Chelsea and Erin are HERE! But mostly Boseong green tea Heaven

Monday night Chelsea and Erin arrived in Busan, tired but very excite! After moving them into the apartment we went out for what is now my new favorite Korean food, and I don't know what it's called. The visitors ate bulgogi barbecue (cooks over a flame at the table) and Brian and I ate seafood delight. This seafood delight consists entirely of shellfish and shrimp, and the shell fish are raw on the half shell with spices and seasonings piled in with the meat. You use the shell almost like a frying pan to saute up the goodies and it's a tasty treat indeed. Chelsea and Erin said that meal was their favorite they'd had so far in Korea (they'd been in Seoul with Erin's friend for a couple of days already), and though they didn't eat the seafood, they were intrigued by the cooking method. Yeon Jae ended up meeting us there for soju and coming back to our apartment for a bit. We haven't seen much of him this semester because he's become a 6th grade teacher and he's much more busy than he was as the PE teacher. That also means he no longer shares an office with Brian, so the poor chingus are separated. It was good to see him that night.

Tuesday we mapped out the route to Beomosa, the biggest most beautiful temple in Busan, for the girls... and they made it there! They reported back in time to meet Brian and I with Eun Hi (Brian's ex-co-teacher from last semester) and Soo Jeong (Brian's current co-teacher) to check out the cherry blossoms at Dalmaji hill. They were impressed with the temple and later the hill where we checked out a beach Brian and I had never seen before. After saying goodbye to Eun Hi the rest of us subwayed over to GwanganLi to see the night view of the bridge and get some dinner. There Soo Jeong took us to a famous deokbeoki (rice cake sticks in sweet spicy sauce) and fried squid restaurant. I loved it, Brian loved it, Erin and Chels could take it or leave it, so we also kimbaped before heading to a bar with pictures of Russel Crowe on the sign - no sign of Russel Crowe within though - to admire the night view. By then we'd thoroughly exhausted our guests so home we went to rest up for the real gem so far.

Wednesday morning we were up before 6 to catch a bus (that we missed, but that gave us time for breakfast, which I think I preferred) to Boseong, a town famous for it's green tea plantation. It turned out to be farther away than we'd hoped; it took over 3.5 hours by bus, but it was beautiful. The picture below shows the hills of tea plants.
Even the entrance to the place was beautiful. The cedar lining looked magical and serene.

I think the bamboo forest looked even more magical though, and the wind blowing through the stalks made them clack together just so like wind chimes. You can hear it too in this video.

And here's a close up of some of the bamboo graffiti. It's a list of names, nothing juicy.

After climbing through the fields and admiring all the scenery we ate some green tea dishes like green tea noodles and green tea fried pork cutlets, and of course, green tea ice cream. When we finally got back to Busan we heard about the North vs. South Korea soccer game to determine who would go to the World Cup and caught part of the game in a restaurant. And South Korea was victorious, hoorah! We were trying to get to the famous bath house of Oncheonjang, but we were not success, as our Korean friends would say. It closed before we got there. Perhaps Sunday. Here are the pictures of our adventures so far.

Today Erin and Chelsea are headed to Gyeongju (the former capital of Korea (before there were N and S)) for a temple stay at the same temple we went to with Ryan and Shannon. We'll see them again Friday night for more adventures in Korean wonderland. Also, check out the Konglish blog, we found a gem on the bus station snack rack.

Jess

A Rebutal! and our temple stay

First of all, I'd like to back up and say that shortly after the video from the arm wrestler post Mi Yeon and I wrestled with our left arms (her "strong arm") and I won. And I want a rematch now that Brian and I have been pumping kilos in the gym. Incidentally, our gym is called city sports, but in Korean an s sound followed by an i sound always makes a shi sound. So naturally, we work out at shity sports.

But aside from all this, last weekend Ryan and Shannon suggested a temple stay in nearby Gyeongju, the old Shilla Dynasty capital of S. Korea. David and Duck opted out but Brian and I were excited to go, so early Saturday morning we all hopped a bus to another bus to Golgulsa (sa means temple), which is the headquarters for sunmudo. Sunmudo is a martial art one monk told us was developed in India at the very beginning of Buddhism. It is an "active meditation" meaning that it's a tool for enlightenment rather than a tool to defend yourself. It focuses on breathing as well as intensely controlled movements and it's beautiful to see in action.

We got to try it out on our first day there, but the second session and the demonstration from the monks were cancelled due to rain on the second day.

So our first day at the temple was lovely but cold. When we arrived it was lunch time, so we headed into the dining hall where Shannon and I had to sit with the women and the guys with their fellows. We had plenty of time to talk and wander around together between activities, but within any temple structure we weren't to "associate". So we associated as much as possible while exploring the temple grounds after lunch.

We found this happy little guy guarding the watering hole.

The higher we climbed the more charming the characters we found.

A little higher and things started turning a bit more stately.

And regal.

Til the crowning glory at the top. This rock carving that supposedly happened in the 700s. It was beautiful and had a commanding view of the temple grounds. Check it out further down.

Then it was time for archery. We headed over to the Sunmudo center where archery was to happen in time to catch the tail end of a game (can never remember it's name) of foot volleyball between 4 monks. In foot volleyball you have a regular volleyball net and 2 or more players per team. The ball can bounce once between each kick, but a person can only kick it once. It's amazing to see them spike it. Then it was time for archery, which at Golgulsa is also a meditation. We all got pretty good, but it was really cold in the shade where we had to stand and I was glad when it was over.

After some more downtime (spent warming up in our separate girls and guys quarters) it was sunmudo training or bust. There we heard chants to Buddha and learned the proper way to bow to Buddha along with our kicks and hand meditations. It was fun and hard and beautiful to watch the monks who were perfectly amazing at it. And then it was bedtime because morning comes early at a temple. 4 Am early, and the penalty for missing 4:30 morning chants is 3,000 bows to Buddha.

The dormitory (girls on top floor, boys below)

So Shannon and I retired to our room. I've never loved the heated floor so much. There were no beds or even mats, just 2 blankets per person and a small pillow - traditional Korean style, plus an added dose of minimalism for the temple. And our room had paper doors, also traditional. I was amazed at how warm we stayed though, slept like a baby. It was especially nice during Sunday's downtimes when it was cold and drizzly outside and you could hear the rain so nicely through the paper.

At 4 AM as promised we were awakened by a monk with a booming voice and a wooden gong walking by our paper doors chanting and gonging. I'm not typically a morning person, but I was excited to wake up that way, and we were off to morning chants, morning meditation (cold!), and then a short walking meditation up on a hill where the sky was just starting to glow red with the beginnings of dawn. It was cold and quiet and peaceful. Below is where we did walking meditation, only it was dark then.

From there we were on to the mess hall for Baroogongyang, a ceremonial meditative meal.

Baroogongyang has a protocol not only for eating, but for the setting and cleaning of the dishes as well. Eating, between bites you put down your chopsticks and chew slowly and mindfully each bite. However, this was a shortened version for laymen to experience, so it was quickened. Ryan and I were the last ones finished cleaning up with the kimchi because we took it to heart when they said chew slowly. I had to speed eat the last bit of my meal to come in last place while everyone waited for us to finish. Oops.

I forgot to mention the other selling feature of Golgulsa, it has the only cave temple in all of S. Korea. That's where the monk that chanted us awake started out and marched on down from there. Here are some pictures of that lovely spot.

Temple entrance above and altar below.

Buddhas in the wall of the cave temple.

Then, somewhere around 6:30 AM, it was naptime. Then at 8:30, tea time with Q & A with one of the monks! He told us about sunmudo and how he became a monk. Then many of the questions came our way being amongst the only foreigners there. Everyone wanted to know how we found out about Golgulsa, what we thought about sitting on the ground, if we knew about Korean traditional dance and so on.

After tea time there's usually community service, but at that temple it's usually gardening, and it was February, so more downtime. Eventually it was lunch time again and time to go home because most of the daily activities were cancelled due to the rain. But here are some photos of where it would have happened.

Above is the view from the Buddha rock carving of the main temple hall where we meditated and had morning chants, and where the sunmudo demonstration would have happened.

Fighting monk murals.

We were sad to miss a lot of the second day, but happy we'd come to Golgulsa. We'll just have to go back sometime. Sometime warmer. We had to get all bundled up as we waited for the bus back home, but we were all smiles too. Great job Golgulsa!

Seoul trip and ice fish, a winter wandering

Last Thursday we took a 4 hour bus ride to Seoul to see what it had to offer. We got there in the evening and checked in to our hostel where the nameless owner kept laughing hysterically (and what a laugh!) and play punching Brian in the belly. It was hilarious in that somewhat awkward but still absurd enough to be really funny kind of way. But we didn't stay long, we were out on the streets as soon as Mr. Laugh Attack had helped us figure out how to get to Inje on Saturday.

That night we went out with a vague idea to see the South Gate (Seoul was once a walled city) and the Seoul Tower. But when we found the South Gate it was completely enclosed in a construction wall for rebuilding. Apparently it burned down along with part of the market that flanks it sometime in the recent past. So no gate, but into the market we went and we found a little alley of soju tents. After seeing what they all had to offer, we settled on one particularly delicious looking tent. I told the woman there that we didn't eat meat, so she pulled me up to her display and showed me all the options. I said yes. So we ended up with ALL the non-meat options. It was delicious, but an expensive mistake. We had Ginkgo seeds, mushrooms, noodles, shrimp, octopus, and eel along with soju and cider (sprite). We may have been ripped off, but it was still worth it, and the two old Korean men beside us loved us and were so friendly and fun. We ended up skipping the tower too, because we'd just seen Busan tower recently and night views of cities are similar enough that we didn't feel we were missing out on anything. Somehow there are no photos of this night, except for this one from the subway. It's for you Bart, the only vinyl shop we've seen so far, but it extended for half a block in 4 directions. You could have played around in there for hours.

Back at the hostel we shared some soju with Mr. Laughing Gas and his friends before calling it a night. But the next day we were up early to see all the sites. Our first stop was the palace Changyeongung, a small-ish palace with a large garden from the Joseon Dynasty. The Joseon Dynasty was the first to call Seoul the capital of Korea, and it was the last of the Korean monarchies; the last surviving royal family member died in 1989, but Joseon rule was over long before that. Check out the slide show for more photos, but here are some Korean ducks on the frozen pond.

From the first palace we stumbled on Jongmyo shrine, which is where all the spirit tablets of past Joseon kings and queens are kept. Joseon period was when Confucianism was at its height in Korea, and this shrine is built in the unadorned Confuscian style with the purpose of performing Confucian ancestor rituals. Religion today in S. Korea is a hodgepodge of Buddhism (Shilla Dynasty), Confucianism (Joseon), Shamanism (before religion from other parts of the world trickled over), and Christianity. Everyone pays homage to their ancestors at 3 different times during the year (Confucianism), they usually visit Buddhist temples every now and then, and many people make small shrines near the seaside or mountains to pray for various aids (shamanism). Here's a view of Jongmyo shrine.

From Jongmyo we walked along until we found Jogyesa. This is the headquarters of the Jogye sect of Buddhism (the largest in Korea, emphasizes Zen style meditation) and it houses a 7 tiered pagoda that is rumored to contain some of the Sariras of Guatama Buddha Himself. As Mi Yeun once explained it to me, a sarira is like a crystal, it's not bone or another anatomical body part, but it's found in the ashes of a cremated Buddhist and in many vegetarians. I've never heard of this before coming to S. Korea, but now I want to google it. Supposedly, the more devout the Buddhist, the more sariras in their remains. Here's the placard explaining the pagoda.

And the actual pagoda.

After a quick lunch we were off to Changdeokgung, another of the Joseon palaces. The buildings in all of Seoul's palaces aren't much more than 200 years old because most of them have burned at various times. Many were burned during the Japanese occupation of Korea, so most are reconstructed. This is the lotus pavilion and universe pond in the royal gardens.

After that last palace we were wiped, so we walked to Insadong, the famous antiques and art galleries street where many traditional Korean goods are sold. There we went to Yetchapjip, an old tea house serving traditional Korean teas in a lovely old building packed with songbirds, antiques, and Korean decor. We eventually headed to a restaurant for drinks, and another for a dinner of nakji (octopus) and rice before heading back to the hostel because it was an early morning the next day.

The next day we got up early to catch a bus to Inje for the Ice fish Festival. Ice fish here means smelt, but that sounds less romantic. In Korean, smelt is bingho, and at this festival about a thousand people, plus galloping horses, snow mobiles, and tents, go out on the ice sheet of a frozen river, poke it full of holes, and use a flyswatter-like device baited with meal worms to catch these little fishies. But that's not all it has to offer, there's also ice soccer, ice sculptures, human bowling, human curling, ice sledding, and rides.

When we arrived it was much warmer than usual (I still needed seven layers, couldn't move my shoulders all day) so the snow had mostly melted but the ice sheet was intact. Without the snow it wasn't the wintry wonderland I'd envisioned, but it made the day much more fun in terms of being able to handle being on an ice sheet for 6 hours. First we cruised around, watched a game of ice soccer, saw the melted snow hill where human bowling would have been, checked out the ice sculptures and the fair grounds. Then we got some help finding lodgings for the night (that we ended up not using), and then settled into ice fish. We rented an ice sled to sit on, got some snacks and soju plus our fishing gear, found a hole somebody'd abandoned, and we were set. We had a lot of fun, and even saw some action down on our hooks, but we didn't catch anything. When we got too cold sitting, we took advantage of the fact that our chair was an ice sled. Observe.

In this next one you get to see the snow mobile rides and a galloping horse.


After we were thoroughly frozen we found a warm tent that served these mystical Icefish we saw everyone else catching. Now, there's more than one way to eat a smelt. The most common ways are fried, sauteed, and live. We tried the first and last of these. Fried was great, very easy, very dead. Live...Brian had more luck than I did, but his video's sideways.


Next I tried, but I was too timid. The taste was actually very good. No bones or guts gushing out, just fresh fish taste. You could feel the hard fins though, and it was surprisingly crunchy.

On our way back to town from the festival grounds we got a ride in a cop car. We asked a group of them where the bus stop was, and one of them told us to hop in and he'd take us. Restored my faith in the profession a bit. He was so friendly and kind. He dropped us at the bus station, but the bus to our lodging didn't leave for 2 hours, and it only takes 3 to get back to Seoul and a bus was leaving in 30 minutes for that trip. So we decided to head back to Zen hostel again. But when the bus came, it pulled up for about 30 seconds, and we were looking at it and our tickets and trying to decide when it left again. We thought it must not have been our bus, but the ticket window guy came running out chasing the bus and motioning for us to follow so Brian sprinted out in front of it to wave it down. Without further incident we made it back to Seoul.

Sunday, our last day in Seoul, we went to see some museums we'd missed on our first big excursion. We went to the Museum of Korean Buddhist Art, which was small but enlightening. They had a display of Burmese Buddhist embroidery in the temporary exhibit that was really beautiful and so detailed. Then we were off to see the National Folk Museum, which displays all sorts of anthropological artifacts and Korean antiques with explanations of traditional life in Korea. Also enlightening. Afterwards we had tea again, I had ginger tea, which is one of the Korean traditional varieties, and it was what I've always wanted tea to be. I can't wait to discover tea houses in Busan.

We caught a bus back to Busan that Sunday night in time for a cheese making, pizza baking, homebrew drinking extravaganza with Ryan and Shannon ( who we hadn't seen since we left for the Philippines) and David and Duck. It was a great reunion and perfect start to our last week of vacation. School starts back this Friday and we'll all have new coteachers. I'm looking forward to it, but I'll miss all the free time for adventuring.