street from my subway station... it sells mostly food, so I don't know how often I will actually shop there, but it reminds me of markets at home, especially the Somali and Hmong markets. It is a huge covered building, with little market huts inside. When we wandered about, on the evening before Chuseok, there certainly wasn't much happening, but we did see a lot of fruit and vegetables. I really feel at a loss without ANY Korean. I mean, when someone is shouting at me, I want to know if they are saying "My wares are the best!" or "You just stepped on something!" or "You dropped something!" haha. Though I suppose I should give body language SOME credit, after all.

There are a few simple pagodas just sitting around in my neighborhood. You take your shoes off and you can just sit there. I can't imagine how fantastic that would be for a little kid with a good imagination. That's like an invitation to a playhouse right there. They are painted pagodas, too. Korean pagoda painting is very distinct. It's really interesting, and very beautiful. I enjoy it a lot.

On Saturday, we embarked for a day trip. It was my first time out of Daejeon! I was super excited. We went to the nearby city of Gongju, which is much smaller than Daejeon, and has a lot of great charm. On one side of the river, everything seemed fairly new. It looked just like Daejeon, with tall, uniform apartment buildings, hotels here and there complete with neon, and wide roads with heavy traffic. However, on the other side of the river there was a huge fortress--and it is not like you would imagine a European fortress. This was a fortress not because of tall walls, but because of the landscape. It was surrounded by a steep hill that ancient people had fortified with stairs and a small wall. Yellow flags stood along it, and in the wind they all moved together. It was something positively Asian--like I stepped out of a movie or something.

We explored the fortress--or, rather, we explored some of the fortress before we realized that we couldn't climb a single step more. The main enterance was quite impressive, but it was not the original building. This site has been here for 2,000 years, but it has been built and built again by the various kings who held their capitals here. The first site, I'm sure, has been leveled. But it's the place that remembers, I think. Anyway, the main gate was constructed as a replica sometime after 1933, when the site was basically leveled to create a road. No road stands there now, so I don't know what happened.

It is an extremely steep incline. Everything in this town had an extremely steep incline, haha, but it probably comes in handy. Not only is it ritually symbolic to make people climb to meet you--and I mean excessively climb to meet you--but it is also militarily important. It's pretty hard to fight like this.

This is the pagoda on top of the main enterance gate. Below this there is a gate wide enough for three or four people, and the height is not too high. The doors are heavy and decorated, and the ceiling above it is painted just like the pagoda here is painted. The Japanese and Chinese, I believe, carve their pagodas. The Koreans paint them, usually in these magnificent green and blue and yellow patterns. These are colors that are unique to Korean architecture. The view from the top of this was great. We could see the city and village intermixing behind another ancient gate that sat at the bottom of the hill.

The path away from the pagoda runs along the fortification. Some of it is repaired with cement. Other parts are simply stone. I don't know how old it is. All I know is that the men who must have guarded this location had REALLY powerful legs--because they climbed this constantly. This was only the beginning... one part of the complex. The walls went up and down like a rollercoaster.

The other side of the same hill... this is something we just walked down. On our way back we cut through the forest on the interior of the fort... not much easier, but at least it wasn't steps!

In a nook between the high hills, there was a river-watching pagoda, a well, and a small temple. The temple was still lived in, and had been lived in for thousands of years. Thousands of years. It astounds me. Monks going about their daily business, seeking enlightenment, for thousands of years. I wonder if enlightenment has changed in thousands of years. People evolve over that time--mentally, physically, do we also evolve spiritually?

These buildings all seemed rectangular. Their proportions were simple but all similar. The painting on the ceilings changed, however, and varied in intensity and complexity. I don't know when the painting was done, since it looked bright and fresh, and some things suggested that the buildings had all been rebuilt after destruction.

After our third or fourth hill, however, Stephanie and I couldn't handle trying another one--plus we hadn't really eaten, and that's never a good thing. So we slowly made our way out of the park. Encountered a taxi curving along the cobble-stone paved roads in the center of the park. Surprised me. 2,000 year old site and now it has taxi drivers quibbling along the roads.

Korean food is probably the most generous food I've eaten so far. And by that, I mean that when you order "Kalbi", which is basically just "meat", you do not receive JUST meat. Nothing just JUST anything. There are three, four, five, six side dishes for every meal possible. Each restaurant has different ones--except for Kimchi--which is everyone's side dish. Everything is so good, and it's like an appetizer plate every time you go out. You never know what you're going to get, and you never know you're going to like it. I like just about everything so far--except for cold soup, haha. Stephanie and I went to a restaurant on Friday that gave us cold noodles, which was weird. But oh well--I mean what do you expect when you walk into a restaurant, can't speak the language to order, and then just nod at the first thing someone suggests? I mean, that is a food adventure right there.

Anyway, in Gongju we ate a fantastic meal, and spent the next few hours exploring the old part of town. Gongju is small enough that the high rises have not overpowered everything yet. Instead they sit in the middle of a conglomeration of other things, and instead of looking dead, they look alive.

Of course, I do think everything looks cooler on a mountain. These buildings are stuffed together around a church. Behind us the buildings are short and stocky, with small windows. I loved the buildings here, in their "I don't care" way. They're all made out of concrete, stuffed together with little windows and short roofs. Since they are all on an incline, they climb each other. You can't figure out where one house ends and another begins--unless the roof colors are different. Some roofs are bright blue--others bright orange. Can't figure that one out. The older ones have the slate tile style. The streets up the hills are tiny and wind around the homes--mostly because they homes were there before the roads were.

At the bottom of the hill, there was a small creek or stream. The main market complex sat next to it. It was enormous, but completely empty. I was sad about that--but who wants to work in the market on Chuseok? Nobody. An old woman motioned to us to sit down with her, but we blatantly ignored it... I felt so bad, but really, what could we have said to her? Nothing. We can't converse. It makes me so sad.

As we wandered along the walking trail on the creek, we came to the market sector. It seemed like a poor part of town--or at least the oldest part of town. The houses were little boxes, and they hung out over the dug out part of the creek. Little pipes came down from their bathrooms--the part of the house that hung over. Trees grew up in weird, crooked places between them. They had tiny windows, and I could hear people inside yelling and talking. Even though the windows were smaller than probably the height of my hand, they were covered with bright little curtains. These houses seemed to perch over this creek accidentally, placing a few poles and pipes there as if they could pick up and move when they wanted to. I loved it.

Overall the trip was great--and we were even home by sunset. The drive through the mountains was magnificent with the setting sun.