Autumn Trek

NOTE: I stopped updating my blog after the last entry. It is now almost 3 years later and I'm adding posts as if I was writing them at that time. So all of the blog entries from now until July 2012 are written from memory, with my pictures as a guide...





Ranell and I decided enjoy our Chuseok (Thanksgiving) holiday/long weekend to trek in the mountains to see the Autumn foliage. Our first stop was an old castle in the town of Jinju. It's always nice to end up in a town that's only meant to be a stopover on the way to your journey, only to find something really cool you never knew about. We did have a connecting bus to catch, so we didn't spend too much time here, but it was a nice break:

From Jinju we made it to our destination: Jirisan National Park. Our destination was a supposedly large and beautiful waterfall, set in a glorious Fall setting. After perusing the Buddhist temple at the base of the trail, we made our way up. Several miles in, we stumbled upon a little hermitage, where someone was blasting "Unbreak my Heart" from Toni Braxton (haha) through the speakers. Only in Korea. We finally ended up at the waterfall, which was nothing but a trickle. Damn. It was still a great experience, as I was able to take this picture, which has become one of my all-time favorites:

From there it was off on another late-night, multi-stop bus ride to some podunk Korean country town called Suncheon (hooray for memory!) and a stay at the BMW love motel (hooray again for memory!). The next day we trekked to one of my favorite temples, Songgwangsa, which I had visited my previous time in Korea. Unfortunately, they had put a footbridge over the old cobblestone walkway, which ruined my epic photo spot that was the purpose of going there. However, it's still a beautiful temple in a great setting. Here I was able to get my other all-time favorite pics, the red leaf in a bamboo forest one. There are only 2 pics from Korea that I have kept in my portfolio, and they both came in consecutive days from the same trip. This one has won me a couple awards and made me some money:

the new view at Songgwangsa, see 3/08 entry for a  pic of the view I was hoping to re-create:

 On our way back home, we stopped in Masan to try out some Mexican food we had heard great things about. Ranell and I were both dying of Mexican cravings for months, and we finally had the chance to get some. Now that I've been home for a couple years, this meal would probably taste awful to me. But at the time, it was the best we had, and it was an awesome experience:

The MIGHTY falls of Jirisan

Temple Stay

(Golgulsa temple)

This past weekend a few of us spent the weekend in a Buddhist temple called Golgulsa, which means "Stone Buddha Temple." It's a small, yet fascinating temple which gets its name from a 1500 year old Buddha carved into a cliff. It also has some small caves, one of which has a temple built into it, and has been used since the 7th century. The most unique thing about this temple is martial art they teach called Sunmudo. This martial art had existed only at this one particular temple for hundreds of years, being only taught in secret among monks, until the 1940's (when they decided a war of fighting monks was unlikely to happen). They call it a "meditative martial art," meaning they never spar, and any contact during training is accidental.

(our sleeping quarters)

The temple stay consisted of a couple hours of Sunmudo training. The training was fun, but the best part of it came after we finished, when we got to watch the monks training. It was kinda entertaining to watch Buddhist monks, with their robes and all, kicking and jumping around the place.

(practicing the moves on my "bed")
(monks practicing sunmudo)

The temple was very quiet and serene. After the training, it was dark outside, which made it even quieter. It was the calmest I'd ever felt in Korea. We went to bed early, since we had to get up the next morning at 4AM!!! for a chanting session and meditation. The chanting sounded more like singing, it was really cool sounding. I didn't know the chants so I couldn't follow along, but I could do the bowings (after each verse).

(cave temple)

After meditation we had some free time. The sun was just starting to rise, so I planted myself on a rock next to the Buddha and soaked it in. When I got hot, I went into the cave temple and just sat there for awhile. It was very quiet and nice.

(buddha carving)

Next came breakfast. The meal is eaten in a very special way. You are instructed not to talk, or to look at what others are doing, just to think about your food and where it came from and what it took to get it to you. You get 4 bowls which come in a Russian doll-like container; you take the bowls out smallest to largest using only your thumbs to minimize sound. Each bowl has to be in the right spot on your mat; largest bowl in the lower left corner, and descending in size clockwise. You put water in the largest bowl, swich it around, then pour it into the next bowl, repeating this until you put it in the last bowl, where it stays. You eat the food, but not a single morsel of food can be wasted, so you must eat every speck. When you're finished, you take the only thing remaining, which is a piece of kimchi (after having been washed of pepper flakes in your soup), and use it like a washcloth to clean off the last remnants of food. After this, you get more water, and you rinse the bowls again, and you drink the water and eat the kimchi. Then you take the cold water that was sitting in your smallest bowl this whole time, and rinse AGAIN, but this time the water goes into a bucket. That bucket gets dumped into the stream, but there can't be any speck of food in it or else it's considered to be polluting the water. So, if the water you pour into the bucket has any crumb in it (like mine did), they pour that water back into your bowl and you drink that too. Needless to say, the meal was more stressful than peaceful, but it was still an interesting experience nonetheless.

All in all, it was a cool experience. I'm glad I did it, and I might even consider doing it again. Maybe.

tea time with a monk

funny

One of my class lessons was about toiletries, which meant I had to explain to the kids what deodorant was (for whatever strange genetic reason, Koreans don't need to use it, and the kids have no idea what it is). I decided to bring in a stick the next day. When I waved it around so they could smell the scent, two 11 year old boys decided they really liked it. They liked the smell so much, they high-fived each other. I find that to be a fascinating use of the high-five, as shown by my dramatical quizzical expression I gave them.

recent adventures

Three weeks ago, Liz, Ashleigh (two other foreigners here), and I travelled to Seoraksan National Park. It's a spectacular mountain area with dramatic granite spires. We had to leave Friday night in order to make it on time for the tour Saturday morning, which involved a 4 hour bus ride leaving here at 11pm. We attempted to sleep at the bus terminal, which is to say we really didn't sleep. We then had another 4 hour bus ride to Seoraksan, and a 4 hour hike to the top of the mountain (how everything kept turning out to be 4 hours, I can't explain). Saturday night, we visited the fancy bath house, which was fantastic (and much more comfortable than my last experience). Sunday, we had an easier, milder hike to a waterfall. After 2 more 4 hour bus rides, we made it home. It was a great time, and the sky looked cool, so I got good pictures.
This past weekend was Chuseok (Korean Thanksgiving). I had a 4 day weekend, so I took Ashleigh and Ranell to the west side of the country for some exploring. On the first day, we saw a giant Buddha in a town called Cheonan. Then, we took a bus from there to Daejeon, where we spent the night. That day, we took another bus to a mountain called Daedunsan to climb a mountain. That climb involved a suspension bridge just like the one at Wolchulsan, plus a giant ladder-staircase that gave me vertigo. We took a bus that night to Jeonju, where we spent the night in the best love motel I've ever seen: 2 computers, giant tv, 2-person jetted tub, personal sauna, massage chair, and heated toilet seats. The next morning we took another bus to a town called Jinan, and from there a bus to a mountain called Maisan (horse ears mountain), to see the weirdest mountains and weirdest temple in Korea. The temple is called Tapsa, and it's surrounded by hundreds of stone "pagodas," basically piles of rocks that manage to stand even though they're not adhesed together in any way. After 2 more bus rides back to Daejeon, Ashleigh and Ranell had to go back, and I enjoyed my extra day off the next day at Beopjusa. I wrote about this place last year (see blog), it has a really giant Buddha.
I'm pretty exhausted after all these bus rides and hikes, but it was worth it. I had a great time. Sorry I glossed over the details, but I figure a blunt recap is better than none at all..

redeeming experience

Today I went to a store to buy a drink. While I was waiting in line, with my one item and exact change, an old woman butt in front of me. Maybe I wasn't close enough to the person in front of me, or maybe she felt entitiled to my spot. This happens frequently, but I never say or do anything. First of all, it's not a big deal, just a small annoyance. Secondly, I never know if it comes from overt rudeness or some cultural thing I don't know about. At the risk of it being a cultural thing, and since I'm a guest here, I just let it go.
However, this time, the clerk ignored the old woman and took my drink instead and rang me up and checked me out in about 10 seconds. I gave a gracious "kamsamnida," and walked away with the woman having the most incredulous look on her face. Priceless.

PS since that happened, I'm guessing it's "not" a cultural thing..

I don't want to be one of those foreigners who comes to a country and tells the people there that everything they do is wrong. However, I do want to introduce a few aspects of my culture to this one:
First, the ability to walk in a straight line. It really is a struggle for people here. Several times I've been standing still, and someone approaching me has drifted into my space and bumped into me. Add to that the fact that everyone has cell phones, and they all spend all their walking time texting people, and it makes a bad situation worse. Furthermore, there doesn't seem to be any rule regarding which side of the sidewalk to walk on. It's chaos!
Second, I want Korea to know that if a national holiday falls on a weekend, you take either the Friday or Monday off. Here, when a holiday falls on Saturday, there is no day off (except for the kids who have to go to school on Saturday). There's a wonderful world of consistent weekday holidays out there, I think Korea should grab it. Another weird thing: last year, Christmas fell on a Thursday. Guess what? Everyone took Thursday off, then came back to work Friday, then took their weekly holiday break the next week. I'm sorry, but that's stupid.
Third, I appreciate that Asians take their shoes off whenever they enter a house, or sometimes a restaurant. But that does not need to apply to gyms. It all originated from the fact that people ate on the floor, and shoes tend to be dirty, and they didn't want their eating area to get dirty with street junk. That's good, and I do that at home. But what reasonig do they give to apply it to the gym? Now, you don't workout barefoot, but you are expected to leave a separate pair of "indoor" shoes at the gym and change them when you arrive. That's just dumb, admit it...
Finally: coffee should be black, not yellow. Putting 2 tablespoons of grounds for 8 gallons of water does not make coffee, it makes brown-flavored water. It also makes you sleepy. Yes, coffee is much more expensive in Korea than it is in the US, but that's no excuse to ruin it like that!

That's all for now. I'm sure when I return home, I'll have a list of ideas to import to the US from Korea.

awakening

I don't know if it was an epiphany or what, but I had a brilliant idea this week...
First a little background:
I started graduate school in the summer of 2007 for a Master's in Tourism Studies. I attended one semester before I moved to Florida to continue there. While I was in Florida, I decided to put off school and move to Korea for a year (which would allow me to wait for FL residency to kick in), with the intent of going back to grad school when I got back. The Korea gig didn't turn out so well, but I was back in the US, so I applied at FIU in Miami. During the application process, they discontinued the Tourism Studies degree, so I enrolled in a similar hospitality program instead. That didn't inspire me, so I cancelled my classes and tossed out that plan. I still planned on finishing my Master's, since that was a goal I set out for myself. I decided to pursue a Political Science degree, based on little more than a general interest in that field. After all, I wasn't getting a Master's degree to land a specific job, more to complete something I set out to do. After that, I decided I had another unfinished challenge that was more important, so I ended up back in Korea to finish my year abroad, and put off grad school yet again.
I finally accepted the fact that it doesn't make sense to spend thousands of dollars on something that I won't get a tangible return on just to satisfy my ego. Obviously there's something wrong if If I've had a goal for a few years and made little effort to accomplish it. So I stepped out of my box and decided to pursue....an MBA. Yes, that's right. The person who hates money grubbers and who thinks greed is the root of all evil is pursuing a symbol of those things. I kinda laugh when I think of myself getting an MBA. However, I can use it however I want to. I can kill several birds with one stone: I get my goal accomplished (which is very important to me); I get to have a new goal to pursue while in Korea (studying for and doing well on the business exam and getting into an MBA program); and I get something tangible for my efforts, since an MBA would be very useful in acquiring a job. Plus, the sound of "MBA" just impressive to me. So I'm pursuing this starting now. I'm going to spend the next 5-6 months studying for the GMAT exam. The thought of this makes me so excited, a feeling I've never had before at any point in my grad school pursuit. I have a lot of quiet time here, so I can use that in a healthy way by spending it studying. This may put some of my other complete-while-in-Korea projects off for a while, but maybe I can still complete them all.
I'm doing this. My mind is set, and my mind doesn't change once it gets to this stage. I'm going to kill the test, I'm going to kill business school, I'm going to get a powerful job, and I'm going to conquer the world. Then I'll probably be satisfied with myself and retreat to a quiet life in the desert with the satisfaction of knowing I can do whatever the hell I want to do. My re-awakened sense of ambition feels GOOD..

nervousness causes shrinkage, too

Another crazy weekend.. On Sunday, Adam and I walked down to the water and started the day by going "sea kayaking" (more like a canoe-kayak-kiddie boat thing). The last time I was on a sea kayak, I fell in and dislocated my shoulder- the most painful experience I've ever had- so I had a disproportionate amount of nervousness to get over. Of course, they didn't have any life jackets for the foreigners, either, so we went without. But at least now I can add "tandem sea kayaking in Korea" to my list of things done...

After that, we took a ferry to a nearby island, just to see what was there. We went to an old POW camp, which was used to house North Korean and Chinese prisoners of war during the Korean War. It was very interesting to see how large it was, and to get a glimpse of what life was like there. It also had some life-size figures of people using the bathroom, complete with genitalia and detailed feces...

We had a little trouble trying to navigate the island's nonsensical bus system in order to get from the city center back to where the ferry terminal was, so we ended up missing the last ferry out. Luckily we don't work mornings, so we were able to spend the night in a Korean sauna. My brother-in-law always talked about how great they were, so I've had it on my Korean to-do list. I always say: whenever something goes wrong, it just opens an opportunity for something else to happen, so I was happy to experience something I wanted to.

For about $7, we got to use the hot tubs, saunas, and we got the privilege of putting a blanket and a brick pillow on a hard floor and sleeping in a common area. I don't know if I've talked about Korean saunas here, so let me explain: it's a complex of hot and cold pools, saunas, steam rooms, and such. It's segregated by sex, and it's all naked. All of you know that I usually have no hangups with nudity (since everyone's seen me... halls of the hotel in Wendover-sober...haha), but for some reason the naked man stew made me uncomfortable. But I got over it.

After awhile, everyone left, and I had the place to myself. It was fairly relaxing, switching between the cold tub and the hot tub. I guess it's just something you gotta get used to. After that, we went to the sleeping area, which is just a floor with thin blankets and brick-like pillows, crowded with old Korean dudes. Slept peacefully (except for the dude with night terrors waking us up) until 6:30, when they decided to kick everyone out. We finally made it back to the ferry terminal and took the 8:30 ferry back home. Definitely an experience..

China

I just returned from my trip to China; Beijing and Xi'an, to be exact. Saw all the usual tourist spots: Forbidden City, Summer Palace, Terracotta Warriors. Great Wall. I was a little surprised by Beijing, it was a little less cosmopolitan and a little more dirty than I thought it would be. Some observations:
-Men in China love to roll up their shirts just above their belly. They'll parade their bellies around like it's a source of pride; sometimes they'll be rubbing them or patting them. I thought it was the funniest thing, you would never ever see that in Korea.
-More than once I saw men with hair growing out of a mole on their jawbone, which they apparently never cut. Those things were growing out like 6 inches. I have no idea what cultural significance that has; but it has to have some...
-I have never been gawked at so much in my life than the night I hung out at the Olympic venues (and I live in a small, rural town in Korea). It was unreal- stares, heads turning, pictures taken left and right.. that was my first night in China, so I figured they were just more likely to gawk in China. I realized later that it was because I was using my tripod for my camera and they were all fascinated by it. The only other time I used my tripod, I got the same reaction. The people would love to come up and look at my screen to see what I was taking pictures of.. lol
-You see lots of hard-luck people at subway stations, tourists areas, etc (much like any other place). Homeless people, people missing limbs, etc looking for money. One person at the Forbidden City took the cake, though. A tiny, shriveled up being, with 2 ginormous tumors growing out of their brain. Wow..
-There's the classic image of everyone in China riding bicycles everywhere. I was under the impression that they were all gone, replaced by cars. I was happy to see that there are still lots of bikers everywhere you go, and they have special lanes.
-I think it would be fun to own a hostel. I'll add that to my list of 100 business I want to own at one time..
-I really can't stand people who focus on the negative. If you're climbing the Great Wall, doing something that millions of people wish they could do, don't spend the entire time bitching about how hot it is. Spent the time living in the moment, soaking it in, and realizing you're on the GREAT WALL!!!

one month+ back

I've been here about 5 weeks now. Has anything changed? Not really. The job has finally had some low points, but nothing too big. Just the usual things that come with trying to teach kids that don't speak your language. Went to Mudfest last week, which is basically a spring break for foreigners (and a few Koreans). First day was great, second day was a hurricane- but it was still great because I say it was. I knew I was smart for not bringing my umbrella, because everyone who did had theirs busted by the hurricane winds. This weekend I'm not going to do anything and see how it goes. In all the time I've been to Korea, I've tried to see as much as possible, but I'm going to take it a little easier this time. That, and I need to rest up for China in 2 weeks.